First Frost & Attack of the Hay Bales: Autumn Photo Log, Part III

 More photos in the Autumn photo series. The following are taken from the hill near our house. This is what the outskirts of Blacksburg look like....when threatened by hay bales.

Hay bales seen approaching from the east, sauntering up the hill from the North Fork of the Roanoke River.

Oh no, they're coming over the hill from the other direction!

Deceptively still, these are slowly coming across the valley.

More hay bales. The peril! Unleash the cattle!

Silliness aside, it's been a great fall for taking photos.  The first hard frost came last weekend, covering the Blue Ridge near Woolwine. 

Taken from Handy Orchards, Hwy. 8, Woolwine, Virginia.

Leaves in the icy birdbath.

Backyard fungi.

Post-frost flowers, a bit battered.

Partially turned maple leaf, down the mountain in Greensboro.

Mark and Cindy's cat Calliope watches from their front porch.

Autumn Photo Log, Part II

It's been a beautiful, summery October. Here's more photos from the last few weeks.  The Appalachian Trail winds through the surrounding counties. Here's the road leading up to the AT in Giles County:

Near the Appalachian Trail in Giles County

We've had several foggy mornings, not uncommon in the New River Valley. One morning was particularly nice. Here's the backyard in the early morning fog:

Foggy morning in the backyard

Another in the ongoing photo stream of Asta:

The umpteenth (and counting) picture of Asta.

Morning dew

One evening I took several photos of Barrie, but the light was way too red (note to self: check the white balance before taking photos). Converting to black and white worked well. 

Barrie in black & white
 

While driving home one day I spotted this pumpkin truck. How festive!

Pumpkin Truck

We took a trip last weekend to visit our friends Edwin and Carole and their boys, Andrew and Michael. We all went to the Apple Fall Festival in Waynesville, where Michael surveyed the apple critter art:

Michael examines the apple art

Michael in the great Thai restaurant in Waynesville:

Michael, quite the Beatle fan.

A few close ups, messin' around with the macro lens. This is a mandala kaleidoscope/coaster that I bought at the Art Institute of Chicago. Cool to look at and spin, but not so good at being a coaster:

Mandala coaster

I'll end this photo set with a basic food item:

Don't be without it.

Autumn Photo Log, part I

Spring and summer have come and gone with nary a bit of banter on the blog. My Bantering Bibliocrat blog has always been, in my mind, more of a photo forum than anything else. But I wandered away for a while, opting since last winter to post photos on Facebook. My poor blog has been feeling rather neglected, so I'm reverting back to the ol' BB forum for most of my photos.   I tweaked the interface a bit, just to freshen things up. (A few things led to this decision - Blogspot made it easier to post photos, and the Facebook interface just seems to get stranger all the time....)

So here you go - the first autumnal photo posting, with a link from Facebook.  Oh, such social networking.

Yep, it's autumn. Suddenly autumn.  On Thursday it was warm and humid in Blacksburg, but a front came blowing in and by Saturday it was in in the 40's with wind gusts up to 30 mph. Autumn arrived with little hint of subtlety, so Asta and I took a hike to enjoy the breezy, cold weather.  I donned the fleece and parka and we headed off to the Audie Murphy section of the Appalachian Trail.

Asta on the AT - you can just see her reflective vest as an orange spot.

It was Asta's first trip since last mid-summer, when she was diagnosed with Intervertebral Degenerative Disc Disease (IVDD).  After  several months of limited activity, Asta's been feeling better and we were both ready a hike.  

We hiked to the Audie Murphy Monument on Brush Mountain outside of Blacksburg, near the site where Murphy died in a plane crash in 1971. It's a short, easy hike along a ridge.

There are several very elaborate cairns beside the Audie Murphy Monument.

Close up of the AT.

The larger cairn at the Audie Murphy Monument.

Peace sign left by previous visitors. 

Thistle beside the trail.

Wildflower bed in the backyard, catching the last of the fall wildflowers.

Also from the backyard.

The Thaw

After several snows and a long bout of frigid air, we finally got several days above freezing! Time for solid water to revert back to liquid, and the snow and ice dutifully complied.  Here's some images from that transition, taken in our backyard.

Rim of snow and ice in the birdbath.

Dog toys emerge from the snow.

Green, natural and unnatural, peeking through the snow.

Berries beside the deck, adding some brightness.

Bent from  being covered with snow and ice, but springing back nicely until the next round.

Thanksgiving, autumnal musings

These last weeks have been ripe with change and transition, as befits autumn in Appalachia.  It's apple season in the Virginia highlands, and I've been enjoying a number of local varieties, my favorites being Winesaps and Virginia Golden Delicious. (I explored Virginia apples a few years ago in this blog.)  Betraying my ongoing dalliance with all that poetry I read in school, this time of year always brings the first verse of John Keats' "Ode to Autumn" to mind: 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
        For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Waning sunlight and shadows on the neighbor's leafy yard.

For those of us who dwell in suburbia, one seasonal rite is the Annual Gathering and Associated Disposing of Unwanted Leaves. Raking and leaf-blowing (oh, the incessant whirring and whining of leaf blowers!) are common ways to move these leafy items from one part of one's property to another, often for gathering and disposal by municipal authorities. A walk around the block yesterday revealed various methods of getting this done, from hiring professional services (two were toiling on our block yesterday) to more traditional methods, such as sending your high-school aged child out to rake while, it seems, scowling. I'm pretty lazy on this matter - I save the last lawn-mowing to as late as possible, then mulch all the leaves into the grass.

