Acair Fearann

So two entirely different posts squished together:

One  PSA: A) Swamp water past the knees at 37 F is COLD, especially when hiking about for the next two hours. B) The foundation is almost certainly in the barberry patch, with thorns.

Two: Perusing this site for some needed information and then relaxing by reading this article in immediate succession was amusing in a darkly ironic way…

http://www.wood-database.com/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/

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is here, feels, smells, and looks right. The leaves are little late this year. So far, only a few early sugar maples are really colored up (neon orange) and the ashes (purple and mahogany). I don’t think the color will be good this year: too dry in September, especially for the red maples.  And still too dry, some streams aren’t running at all that traditionally always have water. The dry weather is good for the longevity of the color, though. It also is extending the length of the apple harvest, thank goodness!

Neon Orange Sugar Maple:

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11908365/Restored-HMS-Victory-raises-eyebrows-with-new-pink-shade.html

I seem to recall people getting all upset over Stirling castle too when it was restored to its original color (a nice buttercream yellow). It was quite a change from the somber grey of the exposed stone, I’ll grant. It didn’t loom quite so severely over the country side.

What do you suppose people would make of a classical marble edifice, the Parthenon say, if it was repainted in its original colors? Best guess on those is something a bit, shall we say, screamingly garish….

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One of my jobs is at a store selling bird seed, consequently I get to talk with a lot of people who are adamant that their bird, squirrel, or skunk is something exotic. Species belonging to California, the Southwest, or Mexico are the most popular ones.  Probably because general guides will list them. But try explaining that the large skunk is not likely to be a hog-nosed skunk, that it is a Northern Cardinal in an odd stage of molt and not a Pyrrhuloxia*, that the squirrel with the odd tail is not a ring-tail ground squirrel.  Sometimes it is even simpler, the pride in seeing a flock of blue birds or a bear; it is a ‘new’ thing to be told and retold. The trick is to never let on that the last ten customers have been equally proud of the same thing….

I understand, of course, we all want to be connected to that once-in-a-lifetime exotic event.  To be part of something rare and greater than oneself. In an everyday world, to be special, even if it is just by having more birds in the yard. I certainly am not going to forget the first Indigo Bunting that I saw.

But I wonder, why is it only the flashy ones, the rare ones, the exotic ones? It is glorious that all birds aren’t sparrows, of course; the hundreds, thousands of bird species are an awesome display of nature’s complex beauty. But isn’t the humble, common sparrow itself something of a miracle? What I find is amazing is just how much life is out there, surrounding us, even in a parking lot.  Even there, surrounded by the cars a flock of doves rise; the sparrows are in constant motion; the nuthatches, the woodpeckers, the chickadees they know their trees even if they are just street trees. Oh, we lured them in with food, but they were there before that; before we were looking.

Now, to be honest, some birds are annoying, some I would rather not have around, and some (chickens) have a very specific purpose and it isn’t a long life.  But none of them are boring. It is life, a miracle and never mundane.

But maybe that is just me.

*I can’t even pronounce it. But ‘generally non-migratory in Texas and Mexico’ is unlikely to be in New England.

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A current project of mine, really too good to be true, got me out in the woods yesterday for a bit*, which is always enjoyable. Aside from an interesting and educational foray into timber management, I saw one black bear and several brook trout. I didn’t see the bull moose that was in the area though, pity. For a densely populated, suburban state there is a remarkable amount of wildlife out there.

I wasn’t even counting the turkeys, come to think of it. We get so focused on the problems and ‘learning from our mistakes’ I sometimes think we forget to pay attention to the things that have gone right and why they have gone right.  Bear, moose, turkeys, brook trout were either extinct in the state or nearly extinct in the state a generation ago. Now the moose is unlikely to ever establish a breeding population of any significance, but still.

What worked is as important as what didn’t work, and very important for moral.

Enough with the sermonizing!

*It also had me descending nearly seventy feet into darkness and then climbing back up when we couldn’t find the lights for the rest of the way down.

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There is an antique store on my way to one of my jobs, where I sometimes kill a few minutes. I doubt I would ever buy something there, the Lord knows I don’t need more antiques! Yet, every time I am there, or at a museum, or wandering about in some old house; I am struck by the creative power of man.  Glassware, furniture, pottery, jewelry, paper, silver, glass, stone, wood, gold, iron.  Music, dance, song.

There is such beauty in what people can create. That common glass is, itself, a miracle is it not? Not an immediate, flash of light, miracle; but a miracle in that we can create whatever comes to mind.  The modern tragedy is that so few of us have an opportunity to create things.  For what makes man, man; but that creative spirit.

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Mostly because counting to the very second seems a bit something or other….

Vivat Regina Elizabetha!

Two pieces of music that I personally associate with her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3dR7u7TPNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvouc8Qs_MI

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for content! And much too dry. (I like to complain about the weather, can you tell?)

Actually, this picture was taken some time back in the summer; the grass is now solidly brown.

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