Sand dollar & Blue Crab Claw

This morning's clouds turned into rain and allowed me time to complete yesterday's entry. Below is a photo I took on the beach. Home tomorrow.

Thankful

Today was busy with family and food, fossils and photography. I am thankful to have the opportunity to enjoy all of them here at the beach. Instead of working on finishing my journal entry for the day, my first-born son and I went out for another photo session with the sunset. Here's a picture of him taking a photograph at the tail end of the red sky.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Shrimp Head

Today we travelled to the coast for Thanksgiving week. As usual, my first priority was to go to the ocean to say hello. It was a particularly beautiful evening, with an almost full moon rising over the water. Back at the house the shrimp were boiling and the beer was cold in the fridge. A great way to start the vacation!

St. Peterswort

Returned from Charlotte in time for an afternoon hike to see my favorite Sourwood tree. It's in the woods across Meetinghouse Creek and almost at the top of the hill. Many of the sourwoods around here have dropped most of their leaves, but maples, hickories, oaks, as well as dogwoods and beech trees are at the peak of color, making it a beautiful hike. Found a wing feather of a juvenile red-tailed hawk under a huge white oak... I know this because I found it at The Feather Atlas - a fun site for bird lovers.

I wandered the woods around my sourwood, listening to the rattle of fallen leaves, field crickets, and the steady hollow knock of a nearby woodpecker. The tree had a spattering of pinky-red leaves remaining on the branches, the rest fallen into a carpet under the tree. It's a huge twisting tree, with a summer canopy so thick that nothing else grows under it. Large branches that have fallen look like serpents wiggling through the sea of leaves.

Twisty branches of the Sourwood tree, last winter.

I finally went to sit in the sun and open breeze to draw. A Buckeye butterfly flitted around over the field, and this St. Peterswort (in seed) was growing right beside me. It's only about 6" tall and has narrow, oval leaves. The remaining bracts are distinctive and help you identify it when not in bloom.

Daisy sat beside me (not on the plant I was drawing), closed her eyes and put her face into the breeze. Eventually she took a nap. We are such an exciting pair!

Chufa (Umbrella Sedge)

Today's sunny afternoon was perfect for hiking to Meetinghouse Creek with Daisy. The wind, out of the NE, offered a pleasantly cool contrast to the warm late-day sun that soaked into my blue turtleneck sweater. Few flowers are still in bloom, but on the way downhill we passed a single bright yellow Dandelion that had a visitor - a brown Folded-wing Skipper sipping nectar. Small Asters bloomed here and there, and a single stem of Rabbit Tobacco glowed bright against the dark woods. Above our heads, bright orange maple leaves danced in the wind against the cornflower-blue sky.

Once at the creek I found a spot in the sun to draw this sedge, while Daisy settled in shade nearby to chew a stick. River Birch and Sycamore trees towered over us, their thinned canopies quivering in the wind. Crickets sang from trees and field, and were occasionally joined by crows calling from the distant woods. Carolina Locust leapt about in the tall grass; deer tracks going every which way dotted the ground.

On the way back a Question Mark butterfly fluttered down the trail towards us and landed on my arm. What a picture! Its vivid blue edging shimmered against my blue sweater. Daisy and I admired it for a few minutes until it flew. Daisy gave it a half-hearted chase, then turned to race me home... a race she always wins!

Under A Pine

This morning was cool (49 deg.) and windy so I knew I needed to find a spot out of the wind, and in the sun. Brrr! As I thought about the lay of the land, I remembered one spot that would provide both: the old road down near the rusty, defunct bridge gets direct morning sun and runs through woods thick enough to block winds from the NE.

Old Thompson Road is nothing but a narrow, rutted roadbed that ends in deep ditch just before the bridge. On the hill above the bridge Duke Power keeps clear a portion of the road that has lines running beside it. I picked a spot there, beneath some short leaf pines, where a cluster of British Soldiers (lichen in bloom that look like they're wearing little red caps) caught my eye. The sun felt warm, I was out of the wind. Perfect!

Except ... Daisy was curious. She walked in front of me and wanted to sniff and look at everything. She sniffed at my pen and then at the pencil box and in my attempt to get her to move, she stepped on the box and flipped it, spilling art supplies across the ground. She stepped on the lichen I was drawing, and when I asked her to please move, she sat. Everything I tried to draw was a new and exciting discovery for her. Sniff. Sniff. She knocked over my cup of water and ate the ice cubes; she dug up my small pine, and got her dirty paws on my journal (Daisy, OFF!) but luckily the dirt was dry, so it brushed off. I could go on, but long-story-short, she finally, finally! curled up and took a nap.

