Autumn - The Season of Nature and the Soul

 

"Dirty gold sublimed from the black earth up in bright air: these are the awaited stalks, the ripeness possible to imagine." (From John Hollander's poem, Yellow.)

It was such a pretty morning yesterday that I took myself out into the countryside for a couple of hours and was richly rewarded.

Green Valley Lake/Park was my planned destination, but first a few miles of country roads.

I love the various tawny shades of a soybean field.

And the reds, burgundies and scarlets of Sumac are also a delight.

I passed a farmstead with the most beautiful barn I've seen in a long time, but I couldn't get the right line of sight for a picture. The house was equally impressive. Photos of both is an objective for another day.

Coming into Green Valley State Park from the West, I stopped at a parking area I never had before, which is where I discovered this small island tucked away in a cove.

There was a whole field of Goldenrod. This is a very small sample of it with a different perspective of the island, showing its rocky edge.

From the southwest side around to the northeast. From a distance I noticed a gray spot in the top of a tree. "It's just where a limb broke," I thought.

But, just in case I pulled in, zoomed in with the camera and was really rewarded! It isn't often I see a Great Blue Heron in a tree. What a nice surprise shot.

On through the campgrounds where I was amazed to see it still almost full of campers - usually only a weekend sight - and where I sometimes see waterfowl in the inlet near the cabins.

This day I only saw a couple Ravens walking around looking for tidbits left from a picnic lunch.

Next stop was at the boat dock for a short walk down the paved path.

I was looking for the Bittersweet I saw along there a couple years ago.

I didn't see it where I thought I remembered it so I kept going.

Until I saw this Red-tailed Hawk fly over and land. I didn't want to scare if off so I stopped where I was and zoomed in to take some photos. It was obvious it was looking for something to move below so it could have breakfast.

Right after I had taken its photo, a bicyclist went past and scared it into flight.

In addition to the Goldenrod, I also saw a lot of this white aster, false aster, heath aster, wood aster, frost aster? I do not know what the name of this small daisy-like flower is for certain.

I am almost sure this is where the Bittersweet was two years ago. I couldn't see any sign of it now.

The bird in silhouette is a Catbird.

This was the photo I took of the Bittersweet on September 21, 2019.

I wonder if it will come back next year?

I'm looking forward to enjoying the beautiful fall days and more of these nature expeditions; they nurture my soul.

You Are A Great-Grandma Now Betty

September 23 never goes by without me thinking of my little sister, Betty Ruth. She was born 76 years ago today on a Sunday morning - the date of the Autumn Equinox that year.

Do I look unhappy in this photo? Or maybe confused? I've posted all the early photos of Betty that I have. In most of them we are pictured together. At less than two years difference in our ages, we were playmates, confidants, friends, rivals and at times, enemies. 

All you have to do is put Betty in the search box above on the left to see how often and what I've written about her.

I have hardly any photos of her or the two of us together when we were older. Most of the photos of her that I had or that were in Mom's pictures, I gave to her daughter, Kristi. 

This is when she was my maid-of-honor at my wedding to Kenny in November, 1961. It was my 18th birthday. Betty had turned 16 in September. 

I have a few photos of Betty's children, Mike and Kristi when they were young.

This one of them with my two children was taken, I think, the Christmas before she died in 1973.

L to R: Douglas, Kristine, Kari, Michael.

Betty didn't get to see her daughter Kristi grow up and become a mother herself. She didn't get to spoil her granddaughter Jesse or be part of this four generation photo with them and her husband Gene and mother Ruth.

Nor be there with Kristi and me at her granddaughter Jesse's baby shower last month.

Kristi and I both suggested it would be nice if the baby were born on your birthday Betty, even though the due date was around the first of October.

But your great-grandson, Boston Eugene, didn't even wait that long. He was born September 18.

Would you like his name? I think so. And you would love him and be happy and proud that your legacy lives on. 

Oh, how I wish you could have stayed and enjoyed living your life.

I recently found this receipt 'on account' (with Dad's name misspelled) from the day you were born. It seems fitting to share it today.

