All posts by Wildtrumpetvine

Nature, Walking the Dog

A Masked Visitor

Until today, we had never spotted a raccoon in our yard, or even in our immediate neighborhood.  Deer and squirrels are routine. Foxes are frequent. Once, when my daughter was very young, she alerted me to the presence of two animal control officers walking across our front yard:  There are two people with big guns, Mama!  Turns out they were in search of the infamous rabid skunk that had been roaming the area.  But the raccoons, they had stayed away. 

I was eating breakfast when I heard Kiko bark from the yard. Of course, he rarely makes a sound. And this was a different kind of bark: a single woof, with an excited edge to it. I ran out to the porch to see my little dog face to face in the grass with a raccoon. Of course, I feared he would get bitten or scratched. I was afraid the raccoon might be rabid. Nearly every week, there’s at least one account in the Public Safety notes of the local newspaper of a dog quarantined after tussling with a sick raccoon.

Kiko was keeping some distance between him and the interloper, while backing it toward the fence. I clapped my hands loudly and yelled repeatedly, “Go Away!,” Get outta here!” The raccoon got the message, hastened its retreat, and squeezed through the bars of the fence. Once on the other side, it clambered up a Leyland Cypress in our neighbor’s yard. From a perch in the branches it peered down at us, composed, charming, and terribly cute. Kiko sat below at rapt attention, expectant, itching for another chance to show this foreign visitor what’s what.

We kept watch for a while. I wanted to make sure the raccoon wasn’t behaving erratically or showing signs of illness. As far as I could tell, it appeared to be a perfectly healthy specimen, handsome, well-fed and fuzzy. With an enviable sense of self-possession, it seemed content to observe us calmly and wait it out in the tree. After a while, and with much effort, I dragged Kiko away and onto the porch, where we watched as the raccoon carefully, unhurriedly, climbed down from the tree and disappeared into the bushes beside our neighbor’s deck.

Is this the first of many more such masked visitors to come? Or simply the appearance of a rebellious loner who got off track? While it’s hard to imagine a more cuddly-looking creature, for Kiko’s sake, I hope it spreads the word that inside our fence no warm welcome awaits. I hope it tells friends and family of its close brush with a fierce, red, fox-like monster.

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Nature

November, Back in Character

Yesterday, November decided to quit kidding around. Apparently she got tired of playing nice, of being mistaken for October or some other light-hearted, mild-mannered month.   The exuberant blue sky and bright white clouds were banished.  A dull gray dome descended, poised threateningly just above the treetops, blocking any appearance of sunlight.  A fierce wind whipped up, blasting most of the last leaves from the trees, and whirling them round and round in impressive spirals.  I could almost hear the eleventh month shrieking angrily,  “Have you forgotten who I am?  You won’t forget me now!”

I had forgotten. Walking with Kiko, I was ill-prepared, like a student who had neglected to study for a test I’d known about for weeks.

But in the bitter cold, it was time to face the real November, the one that requires determination, a wool scarf and better gloves.  And, I think, some warmer jacket.   What was it, and where did I put it?

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Community, Faith and Spirituality, Holiday

A Veterans’ Day Prayer

May this Veterans’ Day be a reminder to thank, honor and remember the heroes who fought for our country, for our freedom, and for our strength.  Help us to  be grateful, every day, for all that they have done, for all that they have given.  May we find meaningful ways to show our appreciation.  Help us to treat our returning veterans with the respect, care and generosity they deserve, so that their wounds might heal.  May God bless these brave men and women and their families.  May God bless the U.S.A.

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Family, Nature

Deep Blue November

November here in northern Virginia is veering far from stereotype.  Not yet, at least, for this month, the dull, drab grays and beiges most often associated with it.  Skies have been vividly, strikingly, deep blue, setting off gilded leaves and white, sharp-edged clouds to dramatic effect. 

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Waiting to pick up my daughter after play rehearsal,
I  had time to appreciate this dazzling skyscape.