This journal page shows all the little things growing under the tall pines. I had to sneak away to find another baby pine since Daisy was sleeping on the first one.

Catbrier, Spotted Wintergreen, and Cross Vine

Abandoned homesites in the woods are strange and beautiful places. The one I visited this morning, for instance, is slowly disappearing into the forest. Cedar and Sweetgum trees are growing from the hole that was the basement, the stacked stone foundation has fallen apart in most places and overgrown with moss. The old barn, rotted from the bottom up, is only the angled tin roof sitting on the ground. Wild grape vines that grow on the still-standing chimney are three inches in diameter.

The strangeness comes mostly from the fact that many farming families once had the habit of throwing their trash in a pile quite near the house. As Daisy and I wandered around the homesite today I found some of the expected junk: rusty cans with triangular punched holes, old bottles (baby bottle, milk bottle, brown Clorox bottle, Ball jars, Pepsi, old Dukes mayo), broken bottles with ebony spleenworts growing inside, as well as broken pottery, half a turquoise milkglass mug, and old lightbulbs. Rusty metal blends right into the leaf litter and crunches when you step on it. When I stubbed my toe on something and went back to look, I saw a curved metal edge rising an inch above the soil. A hard tug brought out an old car horn - the wide end 5 inches across, the length about 15 inches.

Another surprise was tripping over a very disguised coil from an old box spring. I turned and had to stare hard to see it, but once I did I realized it was the whole boxspring! The springs were everywhere! it was amazing I made it through the maze at all. Fifty (or more) years' worth of leaf litter had fallen and rotted, and many plants were happy to grow in the rich humus it made: Cedar, ironwood, holly, sweetgum and small oak trees grew all around, as did ferns and spleenworts. The small wildflowers (above) paid no attention to the Dr. Seuss-ish curls of the box springs and grew all around and between them.

Indian Hemp Seedpods

Imagine a nice fall day planned for birdwatching, and me riding with my friend towards the local state park, hiking shoes on feet, binoculars in hand. Suddenly the clouds burst and rain pours down. We take a side trip to a local coffee drive through, and with coffee in hand we decide to still go to the state park, and to birdwatch from the car. (Go ahead, laugh!) We drive out of town and down the long road to the state park, but around the last curve we see that the gates are closed due to tree work along the roadsides. All the guys working turn to stare at us as we do our three point turn. Oh well. No problem. My friend lives close to the state park, so we decide to birdwatch from the car over there.

We head down the old farm road at her house, drive around the pond and over the dam. The car, being a new hybrid, is very quiet, so we did actually see some birds... A Kingfisher, Bluebirds, a Northern Harrier, a flock of Purple Finches, Song Sparrows... Even though we were moving, the loudest noise was the that of the raindrops coming in the wide-open windows and hitting inside of the front doors. SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT splat splat SPLAT splat.

On a grassy hill above the pond was a big patch of gray. "That's the patch of Indian Hemp," my friend said, "It was covered in butterflies this summer...but what are those yellow leaves in the middle of it?"

Before I could say I didn't know, the beautiful new hybrid headed off the clear road and up the hill. We plowed through grass plumes that towered over our heads - other plants scraped and scratched along the undercarriage.

"So," I said, "this Lexxus is an offroad vehicle, right?"

"Oh, yeah," she said. "It's an SUV."

"Alrighty, then," I said. We headed toward the Indian Hemp patch and rolled right into the empty, gray stems as tall as the car. All the leaves had long since fallen off so we drove a loop through the stems. The yellow leaves she'd noticed were from a Indian Hemp plant that hadn't lost its leaves yet for some reason. As she pulled away I noticed seedpods. "Oh, look, there are seedpods! They're split open. See the seeds?"

Another donut circle brought the car right back to the same Indian Hemp seedpods dangling from the bare stems. I leaned out into the rain and picked a few.

After hiking with Daisy today I sat at my counter to draw the seedpods in my journal. "Next time I'm driving," I thought. I mean, even though her car is an SUV, somehow it makes more sense to use my ten-year-old Jeep to go offroad.