Happy Birthday little sister.

I miss you - now more than ever.

An Autumn Eve Jaunt To Nine Eagles State Park

 

When HD asked me Monday where I would like to go the next day, I thought of Nine Eagles State Park. It was farther than some of our mornings spent out trekking around, but I had only been there once - almost 56 years ago when it was one of Iowa's newest State Parks. 

I had hoped I might be able to recreate this photo from October 17, 1965, but absolutely nothing looked familiar to me. There was no way I could locate this exact spot. Of course the park has changed alot since then.

I had mentioned maybe we should wait and go later when the leaves had begun to color, but we went ahead as planned and had the park almost entirely to ourselves. That wouldn't be true in another month.

 

The first thing I saw when I got out of the car was this millepede. Luckily, I did not step on it.

There is a nice beach, picnic shelter and playground beside the lake now.

Bluestem grass lakeside. Big blue? Little blue? I can't tell.

A bit of color showing in the trees across the lake.

My photos are pretty much in the order I took them.

There was a large area of lotus pads with seed heads, but I chose to highlight this pad because of the rain drops still on it. 

I wanted a photo of a seed head too, but they were all turned toward the west and their backsides aren't as interesting as the front.

There was a lot of algae present in the water.

It was a cool morning, but the sun was shining, spangling on the water.

I am drawn to the beauty and bleakness of dead trees/limbs. They are starkly beautiful in silhouette.

It looks like Bud is fishing out there on the end of the dock. 

In reality, he has his camera on a monopod and is lining it up to take a picture of the lake.

He caught me unaware a few minutes later when I had my back to him and he told me to turn around.

So, even though I couldn't recreate the photo from '65, I do have a current one of me at Nine Eagles 

We commented on the drive down the hill to the lake about what a good picture the trees arching over the road would make, so on the way back we pulled over to take such photos.

I pointed my camera one way and Bud picked the opposite direction. I decided his view was better and walked over to aim my camera that way. Which is when a little spot of green caught my eye.

I can't pass up photographing lichen. As I say every time: "I like lichen." 

That brief pause garnered me a bonus in my trees over the road photo.

Just as I aimed my camera down the roadway, a deer walked across it and paused, looking my way when it heard the chime the camera makes when I turn it on. 

The Grand River flows through the north side of Davis City, the little town closest to Nine Eagles State Park. I took this picture from the bridge looking to the northwest. By the way, we did not see even one eagle while there, let alone nine of them. 

According to the IAGenWeb site for Decatur County, "Oral legend handed down through the generations was that the name Nine Eagles derived from the first white settlers observing nine eagles roosting in the trees of the area. The first postoffice in the township of Hamilton, established in 1849, was named Nine Eagles. There was also a trading post and mill nearby.

From Davis City we went west and north to Slip Bluff Lake County Park.

The lake can be accessed by foot from the first Iowa Welcome Center heading north on I-35 from the Iowa-Missouri state line, which we could have done, but we wanted to stay off the interstate.

Standing on the bluff, behind a low retaining wall, looking north across the fields, farms and woods that make our state so beautiful.

I am somewhat confident that this is where part of the bluff 'slipped' off at one time, providing a name for the park.

We saw many yellow and black 'slow moving vehicle' safety signs with a horse and buggy motif while in the Decatur County area, but it wasn't until we were west of Lamoni that we saw one on the highway. There is a community of  Old Order Amish around Lamoni and while we have stopped at the Amish Country Store in the Iowa Welcome Center on the west side of I-35 many times, we passed by on this trip. By the way, it worried me to see this buggy coming down the highway just over the brow of a hill. All I could think was, "What if some fast moving vehicle comes over the hill?" 

I only took one more photo on the way home - this one through the windshield at 55 mph - of the Eighme Schoolhouse on the west side of Hwy 169 north of Mt. Ayr. 

It is a much photographed building and was in better shape eleven years ago when we did stop there and take photos.

It was a very nice outing on a lovely, almost fall, day.

I brought home a little souvenir - my favorite kind of souvenir - a rock found near the lichen stick in the park. My already dubbed - Nine Eagles Rock.

