Bare trees, plus mist lingering over the valley added up to being a few minutes late for work.
When life gets in the way
I finally logged back in to this blog and was somewhat saddened to say that the most recent post was 2018. Sometimes life gets in the way. While everyone talks about how 2020 is so, well, 2020. Our 2020 seems to have begun in 2019. In October, we lost our dad on the same day we’d lost our mom a decade earlier. No death is easy and its effects hover around us to this day. A series of other events followed whose details would be a bore. Work was busy, then of course, the pandemic.
It just seems that only time time in the last two months of the year, has there been time to write.
On this day before Thanksgiving, we take stock of our blessings. Thank God we have survived this long and look for that light at the end of this long darkness.
Merlin
Seeing Merlin the lion at the National Tiger Sanctuary in Missouri was magical. The big cat was rescued from life as a prop in a magic show. For a while, all he knew of life were the hard walls and floors of a concrete basement. Our guide told us that when he was first turned out into his new home, he was afraid of the grass; afraid the ground would collapse under his paws. Today, the handsome cat looks very content with his life and very unafraid of his big bright world.
When doughnuts fly
Threw a couple of stale doughnuts out in the yard early this morning figuring fox, coyote, raccoon or possum would take advantage. Surprisingly, the first on the scene for breakfast al fresco was a small murder of crows. Each snagged a pastry and headed for the trees. (Oh, the big thing is a leftover Halloween pumpkin, which the crows raided for seeds and everyone else is enjoying the rest of the fruit.)
Gosh darn it! Squirrels are cute.
No two ways about it. These little rodents have a lock on cuteness. This array of white, red and gray squirrels was found in the same back yard in Minnesota. Some years, there there have been solid black squirrels alongside the white, romping around the yard’s many trees. The white squirrel is a true albino with red eyes. We hope he can evade the hawks and coyotes.
Elven city
One tree stump, a carpet of emerald moss, and a handful of dewy mushrooms make the perfect setting for some elven antics. The little people are clever though – evading detection all summer long.
Seeing spots
Winter is the time when ladybugs congregate around the house. Found a pile of them on the porch — each with a unique pattern of spots and shade of orange.
The icing is the best part
Winter in the South is as likely to bring ice as it is snow. Ice-weighted trees present any number of dangers, but their beauty in the sunlight is extraordinary.
Herding fish
Sunfish guarding his rocky nest chases a herd of egg-eating red shiners away.
We have liftoff!
Black swallowtail lifts off after a nectar snack in the wildflower garden.
The (Urban-Wildlife) Interface 