Maple Leaves, Long-necked Seed Bug, & Common Sulphur

Today was warm, damp, and cloudy, with a rich color show in the maple, cherry, and sassafras trees, as well as the virginia creeper vines and the winged sumacs. I settled at the edge of the pipeline, got out my journal and was looking around for something to draw, when a gust of wind whooshed past. It stripped leaves from the maple trees behind me and twirled them in the air like confetti. Some leaves danced and whirled in spirals like helicopters, some sashayed back and forth as if they were post-it notes dropped from the small plane that just buzzed over. Others swung wild and looped back up, flying even higher into the air! They eventually landed around me with a soft click, some on my page.

Field crickets trilled from the grass, a red-bellied woodpecker chirred from a pine he was working. Daisy got interested in digging a hole right next to me....scratch, scratch, scratch....PAUSE, shift... scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.... pause, shift... the clay soil, damp from yesterday's rain, gave way easily to her claws. Sniff, sniff. Pause. Scratch, scratch, scratch. A bug landed on my knee, so I quickly sketched it. I didn't recognize it, but once home I looked it up and found that it is a seed bug - a long-necked one, no less.

After sketching the leaves, I brought them home so I could paint them.

Unknown Fungi

While hiking in the cool dewy morning, I saw a hawk being mobbed by a group (a murder) of raucous crows! The attackers' harsh cries could be heard from a distance so I headed in their direction. Twice as I walked toward them the noise stopped for about ten seconds, only to begin again just as loud and persistent. Why do they do this? How do they all know to stop at the same time? I don't know if my approach encouraged the hawk to get the heck out of there, but when I got close there was a sudden whoosh - whoosh - whoosh of large wings and the flash of a red tail as the hawk flew off, escorted by about eight squawking crows. One they were gone silence fell over the woods. I walked slowly on looking for rocks and feathers, and noticed that within five minutes the other little birds in the trees started singing again.

There were two piles of fresh fox scat full of persimmon seeds in the cut that runs between the three pipelines. I use it all the time to gain access to the woods and rocky ridge above Lawson's Fork. It must be a fox cut-through, too.

Later this afternoon I sat down to draw the strange, brown and scaly fungi above. They've been growing all fall in our yard, until my son picked them and brought them to me last week. I'd love to know a name. I couldn't find it in any of my field guides. I did find a photo of one in a blog and was excited until I saw that the writer called it "Fungus anonymous." Oh, well! If anyone knows a name, please let me know!

Asters, Goldenrod, Sulphur and Folded-wing Butterflies

This morning was errand time for me, so Daisy and I went out late, around 3:00. The warmth has returned, but the sun is low and not so strong, and there was a nice breeze blowing across the hill that was cool. And, NO mosquitos! There was plenty of shade along the top of the hill so we strolled down the upper edge of the pipeline to admire the many wildflowers blooming there. (There were more there than I drew, but they wouldn't all fit on one page.) Butterflies flitted about in the sun, and when I finally sat down to draw, other little bugs came to visit, so I noted them on the page. A small airplane buzzed by, low overhead, and fall field crickets cheeped from sunny grass stems. It was a peaceful afternoon.

Tulip Poplar Leaves and Crane Fly

Sunny, and warm this afternoon, with a coolish breeze to riffle my hair as I drew the poplar leaves. I did the exercise walk in the dewy morning so that I could take Daisy in for a bath, so I was alone on the hill. Birds: tufted titmouse, red-bellied woodpecker, red-tailed hawk screaming while he circled high above.

Sparkleberry

Now that the hot weather has passed I'm able to go out to the woods to journal more often, and the last few days have been heavenly! Who wouldn't want to go out for a walk with 59 degree mornings, 75 degrees and breezy afternoons? Today was beautiful from sunrise to sunset.

I found this tiny, five-inch-high Sparkleberry this afternoon in the woods down near the old defunct iron bridge at Old Thompson Road. (The road is nothing but ruts covered in wildflowers and small mountain laurel, but still, it has a name, and if you use the computer to give you directions, you may be told to "take a left on Old Thompson Road, proceed two miles to..." But you can't proceed, for you'd be in the river by now.) There are old home sites in the woods on either side of the old roadbed, and near one of these I found some neat old bottles. One is from Wood's Beverages, of Gaffney, SC. It's green, with embossed words and logo. The other is from Griffin Allwite, which my friend and neighbor says was white shoe polish, for children's hightops, or nurses shoes during the War. Also around the old brick chimney were rusty mattress springs, tin roofing, and old gray logs still resting on big, mossy rocks. Ebony Spleenwort was taking over the foundation site, and yellow Sweetgum leaves had fallen here and there, like stars fallen from heaven.

I didn't want to sit amongst someone's old garbage (even interesting garbage!) so I moved on down closer to the river. The pink leaves of the tiny Sparkleberry stood out against the brown leaves.... a nice place to sit... the breeze kept me cool.

