Witch's Butter

The other day I noticed some stuff growing on a dead ash tree at the far end of the yard.

It's a fungi called witch's butter.

This is some bad looking stuff. I wonder what kind of brew I could make with it? Apparently it's edible, although I don't plan to give it a try.

Caught in a Trap

Eclipse Photos

There are pictures of the sun/eclipse alone. I'll do a second post showing the things that went on to get this done.

The full sun around 11 a.m.

The eclipse around 2 p.m.

We had cloud cover off and on during the event. This was taken through some thin clouds.

About 2/3 gone, probably around 2:15 p.m.

At or close to the 90% coverage we were going to get here in SW VA.

The moon starting to move on past.





We had almost total cloud cover for the latter part of the eclipse.

The Colors Aren't Bigly

Yesterday we, along with most of Roanoke and several people from Florida who probably thought we do not really have the Autumn colors here like they see on travel brochures, took a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We went south to Mabry Mill.

Maybe we were late. Maybe we were early. We seldom manage to catch the colors at their peak, except for those around the house.

Mostly we were disappointed. The colors were blah and practically non-existent. There were great views, of course, but no mighty array of colors to astonish the mind and please the eye. Have a look for yourself:

The Parkway outside of Blue Ridge, where we entered.

 

A tad more color further north, but not much.

 

This looks better than the reality, thanks to computer magic.

 

Roanoke from the Parkway. Computer magic, again.

 

Haze kept this photo from coming out well. That's Roanoke with the Wells Fargo Tower in the middle.

 

Computer magic, again. But even so, meh.

 

Looking back toward Roanoke.

 

A little more color, but nothing to brag about.

 

Lovely view, looking toward North Carolina (I think). But not much color.

 

Mabry Mill was slammed. No place to park. I took this from the car as we drove by.

 


Also taken from the car while we sat at the stop sign. To prove we were really here, you know.
The people are more colorful than the leaves!

The colors around here haven't changed over, either. I'm beginning to think they are going to simply turn brown and drop off.

We haven't had a lovely Autumn in quite a long time. I remember vibrant, vivid colors 10 years ago, but it has been awhile since we've seen those.

(The photos in my header, by the way, are from years past, not this year.)

The Maleness of Mother Nature

Sometimes you just can't help but see it.

Blood moon

This morning there was a total eclipse of the full moon. We had thunderstorms last night and I fully expected a cloudy sky this morning, but when I hopped out of bed at 6:20 a.m., there were stars twinkling and the moon looking very vampirish.

I stood outside with the camera on a tripod to get these photos, in near total darkness. An owl hooted in the distance. Soon, from someplace close to me, a turkey began calling. Cawl cawl cawl. Very loud, and a little unnerving. Luna, hanging low in the sky, continued to darken with that reddish brown color.

The bear in the backyard some weeks ago came to mind so I did not venture far from the door. But the moon was beautiful, the air still warm but fallish. I could smell the rain-dampened earth and feel that blessings of a new day in a way that staying in the house seldom offers.

As the sky began to turn from black to blue, with the sun slowly rising behind me, ol' Apollo there slipping back into his place in the sky, I watched the colors on the trees begin to show. The rains last night made everything that much brighter, and the colors are changing fast.

A beautiful reminder of the spirit of the world.

Sunset on Friday, June 13, 2014

There is nothing is more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book of Nature. -- Claude Debussy

Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better. -- Henry Rollins

Early Days of Spring

First butterfly!

Dogwoods getting ready to bloom.

Some kind of cocoon thing on my berry branches.

This is either an anemone or a sorrel of some kind. I thought it was a wood anemone but those have five petals, these have four. 

I couldn't find anything that looked exactly like these in my guide books. 

They are very pretty, whatever they are.

A Rabble of Butterflies

Down by the mailbox the other day I spied a yellow something fluttering around.

Fortunately I had my camera so I snapped some photos.

These are called "southern dogface" butterflies.

Sounds like fightin' words to me!

They were very pretty in the gravel.

A bunch of butterflies is called a rabble.

These were southern dogface rabble-rousers.