Leaves on our street awaiting removal by civil servants.

Raking also brings another poem to mind, this time Robert Frost's "Gathering Leaves," which seems to address the futility of this task with a bit of whimsy:

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight;
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

To really get to see the leaves on the ground, there's no better place than out in the woods.  It's been a good season for hiking through the Appalachian forests - the weather has been pleasantly cool and the leafless trees let your gaze fall upon the hillsides and valleys, revealing the mountains' consistently engaging shapes.  We ventured to North Creek a few weeks ago, a beautiful creekside trail that eventually leads to Apple Orchard Falls.

Barrie and Asta on the trail. The creek's on the right.

Your basic autumnal maple leaf photo.  Can't resist 'em!

Barrie on the bridge, with Asta frolicking in the water below.

Forest floor study: Rock, fern, leaves, sticks.

 Asta runs and runs and runs while we hike.

The next two photos were subjected to some post-processing to add texture and a bit of distortion to emulate painting on canvas. Or at least that was the plan.

Sunlight on the trail.

Apple Orchard Falls trail head, treated photo.

It's been a fall of transition, as noted above. We lost our good friend Dr. Jane Fagg a few weeks ago. Some close friends lost their beloved Corgi a few days ago, and today, Thanksgiving, is the 10th anniversary of my father's death.

Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, Moss Hill, NC

Jane was buried beside her husband Dan, at their family cemetery in Eastern NC.  Her service was held in Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Moss Hill, NC.  This church belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, the same Diocese that's home to the churches my father's family has attended for centuries. While I no longer attend the Episcopal church, my roots in the denomination run deep, especially in eastern NC where my grandfather funded and built a small Episcopal church in the town of Speed, NC.

It was good to return to the coastal plain of NC, a place filled with memories and the faint calling of long-departed relatives. Like my parents, who left Eastern NC when they were married in 1946, this part of the world is where my families are from, but not where I chose to live. While it's always meaningful and important to walk in the part of the world where my ancestral roots run deepest, it also made me thankful to head back to the mountains, to the place we've chosen to call home.

Hunt Fish Falls, October 2010

I  spent last weekend backpacking to Hunt Fish Falls, on Lost Cove Creek in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.  I've been hiking and camping at Hunt Fish Falls for over 35 years - a number that reveals not only my relative age, but also how much I love this area. (Indeed, the header photo for this blog was taken at Hunt Fish Falls several years ago.)

The waterfalls and pool at Hunt Fish Falls.

We packed in on Friday afternoon, made camp at our favorite creek side campsite, and stayed until Sunday. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm in the day, dropping to the mid-30s on Friday night and the 40s on Saturday night. A full moon illuminated the nocturnal scene.

Our cheerful camping cohort waving from atop a rock.

Lost Cove Creek pours over two small falls at Hunt Fish, then gathers in a large pool. Surrounding by rocks, the pool is a natural place to hang out. In the summer we'd be swimming, but even though it was a pleasant 60+ degrees, the water was probably in the mid-40s.  Here's a few photos from poolside:

Silver and gold.  A leaf swirling in the eddies.

Small leaf dams form where the pool drains downstream.

The water was amazingly clear, as this photo of a floating leaf and its shadow indicate.

Even though it was cold, some wading was in order. I think I can still feel my feet at this point, but they became quite numb rather quickly.  Bracing!

Our stuff on the lower rocks.

Heading back to the upstream campsite after a poolside afternoon.

On Saturday we spent our time hiking upstream and downstream, enjoying the lovely fall day. Random photos from those treks appear below:

Trail side mushrooms? Or just fun guys?

Looking up from the creek. The sky was brilliantly clear and blue.

Fall colors and bright greens.

Maple in transition.

Our campsite, upstream from the big pool, is an old favorite, and is well used.  Consequently, little firewood is available nearby. We trekked upstream about a quarter mile and brought back a big pile of wood and had a merry ole fire on Saturday night. The younger members of our cohort had a great time playing in the creek, finding crawdads, and falling in. We rigged up a drying rack for the wet pants.

Warming backsides. Drying pants. Having fun.

The view upstream from the creek crossing.

Lost Cove Creek in early autumn splendor.

This trip included breaking in some new gear. I replaced my aging (20+ years old) backpack, sleeping bag, and water filter, and it really made a difference.  My sleeping bags is much lighter and warmer than the old bag, the backpack has much better suspension and a better design, and the new water filter was a great improvement over the my old unit, which had died.

One of my little efforts during such trips is to find solace in the moment.  Noting the trees, rocks, and sky as you take each step, surrendering to the ever-present sound of running water while clearing your mind, and relishing the simple tasks of preparing food, washing your bowls,  making and tending the fire. Steven Altschuler has a fine book about trail side Zen called The Mindful Hiker, which I highly recommend.

One of these mindful tasks is filtering water, a process that involves slowly pumping the filter and filling the bottles, which I did several times each day. I sat in this spot to filter: