To There and Back Again

As I mentioned last time, I was recently in West Virginia visiting with my mother. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Although we drove through rain most of the way, were still able to make decent time--7 hours with stops.

It was still raining when we got there, so we spent a while outside with my mother just listening to and watching the rain. It was very pleasant and yet another thing that you don't think about missing until you realize it through someone else's perspective.

My mother's nursing home is on a hill surrounded by woods. There is a paved walking path outside that we took her on 2-3 times a day. We saw lots of birds, bunnies, deer, and this millipede. After seeing this creepy-crawly, I figured out the difference between a centipede and a millipede. Centipedes usually have one pair of legs attached to each segment. Millipedes usually have two pair of legs attached to each segment. If you look carefully at the picture, you will see two legs attached to each part. Sometimes of them are together and sometimes of them are apart 

Every time we go to visit my mother, we sort through some of the things in her house. This time I found old papers containing this Easter Card I made in 3rd grade. The interesting thing about all of this sorting is just when we think we have found all of something, we find more. Just like I thought I had already gone through all of my things and then found more of them this time.

We decided to take the back way home and make a few stops along the way. The main destination was Blackwater Falls. This is where Ward and I spent our honeymoon, so to speak. A better description would be this is where we spent our wedding night and was the first stop on our 3-day drive to New Orleans where we were going to live. Neither of us remember much about that time other than how tired we were. So we wanted to visit the falls when we had time to relax and enjoy them.

We also saw rhododendron in the woods. Rhododendron is native to West Virginia and became the state flower in 1903.

This is the base of a rhododendron and it brought back memories of geology field camp. There were huge thickets of rhododendron, so large that you couldn't find a way around them, so you had to go through them. However, the branches were just big enough that you couldn't bend them but big enough you couldn't break them making the traverse quite difficult. Oh, and to top it all off, there were usually greenbrier vines with thorns laced through out. Fun, fun.

There's the first part of the trip. Tomorrow, I'll show you the rest. Until then...

A Second Look--July 6, 2017

Hello from the great state of West Virginia. In other words, I'm visiting my mother. I had meant to post this Second Look before I left, but didn't find the time. So, I added the pictures and said I would finish it up when I got here. As always, the visits are a jam-packed whirlwind and the post didn't happen.

This morning we leave for the drive back. We're taking the scenic route which means we're taking two days to drive the back roads so we may not have internet access. And that all means, I am determined to get this published before we leave. Now I just hope Ward doesn't notice that I'm here on the computer after I emphasized how we need to work hard to get packed and ready to go before we have breakfast with my mother this morning.

Without further ramblings, here are a few things I saw recently during a Second Look.

The orange day lilies have bloomed. These are a little fancier than the standard day lilies as they have double blossoms.

The sunflowers have started to bloom. You may notice that the Japanese beetles have found their leaves.

I planted Fat Horse pole beans between the sunflowers and they have sprouted. I plan to let the beans climb the stems of the sunflowers.

These flowers were an impulse buy from the bargain bin. Now if I could only figure out what they are.

After a recent rain, wild asparagus sprang up in two places.

This is an oak log that was impregnated with mushroom spores to grow mushrooms for eating. It was a gift from friends who do this to earn extra money. However, I've never seen this kind of growth before and I'm curious to see what it turns into.

Who can ID these flowers for me?  I don't know if they're considered a weed or have just escaped from someone's yard.  I see them in several places in my yard.

The wren eggs have hatched.

Look how much they've grown in three days. Notice how much they fill up the nest cavity in each picture.

The robin is still sitting on her eggs. However, there are only three in the nest now. Last week there were four.

July 3rd Fireworks

Last night, Ward and I had planned to have a low-key evening at home. Instead we got the go-fever, as my mother used to say, and jumped in the car in search of the town's fireworks. Another way to have fun in our new community, we thought.

We saw a nice sunset while waiting on the fireworks.

As we approached town, we started seeing people lining the streets and parking lots much sooner than we expected. Not a good sign. However, we kept going. Ward was convinced that there would still be room at the fire department's fairgrounds were the fireworks were being set off. Well, he was wrong. The parking was lot full, the surrounding parking lots were full, the roadsides were full, and we were stuck in traffic. Now our main goal was to find our way home or our way back to the less crowded areas we had seen earlier.  However, there wasn't much choice in which way we could go when we were able to move. At one point, we decided that it wouldn't be so bad to watch the show from our car if we were stuck in traffic when the fireworks began.

We inched our way along and eventually were out of the mass of traffic. However we were seeing fewer and fewer people along the way and we took that as a bad sign. At this point, we were just hoping that one of these streets would lead us out to some kind of a main road where we could eventually find our way home. No such luck.

We decided to turn around in a gravel parking lot and lo and behold, what did we see? A couple of groups of people in lawn chairs waiting for the fireworks. After a bit of questioning to determine that was indeed what they were there for, we decided to join them. We spent a very pleasant hour talking with them, watching their kids turn cartwheels, and listening to 70's music while waiting for the show to begin.  They said that they had found this place last year and came back because it worked so well.

