Thanksgiving

This magnificent tree lives in my front yard.

Each fall it puts on a spectacular show.

This year's Leaf Extravaganza is taking place 

just as everyone is converging here for Thanksgiving.

For the first time in history a long time, the entire Chesapeake Bay Family, including parents, sisters, boyfriends, Son and Daughter, will be under my roof at the same time.  Son and Daughter will arrive home from Charlottesville today, and based on Daughter's request to have some of her friends spend the night tonight, I am sure there will be a house full of young people starting this evening.

Last year at this time, I was still recovering from my car accident and simultaneously bracing for a major surgery.  The difference between how I feel this year as compared to last year is night and day.

I am eternally grateful to have survived 2015 and am even more grateful for all the good that has happened in 2016.  I'm so thankful to have my entire family--and some special additions--sitting around the table tomorrow.

I'm just thankful for it all.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving!


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p.s.  Although I've not put my intentions into practice, I do still plan to revive this blog and return to more regular postings and writing.  Stay tuned, there is plenty to tell.

Yellow

This gorgeous tree lives in my front yard.

Most of the time, it goes unnoticed. 

It's just one of several I pass 

on my way out of the driveway every day.

Once a year, though, this tree gets all dolled up.

She puts on quite the show for about a week.

These were taken at her peak Saturday morning.

As of Sunday, the leaves were already starting to drop.

Friday I FROZE TO DEATH cheered on the Mathews cross country teams at the state meet outside of Warrenton.  Both teams came in third overall, and we had two individual runners place in the top 15 finishers.  Click here for pictures from that successful event.

Now Daughter will be flung head first into basketball, which means the time I spend on the road will quadruple, once the games start up.

My car currently has 195,000 miles on it and is absolutely begging me to retire from the daily trips to Williamsburg and beyond.  As soon as I identify a logical, affordable replacement, the old Saturn Vue will be bequeathed to Daughter, who gets her license in December.  The Saturn won't mind shuffling Daughter to and from high school. Not one bit.

It's hard to believe next week is Thanksgiving--which means December really isn't that far off.

Time continues to fly by in spite of all my requests that it not.

Fall

This weekend's weather could not have been more perfect.

The skies were sunny and the humidity was low.

Fall is definitely here.

The signs are everywhere.  

The soybean fields have turned from lush green to yellowish brown. 

Sunday around noon I parked the car at Aaron's Beach and jogged four and a half miles along the road and fields pictured above.  The weather was crisp, clear and beautiful; the local nuisances of horseflies, mayflies, fiddler crabs and gnats were nowhere to be found.

Unbeknownst to me, however, the praying mantises and winged monkeys grasshoppers are in full swing these days.  They blended in very well with the pavement I was pounding (and also the soybean fields I was staring at).  The grasshoppers wait until you're just about to step on them and then leap/fly up, up and away.  There were so many of them leaping/flying forth unexpectedly that at one point I started to wonder if I ought not run with my mouth closed and breathe through my nose.

Because, as it was, if even one over-sized, blending-in-to-the-road grasshopper decided at just the right time and at just the right trajectory to fly forth as I was passing by gasping for breath on my otherwise blissful run, chances were pretty good I'd choke to death on that gigantic, winged grasshopper.

I thought long and hard about the obituary and the stories that might be told to anyone inquiring about my death.  "She was running.  It wasn't her heart.  No, it wasn't that cardiac event she often worried about while practicing for that half marathon.  No, it was a grasshopper.  She choked to death on a winged-grasshopper that flew into her mouth while she was running.  They found her in the middle of Aaron's Beach Road."

Then I thought, well, as long as I'm going to die--and odds are pretty good I'm going to at some point--it might as well be a grasshopper, because at least that would be a  humorous way to go.  No?

These thoughts on changing seasons and mortality are brought to you by the number 50, which looms over my head and is about as welcome as a winged grasshopper ready to jump down my throat.

Happy Monday.

Fall Colors

This tree lives near my driveway.

Every fall it produces the most spectacular display of sunshine-yellow leaves.

These last two shots of blue and gold--the colors of Mathews High School--are for good luck for this weekend's state cross country meet.  Mathews has a decent shot at winning both races, and I will be a nervous wreck until it's all over.

I hope your weekend is full of color and free from worries.

Have a great one.

Busy Week

Last Thursday, a beautiful fall day, I drove down to Aaron's Beach and took a few pictures.  (The actual beach and the bay are behind me; this is facing west.) The normally lush, green swamp marsh grass is now autumnal in color.

This may mark the first time in my life I've used the word autumnal.  If you repeat it a few times, it starts to sound weird, sort of like someone is trying to say something else but can't because they've just come from the dentist and they're still loaded up with Novocaine. Or they have a severe speech impediment.

Or something.

Anyway, the colors were autumnal. Also, I hate dentists. And I did not intend this to be a free association sort of blog post, but it looks like that horse is already out of the gate.

The weekend here was equally gorgeous.  Saturday I ran seven slow miles down the quiet back roads that pass near this and Bethel Beach. It was a great day to be outside.  That evening I attended a birthday party (I'll try to post a few photos later in the week) and had my first taste of roasted oysters this year. I assure you it won't be my last.

This week will be busier than usual here.  At work I am helping to manage a 10K/5K run for charity--and I'm also running in it with a bet that I will beat The Big Boss.  Friday is my 30th high school reunion and the Mathews Homecoming parade and football game. (Both Son and Daughter will be in the parade.) Middle Sister flies in for a visit on Friday.  Baby Sister will join us at some point.

In between is the normal flurry of activity that is my life which includes long commutes, keeping squalor, spiders and crickets at bay, scratching pets, ridiculously expensive flea medications that don't work, the logistics of who needs to be where and when, preparing for the half-marathon that's breathing down my neck, and hopefully once and for all taking the three Hefty bags of empty plastic water bottles to the recycling bin at the dump.  I've only been carrying them around in the back of my car for three months, remembering to go to the dump--and driving all the way there--the one and only day it was closed: Wednesday.

In other words, the usual stuff.

Anything exciting going on with you?

Fall

Although dusk and dawn can be cool and crisp,

daytime here remains reasonably warm.

Some of our corn crops already have been harvested.

Other fields, like this one, wait their turn 

for the combine to comb the corn rows.

We're still in the early stages of transition to fall, though.

There's still plenty of grass to cut and lots of

ants to kill green to be found.

Happy Friday.  Have a great weekend.

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p.s. My daughter's birthday is this weekend, which means I will be falling! speaking of Fall    dangling for dear life swinging through canopies of trees on a zipline at Go Ape in Williamsburg .  Silly Me thought I could just drop her and her friend off and pick them up after the 2-3 hour ordeal.  But nooooo.  Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.  

Adult?  Have they met me?

Serenity now.