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Last Sunday, the steeples of our church gleamed brightly against a backdrop of royal blue.

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Lacy bronze and gold oak leaves, highlighted against November blue.


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Set against a blue velvet sky, the lines of this old schoolhouse
appear as sharp and clean as cut paper.   

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As evening approaches, azure fades to turquoise, and clouds of molten metal stream in.  While the word “awesome” suffers from overuse, it perfectly describes recent November sunsets.


Look up and out.  Don’t miss this amazing free show!

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

Friendly Ghosts of Halloweens Past

My daughter is an ardent devotee of Halloween.  Evidently that first freezing trip to the pumpkin patch at ten months didn’t turn her against the holiday or its decorative trappings.  (See Looking Back on our Little Pumpkin, October 2012.)  During her preschool and elementary school years, her Halloween costume got plenty of mileage.  Around the start of summer, she began the costume discussion:  What would she be this year?  Soon the Halloween catalogues, sent to us by my mother, would come pouring in.  Once Mama and I had put the finishing touches on the outfit, usually in early October, she was in it.  As so many children do, she wore it repeatedly throughout the entire Halloween season, to parties and on many other occasions. These kids must know that dressing as a witch or black cat alleviates the tedium of mundane outings such as grocery shopping and dental visits.

After Halloweens One and Two as a Jack-o’- Lantern, our daughter followed up with Black Cat, Witch, Gypsy and Ghost Bride.  This year, she will be dressing as Daisy from The Great Gatsby, and hitting the neighborhood with a couple of friends, who, like her, plan to persist in trick-or-treating as long as they can.

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2002:  Everybody’s Crazy ’bout a Sharp-Dressed Cat

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2003: Good Witch-in-Training


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2004:  Gypsy Girl


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2005:  Ghost Bride

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Clothespin Creatures for Halloween

These clothespin creatures are some of my favorite Halloween decorations.  I made them about ten years ago, when my daughter was small.  Seems she helped in some way, but I can’t remember exactly how.  Maybe she painted the clothespins?  Whatever she did or didn’t do, she enjoyed them after they were finished.  We both look forward to unpacking them every year. 

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Orange Witch


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Jack-o’-Lantern Boy

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Bat Dandy


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Classy Cat


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Orange Witch #2

Family, Nature, Parenthood

Old Hickory: My Vote for Best Fall Tree

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It’s evident from recent posts that I’m a big fan of trees.  I must like trees more than most people do.  When I was about seven years old, our next-door-neighbor, a well-read nature lover, gave me one of those little pocket guides to tree identification.  That got me started.  I found it surprisingly rewarding to recognize a tree by its shape, its bark, its leaves, flowers and fruit.  If I had to live in a land without trees, I don’t think I’d ever stop feeling some pain over their absence. When I’m out walking with Kiko, especially in the fall, much to his annoyance, I stop often to photograph notable trees.

This grand old hickory is beautiful all year long, but in the autumn, when its leaves turn yellow-gold, it’s absolutely glorious.

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Standing under the tree gives the impression of being sheltered by a lacy golden umbrella of immense proportions.  Sunlight passing through the leaves is warmer and more radiant.

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Hickory nuts make for tasty, but difficult eating.  One of my most prominent early memories is wandering the North Carolina woods with my father to gather heaps of hickory nuts.  Back home, we’d sit on the stoop outside my parents’ grad student UNC apartment, where Daddy would crack open the rock-hard shells with a hammer.  Together, we’d painstakingly pick out the kernels and feast on them.

So it is that hickory trees, and their nuts, summon brightly colored images of happy childhood Saturdays with my young, handsome father.  And in the contest for Best Fall Tree that plays entirely in my own head, this year’s winner, hands down, is the hickory.

Nature

Fall Miscellany

 

I love nature’s seasonal costume changes. How appropriate it seems that fall, the prelude to sensible, somber-toned winter, is given the year’s showiest, most brilliant colors.  I think of fall as nature’s show-stopper, the big number, the tune you’ll be whistling long after the leaves have fallen, when the air is resolutely chilly and darkness comes too early. 

