Brock Basin, Pine Knoll Shores, NC |
OK, if you're an American who is well-informed, you are likely existing under the weight of serious day-to-day stress. Obvious, right? The stress that comes not from personal crises (though those too), but from newly coping with and trying to defeat an authoritarian regime. I'm ready for the next big NO KINGS DAY, OCTOBER 18. I'm watching the lower courts hold the line. I'm listening to AOC and Bernie Sanders and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and hoping that the news about a cease-fire in Gaza brings lasting peace. I admire the governors who protect their citizens.
So why lead with a picture of canoes? Because we also need to keep our balance and take breaks. What more appropriate symbol of balance than a canoe. Plus, following my own advice, I thought that picking some special photos, posting and writing about them would give all of our minds a refresh.
So I chose this snap of colorful canoes just waiting to cut through the water with someone's strong strokes. I love the way their random shelving ends up looking artistically pleasing. My first ever post was about canoes, Feb 2, 2017.
Then I located in my library this otherwise regal alpaca whose silly mop-top belies her distinction. She lives with her family at the Museum of Life and Science here in Durham. Alpacas are docile animals, but you wouldn't know that from their bray. They hum too!
Is there a farm near you? Do you raise farm animals yourself? My granddaughter and I have a date for Goat-Pumpkin Carving; can't wait to see how that works out.
A picture of healthy birch trees shedding their bark in sheets, caught my attention next. We saw these paper birch on a visit to New Jersey. So my break includes remembering times of small pleasures. Our woods has beech trees, which also have white bark, but it is smooth. Their brown leaves stay on all winter until spring buds force them to fall.
Here's another cute alpaca from the herd. Can't resist. The Museum is just 30 minutes or so away; I don't know why I don't run over more. There's a butterfly house there too, and lemurs and rescue bears. The picture is a reminder to be more child-like once-in-a-while and ooh and aah at these unique species.
This snap I just took yesterday. The fungi are sprouting in the leaf-mold as the air cools and nights lengthen. This tiny red-cap is a beauty. There's a cluster of them just out my door south of a patch of moss. Here's another view.
The deer eat them, we've noticed, so they don't last long. The best break today was of course, searching the woods for what to photo, keeping my literal balance in our rocky terrain and inspecting the mossy trail I've maintained for over twenty years now. I call it a fitness trail only because it keeps me fit (ha!).
Finally, let's end this refresh with upside-down reflections in pools. I wrote about this too back in 2017, September, an early post. We were taking a slow journey from North Carolina to the Eastern Shore and back. The Dismal Swamp is on the Virginia-North Carolina border, 113,000 acres of wetland forest and coastal plain swamp. Again, so close to where I live, we should visit more.