A Hand Tinted Photograph From 1955

 

It's a photo I've been familiar with since I was almost 10-1/2 years old - a picture of we four siblings taken April 21, 1955. Baby brother Leslie Louis was 14 mos, 4 days old. Ronald was just shy of his 15th birthday and Betty was 8-1/2. Ron was the only one of us who had blue eyes.

If I remember correctly, the traveling photographer was sponsored by the Gamble's Store. His camera was upstairs, which during the Christmas season, became toyland.

So even though this picture has been around a long time, I had never seen the back of it before, nor thought about how it appeared in color. Besides the date, noted by Mom, glued on the back is a handwritten note, made by the photographer, delineating the following: 

"Girl Back - H. med Brown, E. Brown, Jacket red"

"Girl Front - H. med Brown, E. Brown, Sweater-red & white, Plants-Blue"

"Big Boy - H. med Brown, E. Blue, T Shirt-White, Shirt-red-white-blue & green Plaid, Jacket collar, Navy & lt. Blue, Pants-Blue"

"Baby - H. m. Brown, E. Brown, Shirt-white, Pants-Blue - red & white & blue Plaid, Shoes-white"

Now, when almost everyone has a phone with a built in camera, color pictures and videos are a mere seconds away. It's interesting to take a look back at what a hand tinted photograph used to involve.

Wickedly Wild & Wondrous Wednesday

It had been almost a month since we last went on one of our little adventures. At first we were just going to go out to Green Valley, but I said, "What about Nodaway Lake west of Greenfield?" Bud had camped and fished there many years ago so he was ready to go back. On the outskirts west of Greenfield is a sign pointing the way to both Greenfield and Nodaway Lakes.

We stopped first at Greenfield Lake which has some nice picnicing,  fishing and camping spots and a paved walking trail which circles the lake.

But honestly, the most interesting thing I saw there was this solar powered monitoring station.

So it was back out to the road then on south and west to Nodaway Lake.

This was the right place. It was secluded, relatively wild, i.e., natural, and there was only one other human around - a man fishing off a dock on the east side of the lake.

A narrow gravel roadway took us around to the west side of the lake, angled east and then south to a turn around.

This was my kind of venture into the natural world. But I couldn't see all that I wanted to from a car. "Stop here so I can get out." And HD obliged.

The first photo was that one above of the dead tree in the water.

 

Next was this one of Blue Wood Asters.


And the entrance of a Funnel Spider.

At water's edge, more Blue Wood Aster and, I think, possibly, some Great Blue Lobelia.

As well as Goldenrod in bud.

Yellow flowers always grab my attention. At first I thought this lone bloom could be Partridge Pea, but I'm almost certain it is a Yellow Jewelweed blossom.

The remains of a tree trunk which made me think of a gaping maw. 😏

I had to smell the White Sweet Clover. I love it's vanilla like fragrance.

On one side of the roadway was the water, on the other side, the woods.

More Blue Wood Asters, but here I was actually attracted to the lichen and fungi on the dead wood.

At the turn around there is an old iron gate and this wooden walk through fence stile.

Pass through and you are on a path into the woods.

I'm not able to go as far as I would like - maybe after I get my new hip we can go back and explore more extensively.

When Mother Nature so clearly highlights a scene, you'd best pay attention or miss out on something special.

White Snakeroot and a red leaf.

It looked like the path forked at this glade. To the left, down by the water? To the right, deeper into the woods?

I hope I get to find out the next time.

Heading back down the path. You can see that iron gate in the distance.

It is like the ones we had on the farm when I was young, before new, lighter gates replaced them. 

Those old gates were heavy and hard for a young person to drag open and closed. Now seeing one brings back nostalgic memories.

More White Snakeroot a little deeper into the tangled undergrowth of the woods.

Back at the stile and some kind of vine that I'm not even going to guess at.

One final shot of the lake and more of the Blue Wood Asters.

This was just the outing I didn't even know I needed. Perfect in every way.

It is good to be out in the natural world. No, not just good -- necessary.

💚💛💞😊