Christmastime, Holly berries and Pinecones

 

Tis the season for beauty, blessings and peace on earth.  And this is certainly a time to celebrate what God reveals to us. As the weather gets colder my attention turns indoors. And I am constantly reminded of the great peace that I get from being outdoors! I feel blessed to be outdoors often wherever I am and it gives me great satisfaction, in addition I feel close to God. Here in Tennessee we have some decently comfortable days even in December.  So getting outside is still a daily adventure usually.  I'm a gatherer so when I am outdoors I enjoy finding things that I can use to decorate for the holidays inside.  We have holly growing wild in the woods and it is so pretty with it's red berries.  Due to the many pine trees behind our home I have collected an abundance of pinecones too. This brings to mind the ultimate patience of my husband on my first train ride ever from New York City to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware many moons ago. We had flown from Tennessee to New York City and taken a train to Rehoboth to visit our friends. It was my first such excursion. Somewhere along the way I had found and collected a bunch of pinecones. As we got ready to leave my husband asked me what I had planned to do with them and where did I plan to put them on the way home? I said that I would get a bag and in his rushed state he said, “nah, I'll just put them in the bottom of the cardboard hang up bag cover that the airline put our hang up bag in”. I looked perplexed I'm sure! We were fresh out of college and his college antics were still in his blood, so he grabbed the pinecone and his dirty clothes and dumped them all mixed up in the bottom of the carton. The train was a bit late and we had to lug things around at the station, it was hot and crowded and when the train got there I was a bit startled at the mad dash to board. See, I was a young polite Southern girl that was not use to the hustle and bustle. So, I politely waited and we were some of the last to board because, I let everyone in front of me/us! As we paraded down the aisle with all of our STUFF in tow, on the now mobile train, I noticed that I was alone...when a looked back my husband had stopped.  Immediately I realized what had happened, the bottom of his cardboard carton carrying a plethora of pinecone mixed with his dirty clothes, (“undies”, some still wet from beach basketball games and swimming) all were strung out about 20 feet behind him and some very attractive young women had alerted him of his mishap followed by loud giggles. He seemed only slightly flustered and later we laughed but at that moment he probably wanted to RING my neck! I still have most of those pinecones stored away with Christmas decor after 33 years together!

Christmastime in the past has often been a time of emotional stress and at times been downright depressing. Admittedly it was my own emotional climate. I use to get agitated, nervous, frantic and overly frustrated with my unrealistic need for everything to be "perfect", that it made it hard to enjoy CHRISTmastime! So needless to say becoming more peaceful has not happen overnight! I have made a choice not only at Christmastime but throughout the year to be more peaceful; less stressed and enjoy life. This Christmas I didn't do as much decorating.  Instead of 4000 or more clear lights on our artificial tree we got a live tree for the second time in over twenty years. I may have put over 1000 but at least it was an improvement to the three or four days that it took to erect the 12 foot spectacle of visions in my head with all of those lights.  And that's just talking about the tree! Never mind the garland down the stairs and fireplaces and the list goes on. This year things had to change even more. My husband had taken a new job and he had travel nine out of the last ten weeks. And we had to be in Beckley, West Virginia for the official takeover of the new University of Charleston, Beckley campus.  And we laughed that those pinecone had to go too dadgumit!

 

                                    

Chester A Mississippi Fox Approximately 40 Years Later

     With my current fox sightings I asked my cousin about two kit foxes that she and I had spotted many years ago while horseback riding (we were very young…), it has stirred my memory bank so, last night I asked her about an old article written around 1972.  My cousin sent me the article and two old pictures yesterday.  The old memory bank was stirred, we were riding back along the edge of the woods on our family’s property in Gulfport, Mississippi and we spotted these two young foxes. We told her older brother, my cousin, Carl Jr., about our encounter.  Being an avid young hunter and familiar with the woods, he was excited to check these out.  He found them and discovered over the course of observing them for a while that they were alone.  The mother was not returning to the den.  A highway bordered the property so possibly she had been injured or killed however; we do not know her fate.  What I recall is that he safely trapped the two and my cousins and I enjoyed playing and watching their development.  

     My family was living in Tennessee and I only recall weeklong visits and brief time on the gulf coast with the fox during the 1970’s.  See the two foxes were allowed to remain free and something unfortunate happened to the little female.  The only survivor was “Chester”, as he was promptly named and adored by all.  He and my kitten, an orange tabby, became best of buddies and enjoyed countless hours romping and playing “King of the Sand Hill”, a vision that I will always enjoy!  As children, we thought that was the funniest thing to watch them run, tackle and roll around.  That caused lots of giggles and laughter galore among all of us cousins; and there were a bunch of us!   My kitten, “Captain” and the fox, “Chester”, had what looked like the best time ever!  I believe that everyone enjoyed having Chester around, there was even an article written in the Sun Herald Times about him.  He would greet visitors with a funny noise while they were still in their car according to my aunt and then retreat back into the woods.  

     Chester grew to adulthood, wore a little bell around his neck to alert others of his arrival and one day a stray female German shepherd, started coming around.  Shortly after that Chester ran off with her and was never seen on a routine bases or with certainty of identification after that.  However, the offspring of Chester may be the current visitors that most recently come fairly routinely to visit and play with my Aunt Mary Ann's dog, Cassey, who lives on the old home place now.  We hope that Chester lived happily ever after and we sure enjoyed him for a time.