And to keep my readers grounded and real, let it be known that Daisy found something dead and stinky in which to roll. Her beautiful white mane (she is a Collie, remember) is now black and sticky on the right side. Ahh.... life in the country....

Checkered Skipper and Sycamore Bark

Nice morning for a walk - 59 degrees and breezy. It felt quite cool heading downhill, into the wind, in the shade. It felt much warmer walking back because we were heading steeply uphill, with the wind at my back, and in the warming sun. There were many small butterflies in the sun flitting about the numerous asters and goldenrods that nodded in the wind, including this Common Checkered Skipper. He's a small butterfly, not much more than an inch wingspread, and he's a new one to me... I've never seen it before! The turquoise hairs on his body reminded me of the Long-tailed Skipper I see down at the coast, so when I got home I looked under skippers in my butterfly book, and voila! There he was, one of the spread-wing skippers.

Daisy and I poked around down by Meetinghouse Creek for a bit, me trying to find a way to get through a briar patch to reach a mulberry tree with huge, yellowing leaves,until I saw that Daisy found a much easier route and waited for me under said tree. After several scratches from the briers I copied her and soon found myself under a huge Sycamore tree where large pieces of shed bark littered the ground. I picked up the only small piece I saw to draw in my journal. Kept going to the Mulberry tree but was unable to reach high enough to get to the leaves.

Cranefly Leaves Unfurling

In the woods around my studio there are many patches of Cranefly Orchids. Last summer I watched this group of three plants as their winter leaves withered and died. The foot-high stalks appeared overnight in spring. They grew and bloomed, and a month later the blooms died and set seed. Leaves and bloom-stalks alternate like this year after year. Today I leaned down to see if anything was happening and saw that this winter's leaves are unfurling near the dead stalks. (Each plant has one leaf and one flower stalk.)

Acorns fell as I drew - BANG! on the roof of the studio, BANG! on a car. CRASH! Thud! through tree leaves and onto the ground. The only other noises were the chirring of a red-bellied woodpecker and a chattering squirrel.

False Turkey Tail & Tiger Moth

Daisy and I hiked almost to the river yesterday, stopping to admire this log full of bright and fresh False Turkey Tails. We could hear the river, running high after two days of rain, which was quite noisy as it rushed over the shoals at Helen and Susan Islands. When I sat to draw, Daisy sat close, guarding me. At one point I heard a SNAP! and turned to see three deer running away into the woods with Daisy on their heels. Oh, such a brave girl!

Before I left, I picked one of the polypores from the log and stuck it in my backpack. Later in the day I pulled out my sketchbook and the small polypore came out with it, completely changed. Instead of the rich, tawny brown color, it had changed to a fuzzy gray. I decided to record the changes in my sketchbook. The tiger moth was as gift from my son, who found it in his bedroom. Apparently it had flown into his open window and gotten lost behind the dresser. He brought it down and presented it as I was painting the False Turkey Tail - the best kind of gift for this mom!

Red Leaf and Helenium (Sneezeweed)

Took an early walk today and enjoyed the long morning shadows and wind in my hair. Tuesday's silence had disappeared. Instead, I heard traffic from Pine Street (we live at least 2 miles away from Pine St.) a lawn mower, a dog barking across the river, as well as the dog's owner yelling, "Shut UP!" It's amazing how noisy some days are! Along the way I found half of a bird egg, a tiny puffball that poofed its brown smoke when I poked it, and the seed pods of a sensitive brier. Fyi: if you ever see a seedpod on a sensitive brier vine, do not touch it or you'll get a handful of invisible splinters. They are so tiny it's hard to get them out. I had about ten in my hand even though I was very careful when I picked it to draw, and then dropped it immediately.

While I was picking prickles from my hand, I noticed the beautiful crimson leaf on the ground. A much safer choice for today's journal entry. I though the red contrasted nicely with the yellow of the Sneezeweed (Helenium).

Turkey Feather & Green Acorns

Fall is coming! The angle of sunlight, dewy cool mornings, beauty berries showing off, as well as the heart-stopping BANG of hickory nuts falling on the studio roof... these are all reminders that September is passing quickly and October is on the way!

Daisy and I stirred up three deer today as we headed down the steep, washed out hill to the lower trail. I hate doing that, and every time it happens I consider keeping Daisy on a leash. The reason I don't is because she's never caught anything, and I love to see her run. Collies are made to run. It's a beautiful site. Besides, the deer are usually so far away that there's no chance she'll even get close! Today the deer bounded away through the tall brush no more than 25 feet away, and although Daisy did head out after them, I called her back with one of the treats I had in my pocket. Happily, it worked.