Right on schedule, the show began at 9:30 pm, and we had a great view. For the next 20 minutes we watched the sky light up with bright, beautiful colors. Next year, we plan to go to the same spot. Selfishly, we hope no one else finds it.

And how was the traffic on our trip home, you may ask? Can you say traffic jam? We caught up to the traffic jam soon enough, but everyone was polite, and we found some good music on the radio. Not such a bad ending to a very satisfying evening.

Happy Fourth of July!  

Here's a little of what we saw last night.

A Second Look--June 27, 2017

The weather recently has been fluctuating from pleasant to sweltering with a little rain thrown in here and there. Most of the plants have been thriving, except the two apple trees whose leaves are curling. The unofficial opinion from Uncle Billy is that all of the new growth, which was a result of the spring pruning, is stressed from the extreme heat days we've been having. Sort of like frost burn in reverse. The trees are big enough that it would be hard to implement a treatment so I'm just hoping that whatever is going on is not fatal

The front porch rockers are Ward's favorite
 place to watch the birds. I'm still deciding on mine.

On other fronts, the birds are giving quite a show as they seem to be very abundant. We are enjoying them from our windows, porch, deck, and yard--meaning we are trying out different lounging places at our new house to see what we like best at different times of the day. So far, each spot has something to offer and it's been fun conducting our tests.

When we are birdwatching, Ward swears that there are more birds here than at our old house. I think that there's just not as many trees for them to hide in, so we see them more. Maybe we're both right because my neighbor told me that there were more birds than usual this year--lightning bugs, too. Whatever the case, I'm happy.

Here are few things I saw recently 

during a Second Look.

The nadina buds are opening.

On the nadina next to the one above, I saw a bumblebee with these large yellow bumps on its sides. I didn't remember seeing anything like them before and learned that they are called pollen baskets. The baskets are indentations with special hairs on the sides of the bee's back legs and they use them to store pollen until the bee takes it back to the hive. 

A couple of yellow day lilies have bloomed. I think there are some orange ones (according to the neighbors) around the corner from this, but they look very stressed from the recent heat. We'll see if they bloom, but I'm guessing they will. 

A catbird stops by the deck most days for a bath. He almost empties the bath each time with his splashing.

The wren's nest finally has eggs in it. 

We found a robin's nest with intact eggs after previously finding three different ones on the ground. One of those had egg shells in it from recently eaten eggs. This nest is under our deck and hopefully is protected from predators. 

Thankful Sunday--June 25, 2017

I am thankful for a walk in the woods.

Among the sweltering temperatures, frequent rains, and never-ending chores, it's been hard to find a good time to take a hike. However, yesterday I was able to make that happen.

In an attempt to beat the heat, Ward, Miss Landers, her dog, and I got an early start.  Besides beginning our outing in comfortable temperatures, we were also able to avoid the rain. The morning rain had just ended when we began and, in fact, I saw a rainbow. Everything worked out well during our hike and it was a great way to start the day. For this walk in the woods, I am thankful.

Here are a few pictures from our walk.

It was a good start to the day when I stepped out on my front porch and saw a rainbow in the sky before we even began the hike.

The first part of the trail was sunny and very narrow because the surrounding plants were invading it. 

However, we were soon in the woods where Ward stopped to tie his shoe.

We were on the blue trail, but we didn't really need trail markers. The path was wide and well established.

Unfortunately, we saw plenty mile-a minute vines and stilt grass (above and below the fungus), both invasive species. It brought back memories for me of fighting them at my old house.

We emerged one more time into the sun. Here we found lots of dried up grass. I think the very high, recent temperatures were more than it could handle. This grass also brought back memories of trying to get rid of it at my old house.

Although we left most of the poison ivy behind on the sunny part of the trail, we still found it in a few spots in the woods. This reminds me of poison ivy fights I'm having at my new house.

Miss Landers' dog had a great time investigating so many new things. There's nothing like the enthusiasm of a dog in the woods.

As we got closer to the stream, there was a proliferation of ferns.

At the end of the trail was an old schoolhouse. It looked like they were trying hard to keep vandals out. Tours are given once a month at the school and we're going to try to make the next one. 

In front of the school was a stream and we wondered about flooding. That's one of the questions we're going to ask when we take the tour.

We decided to turn around at the school because the morning was starting to warm up. The walk back was also pleasant except this time we were going up hill. Along the trail, we saw many small walnuts that had fallen prematurely from the trees probably during some recent storms. 

As we emerged back into the sunny part of the trail, we found milkweed blooming and black raspberries ripening. Then it was time to go home and start our day there.

I mentioned a few things we saw that reminded me of our old yard. What I didn't mention was so did the walnuts, poison ivy, day lilies, milkweed, and black raspberries.. And while most of these were invasive things that I was continually fighting, the recollections were not negative. The familiar plants brought back the memories of all that they taught me while I was trying to control them.