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The leaves of this towering catalpa tree glow green-gold over our town’s reconstructed one-room schoolhouse.   

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The maples, of course, claim some of the brightest  and most varied colors in the paint box.

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This tall black walnut tree is quick to let go of its golden leaves
and turn its face toward winter. 

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Squirrel treats:  black walnuts, almost the size of tennis balls,
drop heavily from the trees in our yard every fall.  I gathered these so I could watch the squirrels remove them. 

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Pumpkins at the ready at our local farm market.

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My daughter looks forward to our annual pumpkin picking.
She loves fall as much, or maybe even more, than I do.
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Harmony in pink and green:  In October, the rosy brick on our fence finds a coordinate in the leaves of our neighbor’s dogwood trees.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Nature, Walking the Dog

Underfoot, and Easily Overlooked, the Circle of Life

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Yesterday, my daughter called my attention to an elaborate lichen formation on one of the decaying tree stumps in our front yard.  Although I walk past it nearly every day with Kiko, I hadn’t noticed it.  Amazing, the strange beauty we can so easily overlook.  Our lawn repeatedly offers such spectacles.  Yet I still forget.  Oblivious, I walk right by.

I’ve written about the attachment our family feels toward our old trees.  (See The Silver Maples Say Welcome Home, April 2012, and  Barred Owl Update, June 2013.) The two immense maples that survive from the original six, planted the year our house was built, are ninety-three years old.  Broad stumps serve as place markers, memorials for the trees that had to be removed.  The  life, so strikingly peculiar, that emerges from these dead stumps is further justification for our not having them ground down.

Lichen is one of earth’s oldest life forms. Very slowly, but with exceptional persistence, it emerges in unlikely, inhospitable spots, nearly impervious to extreme conditions and temperatures.  In the crowded busyness of our twenty-first century world, it keeps a low profile and may go unnoticed.  Lichen is not a single organism, but a complex partnership between fungi and algae.  Lichen may grow from bare rock or wood.  As it grows, it breaks down the substance from which it emerges, helping to create soil.

The lichen on our tree stump is a cascade of flower-like growths.  Depending on your point of view, it resembles part of an exuberantly ruffled blouse, rippling water flowing over rocks, the feathered plumage of a giant bird,  the petals of cabbage roses deconstructed and rearranged, or even the scales of a fantastic crocodilian creature.

I’m so glad we let nature take its course.  Had we not said “no,” over and over, to unbeatable stump grinding prices (offered eagerly by every tree company that drives past the house), we would have no stage for this riot of oddly lovely new life.  How satisfying, how hope-inspiring, it is that from the last vestiges of this maple tree springs an ancient vitality.  Decay and growth, hand in hand, rather like the lichen partnership itself.  The circle of life, circling on and on, underfoot.  While the tree stump remains, we’ll be observers at the quietly fabulous end-time celebration it’s hosting.

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Party on, lichen.

Nature, Walking the Dog

Sun’s Rays Fall on Northern Virginia!

When the sun reappeared yesterday, I felt like a kid in school welcoming back a close friend who’d been out sick for a week.  Judging from the number of walkers and runners (with and without dogs) in our neighborhood, I wasn’t alone.  Today, after a foggy start, the sun is shining on us again, painting lawns and trees with golden highlights.  In this slow-moving fall season, a few touches of color are beginning to be revealed.

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The brightest dash of fall color in our yard is offered by the leaves of a sassafras tree, shown here against the trunk of one of our big silver maples.

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The yellow leaves and prolific seed pods of this old redbud tree testify to fall’s approach.
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A sweet-smelling river of pine straw flows past our house every October.
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This time of year, Kiko is outside as often as possible,
camoflaged in pine straw the color of his fur, perhaps hoping to trick a squirrel.
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