Five minutes later I came upon a beautiful black racer who had been slithering across the pipeline before Daisy had run past, just ahead of me. When I got to the snake his body was tensed up, but he was still calm and looking around. He looked directly at me when I squatted down to inspect him. I had just reached over to touch him when Daisy came running back to see what I'd found. She startled the snake and sent him into a tail-rattling, curled-up-ready-to-spring frenzy. Oh, Daisy! What a nature nuisance.

I led her away and we hiked into the woods on the far hill. It is very crispy and crackly around here from lack of rain. It's been weeks, I think, since we've had significant rainfall. I sat on top of the rocky ridge for a while to draw,with Daisy settled beside me, both of us listening to the birds in the trees. They were everywhere! Red-bellied woodpeckers, flickers, very noisy blue jays, crows, a PW rattled and drilled a tree not far from us. Fall crickets called their high "cheeps" from the tree-tops. Daisy, being an unusually observant dog, looked from tree to tree, trying to find the birds.

On the way back, I stopped in the shade of some pines to notice the quiet. Not total silence, but an absence of background noise.... no wind is part of it, but it's also something atmospheric, I think. Against the background of silence all the tiny sounds of nature seemed magnified: carolina mantids buzzed as they sprang from grass stems zzzzzzzzzzzzt!, a single cricket cheeped from a grass stem - beetles chewed inside a pine trunk behind me. Various kinds of sulfur butterflies fluttered over flowers across the field; even far away I could see their floppy yellow flight, up-over-and-down. They were everywhere - hundreds of delicate wings. For some reason this brought to mind the natural force opposite that of a butterfly wing's slight disturbance - the beautiful/terrible Category-4 hurricane Igor that swirls across the Atlantic Ocean this week. Its width is the same as the distance from Dallas to DC. Take a moment to consider the differences and know we live on one awesome planet!

New York Iron Weed

Clear, cool and breezy - a beautiful day to be outside. The ironweed this time of year is stunning, especially when it is growing next to goldenrod and wingstem! The contrast of yellow and purple does everything it's meant to do - it shocks and pleases the eye at the same time.

While I drew, Fall Field Crickets trilled all around me and a White Breasted Nuthatch worked a tree near where I sat... Ank ank! Ank ank! Ank ank! A Pileated Woodpecker screamed several times close by. A soft breeze stirred the leaves... and my hair. Like I said, it was a beautiful day!

White Wood Aster

It was already 77 degrees and humid when we headed out, at 9 a.m. High pitched crickets buzzed in the trees, still dripping from rain in the night, and invisible spider webs were strung across the path. I think my friend missed the webs, but I managed to get some of the sticky strands across my face and in my hair. If you've ever done this, you know how I felt. Even thought I brushed and wiped and rubbed my face and shoulders, it never felt like they were truly gone. I imagined the tiny spider on my back. On my neck. In my hair. The only way to deal with this is to STOP thinking about it. Walk on and focus on what's ahead... of course you should also find a nice forked stick to wave in front of you to remove other invisible webs! Once on the open field of the pipeline and its well worn path, there were no more worries of spider webs.

We hiked down to Meetinghouse Creek, up the hill and into the far woods, around the high, rocky ridge that runs along the river. Daisy and her beautiful canine visitor, Olive, raced ahead as I pointed out to Kaye interesting rocks, mushrooms, and box turtles, as well as some of my favorite moss mounds and wildflower patches. One particular patch was Elephants Foot (Elephantopus sp. - sometimes know as Devil's Grandmother), in full bloom in the light shade of high pines.

At the river's edge Daisy and Olive headed for the water while Kaye and I settled down to draw. I found these delicate White Wood Asters that were just beginning to bloom. I thought it strange that the leaf bases on one plant (left) were so varied. It's not like I didn't see things correctly. I always notice weird details, so who knows what was going on with that plant. All the leaves on the other one (right) had typical heart-shaped leaf bases and the arrow shape.

As we were leaving we noticed the itty bitty white mushrooms. They were everywhere - the more we looked, the more we saw all through the woods, up the hill, down the bank, thousands of mushrooms. Kaye found a twig with one tiny mushroom and two that were pin-head sized. Mushrooms are amazing in many ways. Go here to hear a mycologist discuss the possibility of these beautiful fungi saving the world!