AUTUMN

[Opsa]

Autumn has begun, here.

We've had a nice, mild summer with plenty of rain, so the grass is still very green, but as we travel around the Virginia piedmont, we can see colonies of trees are subtley changing hue on the sides of the foothills. What once looked like walls of green are now showing patchworks of golden tones where the Hickory trees live, and sudden scarlet areas where the Dogwood trees stand. I love it when this happens. It's like a sudden nonconformity. The tress are briefly revealing their factions before they throw off their clothes altogether.

Yesterday a flock of robins visited my yard. As I understand it, they don't really migrate away from here, but do tend to congregate away from the open areas where people tend to live, and go into the woods for the winter to take cover from larger birds of prey.

I also saw a large Piliated Woodpecker in the back yard yesterday. He  was dressed dashingly in black and white, as if going to the opera- but his wild bright red cap let me know he had his own style going on. He called a few times, and his mate answered. I looked for her, but she stayed hidden. This made me think about duality in nature, the She and He, the Yin and Yang, the This and That. I am glad that there is This and That in the world. Without This we can't have That (at least not for long) and vice versa.

The mornings have become markedly cooler, and while I'll miss the fabulosity of weekend barefoot bathrobed coffee on the patio with the paper, I will not miss the mosquitos.

[Aggie]

You may have robins, but I have the annual Calgary Mass Murder taking place in the park next door every night.   A couple of hours before sunset, hundreds (possibly thousands) of crows start swarming downtown, perching on the buildings around my apartment and flying about in formation.  By dark, most of them roost in trees in the park on the next block. 

I'll try to grab some pictures; the few I've gotten from the balcony to date don't really do it justice.

[pieces o nine]

A company I worked for had large glass windows all along one side. Every year during 'crow season' they massed  along the windowsills on all three floors, pecking at their reflections, cawing randomly, seeming to peer in at cube-dwellers, and totally creeping out the ornithophobes. It was great!

[Bluenose]

Spring is sprung, the grass is rizzed
Oi wonder where the boidies iz?
Some say the boids are on the wing, but that's obsoid,
The boids are not upon the wing, the wings are on the boid!

[Opsa]

Hey- that's cute!

I loves da boidies with all my teensy ugly body. They always seem to be telling me something if I'll stop to listen.

Now we're getting ready for Halloween. Last year our new kitten tore the old screens to our gazebo tent, so we put them up on the front porch for that "Torn Curtain" look. They spent the summer fading further in a wicker chest on the porch and this year have an almost mauve glow to them, which looks great with pumpkins.

We have a tradition of having our friends from the local hills who have kids come to our house in town for Halloween Trick-or-Treating. This year I'll make them a big pot of home-made Lentil soup and some hot bread and we'll have some supper before we go. Afterward the kids can trade candy for a while and the parents can hang out and decompress with a beer or glass of wine.

[Bluenose]

Hey- that's cute!

I hope you know that I claim no authorship whatsoever for that poem.  It is one of my mother's favourite ones from when she was a girl, I have no idea who wrote it.

Regardless, spring has definitely well and truly sprung around here, my roses are about to erupt in masses of flowers, the grass is definitely rized, I should be mowing it every 4 days or so, but it will have to put up with once a week.  Yesterday my pigface birst into thousands of brilliant pink flowers.  I love this time of year!

[Opsa]

Oh please write about spring down your way in the SPRING section, here. I've always wanted to see Oz in the spring. Plus, I'm dying to see a photo of a "pigface" in bloom. It sounds charming.

[The Meromorph]

Hey- that's cute!

I hope you know that I claim no authorship whatsoever for that poem.  It is one of my mother's favourite ones from when she was a girl, I have no idea who wrote it.

Spring is sprung,
The flowers is ris,
I wonder where
the birdies is?
They say the bird
is on the wing,
But that's absurd.
I say the wing
is on the bird.

                       Ogden Nash....

[Opsa]

AHH! I thought I recognised it. I like Ogden Nash.

[The Meromorph]

Well, then.

I always eat peas with honey.
I've done it all my life.
They do taste kind of funny,
but it keeps them on the knife.

                                         Ogden Nash...

Those two are my favourites... 

[Pachyderm]

Parsley
Is gharsley.

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

A shrimp who sought his lady shrimp
Could catch no glimpse
Not even a glimp.
At times, translucence
Is rather a nuisance.

Ogden Nash

Such a cool name, as well...

[Opsa]

When I was a kid we had a recording of "Carnival of the Animals" with
Ogden Nash verses preceeding each piece.

This one's for you, Pachy:

THE ELEPHANT

Elephants are useful friends,
Equipped with handles at both ends,
They have a wrinkled moth proof hide,
Their teeth are upside down, outside,
If you think the elephant preposterous,
You've probably never seen a rhinosterous.

[Pachyderm]

preposterous, moi?

[Opsa]

Yesterday morning I went driving into the Blue Ridge mountains to deliver a catalpa tree to some friends. Mid-October is when we normally get the peak foliage colors around here. We've had a late summer which ended in very dry weather. Last week we had a hurricane or two pass close by and we had heavy rains and winds.

Yesterday morning everything was scrubbed clean. The native flora on the byway I prefer to drive (as opposed to Interstate Route 66) were a tapestry of gold and purple. A good breeze was blowing and the foothills were animated by the shadows of dense clouds playing over them. The trees on the hills, which have been all shades of green all summer are now breaking out into colonies of individual families. The Dogwoods have a reddish tinge now, the hickories are fading to golden. The air smelled like spices. It was beautiful!

Th'Opsalette made a handsome Halloween skeleton from our front door by cutting up red folders and numbering each rib and fingerbone like a forensic scientist so that we could put him up correctly. She and I stopped at a yard sale and bought a whole box of Chinese new year decorations. She wants to put up the fabulous dragons on our porch as Halloween decorations. I wondered if that was kosher with the Chinese people. Anyone know?

[Griffin NoName]

No idea. But Autumn is here - fabulous tree colours.