Trees of Julington Durbin Preserve

Looking at the tree tops today. Sun was just coming up and lit up the branches. I really like the crisp outlines against the blue sky in the mornings. I'll have to work some pastels up out of these.

The first one I was struck by the downward curve on the limbs on the bottom half of the tree. Why do they grow like that? I love the curves, whatever the reason.

The next one I really liked the wrought iron curly cues on the branches.

The last one I liked because it just looks like a fractal.

It's really wet out there people

I borrowed my daughter's rubber boots and went for a walk in the preserve today. I really can't stand walking on the road around my neighborhood. I just can't. Too many cars. I never know if they're honking to be friendly or just because they're assholes. I always end up walking in the ditch, and for some reason, walking in the ditch next to the road just annoys me no end.

So it was boots and blisters and I didn't care. (Note to my daughter: your boots have leaks in them. On the upside, now I know where the word "squelch" comes from.) Lots of water out there, but look what I found!

Eggs in the water! It has to be tadpoles, right? And this is where all those adorable little toads are coming from. They're still out there, even weeks after I first saw them. Still hopping across my path. They make me smile. So different from walking on the street. I don't mind moving over for baby toads, you see. I don't mind it at all.

Marching onward

I have stopped running through the woods anymore. My knee has suddenly grown old and tired and refuses to put up with that kind of behavior. Now, me and the dog, we march. Quick-step, arms flying forward and back (except when my companion stops to pee or poop or sniff something, which is pretty often, and then my leash hand stays behind me and doesn't resume the fro-ing until Miss Daisy catches up again), striding forward through tall grass (don't they mow here anymore?) and muddy bogs, I look ridiculous I think. This kind of walking looks out of place here, I am sure. This poor turkey gaped at me for a full minute and a half before turning and quickly striding off into the woods, exactly as though he was afraid to be associated with such an odd person.

 But the wildflowers didn't mind at all.

 Nor did the crooked tree.

 The dew ignored me.

And this baby toad just hoped I wouldn't step on him. So I didn't and took a picture instead.

Burned out

They've been doing controlled burns at the preserve again. The air is toxic. When I look at the black ground and the ashes it's impossible to remember what it used to look like only the day before. The burns are done to protect the houses that are around the preserve.
The contrast is so stark from one side of the path to the other. The morning after the burn I walked along the trail between the two different preserves, one blackened and still smoking and the other green. There was a mockingbird calling from a burned tree stump.

I've been through here after a much larger burn. That one left a haze of smoke for days. It felt like post apocalyptic hell in there. That was in December of last year.

But then, six months later, it looks like this. 

And if I didn't have the pictures I wouldn't remember what it looked like before the green.

Everything has gone to seed

I like how all the flowers have put on their fall finery. It's poofy white hats and clouds of seed dresses. Or something like that. The rows of white puffs look like snow drifts to me.

Fog

I love foggy mornings. It's quieter, for one thing. Does mist act like a sound buffer? And I love how you can just see the silhouettes of things in the distance.

There's stuff to eat out there

Here's a bowl full of berries, fresh picked this morning. The black berries are just starting to be ripe and you can get a few handfuls without having to venture too far from the path. I don't venture too far from the path because I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt and tennis shoes and this is definitely rattlesnake country. (Staying close to the main path probably doesn't make it any safer, but it feels better in my head, and for me, that's all that matters.) One of these days I may go back out with long pants, shin guards, boots and gloves and bring back enough for a pie. One of these days. Still, it's nice out in the preserve, if you go early enough. The deer flies are getting fierce, but I soak myself in Cutter's and give the dog's back a squirt, and it's enough to fend them off for an hour or so. There aren't too many people out there lately. It's getting hot out now, so we have the place to ourselves, even on the weekends. I've been seeing signs of incipient blueberriness as well, so I have that as a motivator as the hot weather continues. Yum.

Transitions

This is how it is walking in the mornings. It's dark at the beginning, and then by the time you come around to where you started, the sun is up and you have a new perspective. You've talked yourself right out of whatever you thought was impossible when you woke up. Of course, it works the other way, too.

Running to keep up

This is progress. At least she's running along with me in this picture and not stopped somewhere behind me, sniffing at deer tracks or looking to see who's catching up. I'm running again, if you can call it that. I imagine that it looks more like shuffling in a semi-upright position. I imagine that if you saw me you'd think, "That poor woman looks like she's in a lot of pain. Why doesn't she stop?" I can't stop. I read an article in my local paper about someone who started running when she was in her sixties and was now a champion at age 93. My husband says she's probably just the only one left alive in her age group. So that just means I have to outlast everyone else to win. I can do that.

Three different days

 This from two days ago. There's something very wonderful about vapor trails in the sky, especially first thing in the morning. All those people going someplace, who knows where? And here we are, me and the dog, seeing the streaks of their passing.

 Early yesterday, I was out looking for wild blackberries to dig up and take home and there's a short cut through this field of grass, all dead now, but it glows orange this time of day, and Daisy is just a ghost walking through it.

These little flowers are so pretty, tiny and delicate, strung with little bits of spider webbing. I can never resist them.

Red trunk

It's red because it's damp outside. Maybe. I seem to recall that the trees in the school forest in Ludington would get rosy during the spring, too. It's sort of spring here in Jacksonville, now. At least, it's raining a lot.

Patch of blue

It was overcast this morning, but then the sun came out all of a sudden, and I turned around and there was a pretty juxtaposition of clouds and sky and grass and sand and scraggly trees...

It rained last night

 All the trees and flowers had little drops of water suspended from them. It was very pretty.

I don't know what this is before it goes to seed, but I love the shapes of the pods. There are so many! It seems extravagant. But there's probably a good reason. I just don't know what it is.

Surprise!

 I noticed the flowers while I was out walking today. There are so many different kinds out in the woods. I don't know what their names are or if they even have any, besides "weed". I think they're pretty. But they're hard to get right with my camera, sometimes. Especially the purple ones.

The flower in the top picture is sheltering a bumblebee. I love how hairy the blooms are, like anemones.

The yellow daisies were a surprise. I'd been gone from the woods for only a couple of days and when I got back this morning, poof! there they were, like big, yellow smiley faces.

Fire and water

This morning it was a good time to walk out in the woods. The air smelled particularly sweet. I have no idea what I'm smelling as I walk along, but it's nice. Started out looking like the woods was on fire as the dog and I left the parking lot.

Further along, the light turned quite magical, with electric greens and the glow of the rising sun on fallen pine needles.

Then, at the end of our walk, I saw dew on the green stuff along the path and tried to take a picture of it. Spotted this big grasshopper in the middle of this flowering feathery grass, no doubt drying off after pulling an all nighter.

How about this?

I was walking in the Julington Durbin Preserve yesterday and got to thinking that it was time I started putting more words out there, my own words, I mean. And then I thought about how I really don't always have something to say about my family. Sometimes it's just about what I'm thinking or seeing while I'm going about my day. Boring, right? But lately the woods are so pretty and I wanted a place to share the pictures with anyone who cares to look. So, that's what this is going to be. Mostly a photo blog.

I hope you like it.

This is a picture I took this morning. Lately, I have fallen in love with the tiny flowers that are all over the place out in the preserve. These little white ones seem to float over the long grass behind them, like a constellation in a wavy green sky.