when lilacs in the dooryard bloom?...wait just a minute!!

so there are lilacs blooming in the dooryard, and it is November.
I also saw peaches, pears and hickories in bloom on the way home from Gallatin the other day.
I don't know how to look at this. And then I have to wonder why I feel a need to look at it anyway other than watching it like you might train yourself to watch your thoughts during meditation.
I have seen this phenomena before when warm fall weather was prolonged, this time, it is in response to the rain we finally got.
Allthough it was a blessed 7 inches, it did not replenish the water table or resevoirs or refill creeks, but it made the trees and plants go crazy with a last minute frenzy of reproductive futility.
And the most surprising thing is that that we are having a pretty colorful autumn, after all.

The birds are also in a frenzy. Although I really couldn't afford it, I bought some sunflower seeds and put them out in the feeder, (not used since the snows last winter.) In less than 5 minutes there where hoards of fighting birds around them, as if it was a blizzard a coming.
It makes me sad that they are so hungry, but there really is nothing to eat, as nothing except the most unappetizing plants such as ironweed where able to make any fruits or seeds this year. I have seen chipmunks scaling to the top of goldenrod stalks and eating the flowers...that's hungry.
It is funny how we get "attached" to certain species..I have always had a fondness for phoebes. When I moved to the cabin, there where phoebes everywhere, because there where hundreds and hundreds of red wasps living in the attic, and that is one of their favorite meals.
When I had to re-roof the cabin, the red wasp population was decreased, the phoebe numbers dropped, but then the next year, the population of both was right back up.
This year, the wasps were mostly killed by the freeze. I saw a few at the pond, but no phoebes at all.
I miss them, another species on my list of things I miss.

dry box

This post has to back up a couple of weeks to be timely, but I have been too busy to keep updated and thought maybe it was worth telling.
Before we finally got a rain, things had gotten so dry that the woods was black dust underfoot, the mosses where dried up and the understory leaves hung like drying tobacco on the stick. On a walk, we found a box turtle in the middle of the ridge lane. I lay down on my belly to video tape him and through the lense I noticed that something didn't look quite right. In an irritated manner, he was using his front claw to bat ants away from crawling across his face.
My companion said...does turtle skin always look so "papery"?
No, it is normally very shiny-leathery looking. Suddenly I put away the lense and realized that this box turtle was dehydrated and weakened. His eyes were sunken into his face, his color was drab and his skin was indeed, very dry and dull and lifeless.
Now, I am of the belief that you should pretty much leave things where they lie, as over my lifetime, many of my well meaning rescue attempts have gone terribly awry. Usually because of complexities of nature that I didn't factor in at the time.
But thinking about this turtle's predicament made me reconsider my policy.
Normally, this ridge is flanked by two creeks that run most of the year, and usually the hills have seepy places that although they dwindle to a drip in late summer, always have at least that going on. This year, the creeks have been bone dry for months, there are no damp logs or leaf piles, no seepy places to visit, not a drop of moisture anywhere but the one bushel basket sized hole in the creek below the culvert.
We picked him up and carried him with us on the rest of our walk and then down to the culvert hole. When we set him in the edge of the water, he basked for a minute seeming to soak up the moisture gratefully while the ants plaguing his neck folds abandoned ship. Then he swam (jubilantly, it seemed) around the hole a few times, as if to stretch his limbs and suddenly crawled out on the other side up the bank and into a perfect little mud cave in the shade, just his size.

Ever catch a falling star

I took a pretty hard fall in the woods the other day. Haven't fallen in a long time, and it is always jerks you to a new awareness.
On a steep hillside, my foot slid down a log that was hidden under fallen leaves. Acting like a slick banister, it rapelled me downward a good 8 feet before depositing me with a loud thud on my hip and elbow. I was too shocked to even groan, but the sound of impact caused the dogs to wheel back around and check on me ,sniffing my head as I lay there, long enough to make them a little nervous, I think. Assessing the minimal damage and regaining my wind, I inspected the now close ground in detail, and was delighted to find that I had fallen in a patch of earth stars.
These fungi are in the puffball family, and they look magical and delicious (politically incorrect delicious....a little like peanut butter cookies with hersheys kisses in them) here is an interesting fact about them, although I don't think it applies to this species...
http://www.herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/Starfact.htm
stars fallen to earth remind me of the Sly and The Family Stone lyric "I love you for who you are, not the one you feel you need to be"
Easy to think about those we love, harder to love ourselves that way..