While We Walked

Each photograph here is from an autumnal stroll through our ’hood.

Some milkweed pods caught our attention one day and, upon closer inspection, my husband noticed the array of colorful bugs.

Hedge-apple trees were plentiful in the country when I was young and somehow they’ve stuck with me as something wholesome and good. Lucky for me I don’t have to travel to the country to find them anymore. Our neighbors have one in their yard! They create fall arrangements with the fruit.




This past weekend we walked down a street that was breathtakingly golden. The sun illuminated both the leaves still clinging to branches and those that carpeted the ground and sidewalks. Nothing but ginkgo leaves and fruits for an entire block, yet the street sign read “Catalpa.”

What do you see in your neighborhood this week?

Autumnal Pleasures

“I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne

I’m with you, Mr. Hawthorne. Hence my spontaneous afternoon trip to a wildlife sanctuary on Friday. My husband and I chose a short hike through a meadow.

At first glance, it didn’t look like much. No trees boasting spectacular oranges and reds, no large, foraging mammals to watch.

But if you paid attention, the fields were full of subtle color and fragrance, and the air was alive with busy insects—myriad kinds of bees, butterflies, and grasshoppers. Transformations of texture surrounded us: bright flower petals were now downy seed transports, supple grass blades had become whispering dry stalks, once-green seed pods hung brittle and brown from trees.

Wherever you are, I hope you, too, get a chance to explore the sunshine and creations of the season.

A Moment Suspended

After seeing the autumnal splendors from Natural Bridge last year, we met this little fellow (gal?) on the path back to our car. He appeared to be teetering between life and the next life, so we moved him closer to the woods for a calmer transition.

“Uh-oh. What are you about to do?”

But not before we took some photos of him, which, in spite of his condition, he managed to blur or escape the frame each time. I regret taking advantage of him that way, though I like to think that we gave him a better end than getting stepped on by other tourists.

“Knock it off with that picture-snappin’, boyo. I mean it!”

Watching him—his vivid green, his leafy shape, his tense determination—was a near-perfect end to our afternoon.

“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bug Eyes

I watched this little fellow play up and down our car window the other day.

It’s poured rain ever since. Now I wonder how he’s getting along.

Finding Acceptance in a New Neighborhood

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 18

“Ow!”

I was in the yard, just about focused for a great photograph of a bird, when something pinched my arm.

“What?” I could almost hear it say—“it” being the tiniest and roundest of hard-shelled bugs digging into my skin.

Actually, I was grateful the bug had alerted me to his intentions. That hasn’t been the case with most of the other bites scattered across my body. The bugs of the Bluegrass love me and I sorely (literally) resent their Welcome Committees.

Granted, one may safely assume that my move from an urban area to a smaller city would mean a proportionate increase in mosquitoes. However, I didn’t anticipate the range of their biting brethren lying in wait for me. And each new bite revives the itch and ooze of every older bite.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m applying Cortizone cream, refraining from scratching, wearing clothes that don’t aggravate the situation. All the same, I have angry welts of varying sizes all over me and I’m not happy about it.

My dear husband, on the other hand, has been bitten only once, but it caused such a frightening reaction on him that I guess the bug community decided to leave him alone thereafter. His elbow swelled and hardened and reddened and hurt for months. That said, I should probably be thankful I have just a hundred small bites and no signs of swollen limbs. But this is slim consolation.

I suppose that by sacrificing my skin to insects I’m truly living in harmony with them. However, if you know of a histamine-less way to be a good neighbor, please let me know. SOON.

[Art by Balthasar van der Ast.]

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”