North Fork and a Heron

Strasburg Town Park

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I take pictures of the river rather frequently. It has many moods, and I like to see them. It makes delightful sounds too; I’m sorry you can’t hear them.

This summer, the water level was low in both forks of the Shenandoah, and then we had a couple of big storms that brought the river out of its banks. Now it is back to a normal level and there are signs of autumn

This welcome sign was left dirty by recent flooding of the North Fork. As I took a picture of it with my cell phone, I saw a movement and realized there was a heron taking off.

Wild Bird Wednesday / Water H2O

Most of the pictures I’ve taken of great blue herons are ones where they are stalking fish. They stand very still and stare at the water, often not noticing a passer-by. Sometimes I glimpse a heron flying by, but unless I have a camera turned on and ready, I miss the chance to get a photo of this magnificent bird in flight.

My cellphone pictures are lacking detail, and cropping them only helped a little. This last image is a fantasy version, with two herons added by pasting Picsart stickers onto my image. I also added a sticker that has the app name so that this does not get mistaken for a real photo. Lately I’ve seen many fake photos passed off as real ones on social media, and that’s disturbing. 

D-Day Exhibit

A traveling exhibit focusing on the 1944 D-Day landing in France came to the armory building in Woodstock. I went yesterday. It will be open again this weekend before moving on to Washington DC.

One section of the exhibit is devoted to the home front, and that’s where I started because I recall some stories that my mother told about living through the war. My dad and my grandfather both served in the Navy during the war but they didn’t talk about it much. They were not stationed at the landing on Omaha Beach.

Many veterans did not talk about the war. I think they wanted to put it behind them. It was horrific. It happened before my time, but I picked up on some of my mother’s trauma. Now researchers talk about trauma being passed on in DNA, but in my case, I could pick it up from subtle signs, such as a small shudder or brief squeezing of the eyes, memories of fear.

My mother maintained a victory garden, and mentioned that when we worked a small vegetable plot in our yard. So it was suitable to begin the tour at a representation of a victory garden. Food was rationed during the war, so growing your own vegetables was helpful.

Some people were dressed in outfits from that time, such as the man in overalls.

The military part of the exhibit included equipment, dioramas, and mannequins in uniforms.

A brief film told of the preparation for the landing. The dioramas were accompanied by text and QR codes that you could scan for more information, but I did not feel like digging any deeper. It may have been a brilliant plan and a victory, but it was also a heartbreaking tragedy.

October Purples

Foliage and Flowers

Mosaic / Garden / Wordless 

Greenmount Church and Countryside

Rockingham County, VA

I came across this church in a farm community north of Harrisonburg. It is a “Covenant Brethren Church.”  I had to look that up. I was familiar with Church of the Brethren, which is Anabaptist, and saw that the denomination split off in 2020 after finding that the Brethren Church was getting too open-minded for their conservative tastes, which seems quite sad. 

When I took the pictures, the sky was clear and the shadows were very strong. I lightened them a bit so that the pretty windows would show up.

From the parking lot, I could view a nearby farm and also a hill which I believe is Mole Hill, a volcanic feature. Usually I see that monadnock from a different direction.

Friday at Dickey Ridge.

Yesterday I drove to Front Royal to pick up a few things at the supermarket and could not resist a brief visit to Skyline Drive. The Dickey Ridge Visitor Center is less than five miles from town and it has great views.

There’s a black dog resting behind the bench. Dogs are welcome in the park except on a few trails where bear activity is hazardous to dogs. The bears here leave people alone unless they have food, but sometimes regard a dog as a threat to be vanquished.

The colors are just starting to change. Autumn is a very popular time to visit the park. Go on a weekday even if you have to take time off work. Weekends in fall foliage season are so busy that there are long lines at the entrance stations and it can be impossible to find parking spots at the overlooks. If you absolutely must come on a weekend, get there early in the morning or use the southern entrance to the park.

I saw some white tailed deer, and got pictures of one of them.

I could not linger very long because I needed to retrieve Charlie from daycare. Here is a picture of him with a painterly filter, followed by one that Lynn took today as she was rubbing his chest.

Sunshine on the Grass

This morning was winter-coat weather, and of course Charlie wanted to take a walk before the sun rose. We did not walk far because it was still somewhat dark as well as chilly. There were frost warnings last night, but my flowers survived.

Once the sun came out, it was quite bright and by afternoon, the weather was beautiful. This young woman was soaking up the rays.

Storms Varying

As Florida dealt with yet another hurricane today (named Milton), we got notice of a geomagnetic storm and the likelihood that we might be able to see northern lights here in Virginia. Well, quite a few people were able to see them. I heard that a stream of traffic headed up Skyline Drive to view them from the overlooks. Since I am responsible for an anxious dog as well as being old and jaded, I did not bother, even though I saw some great pictures that people took last night of this phenomenon. They admitted, however, that they did not see as much with the naked eye as was picked up by the camera.

So I don't have any pictures of the aurora for you today. All I have is a twilight sky from a few weeks ago.

And here is the anxious dog that I mentioned. He is doing better in many ways, like riding in the car without panicking, but he still gets upset when I leave him by himself. I was gone for an hour today to run some errands, and it was obvious when I came back that he had been running around the living room, drooling as he went. He doesn’t do that when I’m home. 

Poor Charlie spent nine months in a cage before he was rescued, plus I think he was separated from his mother too soon. But we’ve made progress, and he is a sweet fellow.

Views at Natural Chimneys Park

Mount Solon, VA

It had been 19 years since I last visited Natural Chimneys in Augusta County, so yesterday I went back. The main attraction of the park is the stand of rock towers that were naturally formed of limestone and dolomite. 

There are other rock chimneys in our region due to the tendency of limestone to erode, but they are not visible in such an impressive group.

 It’s easy to imagine that the formations are the turrets of a castle, and this inspired an annual jousting tournament here. You cannot explore inside the fenced area though, because rocks sometimes fall off the chimneys

For me, it’s easy to imagine faces in the rocks. This one reminded me of a raptor.

I wished I had brought my camera that has a telephone lens instead of just my cell phone. You can barely see two vultures flying in the next photo. 

Here is a close-up of a black vulture that I took a few years ago using a zoom lens. Their faces are not pretty, but they soar beautifully on the wind currents.

I took other pictures at the park, but they will have to wait. Natural Chimneys Park is open year-round, although the campground closes at the end of October. The autumn colors are just starting; leaves on the ground were yellow but looked very tired, probably stressed by the summer drought.

How Many Days Without Papercuts?

Service Department Whiteboard

Wordless

Hazel Lou, Lee, and Eleanor

This is an old photo from the family albums that my sister brought me. When I volunteered to take them, I was thinking it was just a few albums, but it turned out to be two boxes of albums, photos and books. I plan to examine them gradually.

This is a photo of my mother as a child on vacation in Colorado, visiting her cousin’s family. My mom is the child on the right. She’s on a lower step which makes her look much shorter than her cousin, who was only three years older.

On the back of the photo is a description.

“Lee, Eleanor and Hazel Lou in the doorway of Summit-Lake shelter house. I left my coat in the car, so Lee gave me his when I needed one!”

Lee is Hazel Lou’s father and his full name was Lucius Edwin Humphrey. He was a newspaper editor in Denver. He married my mother’s aunt in 1916.

 

I looked up Summit Lake and found that it is the only Denver Mountain Park in the alpine zone and is a great place to see mountain goats.