Sewanee's Little Red Fox

I had run head on into a fox early in the summer at the lake behind our home but I didn't get a good photograph then. It was frightened and moved very quickly. This evening this young little fox was alarmingly calm to have me so close. My radar was on high alert for fear of something not being exactly right but I was equally excited to get some shots. In my excitement and haste to photograph this little red fox I dropped my glasses in the car (the story of my life! Ugh...) and could not see my camera setting. So, these were the best that I could do under the circumstances. I ran into this little fox again as I headed home around 10:00 PM. I am hopeful that we will have another safe encounter where I will get some clearer shots!

Moving rocks

Today I took my husbands old Chevy truck and searched for some good rocks for landscaping. I have a hard time passing up a rock pile!  And as always I'm trying to get things looking better before our 4th of July family and friends gathering in Sewanee.  I had some luck and found some nice ones to spruce up the landscaping.
When we built our home ten years ago I had the good fortune and offer to clear some rocks from our contracts project managers farm land. It was covered in large river rocks. They were perfect for my landscaping ideas and needs And the man needed those rocks cleared so that he could plant and farm his land. We helped each other!  I'm adding more rocks and it gives me a great workout! So it's a win, win for me since a hate workouts in the gym.  Being productive and getting the benefit of a workout is my idea of staying fit.  And the yard looks much better too!

This is a picture of our dog Sam laying in the rocks just to be close to where I was working I suppose.  I  cannot imagine that those rock were very comfortable to lay in.  I tried to coax him to a better spot!  But that's were he wanted to be!

Revel In The Nature of God's Beauty

All you have to do is go outside and look around. If nothing else just look at the sky! This morning I grabbed the camera, my phone, car keys and shouted to Carly, our dog, that we were going for a ride...it was short but she always gets excited to get to go for a ride! It use to be a truck ride but she can no longer jump that high and has put on a good bit of weight in her old age. And I'm not up for picking her behind up very often either at my age! We bought a car from our daughter-in-law that she and it scoot around in these days. It's older, low to the ground and easy on gas. I don't let Carly ride in my nice car these days! When we arrived at the edge of the woods and I parked next to the barn. I noticed how bright the sun was starting to get but it was still nice and cool. As we jumped out of the car I spotted a butterfly and bee on a purple thistle flower. The light was often very bright, I had forgotten my sunglasses, my eyes tried to adjust to the bright morning sunlight but my eyes filled with tears. It made it a bit difficult to see as I scooted though the tall grasses, thinking that I will probably encounter lots of pesky ticks and chiggers! YUCK!!! So far so good though! I'm hoping they don't show up later :0/! We had a very mild winter so they are out in full force this season! Fortunately, I had so much beauty to see that I was bursting with my normal desire and enthusiasm to take it all in so I tip toed for a while then said,” to heck with it”(prayed that the bug spray would work on me), as I plowed right through to the open field. It's always the little things that I get so excited about, spotting a new dragonfly, a tiny blue butterfly that seemed to pose for me and the sunlight peeking through the trees just along the creek bed and along the road was spectacular. So, I encourage you open your eyes to what God has created and to revel in nature's beauty. I try to do it daily myself! It is good for you I promise!

Our Great Pollinators

The amount of pollen that this bee had collected was amazing!  He was sprinkled with pollen everywhere!

A honey bee in utter delight of the reb bud blossoms (like me!) and getting an early start on the season back in March.

Our Salvia seems to be a great attraction for the bumble bees because they visit it often!

This bumble bee is either chilled out or totally pooped out!  I got so tickled at the way it was resting on this leaf.

There are many different pollinators and they work differently since they are not all designed the same. Each type of pollinator feeds on different plants and therefore pollinate different plants in different ways. The most common pollinators are bees, butterflies, birds, and moths. But that's not all, there are more! Other pollinators include flies, beetles, bats, occasionally the wind and man sometimes either by accident and sometimes the deliberate processes that we use to pollinate in order to make better and stronger plants occurs.

To be pollinated, pollen has to be transfered from a stamen to the stigma. When pollen from a plant's stamen is transferred to that same plant's stigma, it is called self-pollination. When pollen from a plant's stamen is transferred to a different plant's stigma, it is called cross-pollination. When cross-pollination occurs it produces stronger plants. The plants have to be of the same species or family in order for cross-pollination to occur. For example, only pollen from a rose can pollinate another rose. Pollen from a daisy or an pear tree would not work on a rose.  It is interesting to watch bees, butterflies and etc. helping this process happen!

This bee had evidently been busy!  And he continued to collect pollen from this thistle flower.

This is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papillo glaucus) helping with the pollination process of the wild azalea. Native azaleas are deciduous shrubs that are in the rhododendron family. They are fairly common where I live as well as an abundance of the mountain Laurel however; I have not noticed the common rhododendron growning abundantly and wild in our forest.

An abundance of cherries totally by mistake

About five years ago we had a late frost and I was so sad about not getting to enjoy the full duration of beautiful and utterly splendid weeping cherry blossoms for the already short time that they last. This year I thought to grabbed some gorgeous photos of the blooms to enjoy forever. And I thought how disappointed I was that this tree had become awkward and misshapen after the late frost had forever changed the appearance of this once lovely tree. I had considered replacing the tree with a much more full and beautiful tree for next year since this tree is a focal point of our front yard landscaping. My busy schedule this spring and lack of rainfall has put a halt to most of my usual gardening but I'm hoping to rebound! Yesterday our youngest son was home briefly after his graduation from college. He had been outside absorbing some sunshine and relaxing after another hummingbird adventure. Then he comes inside and says mom have you noticed the cherries on our tree!!! I said, huh??? Cherries? And he says"Come here and look at these!" I was amazed at the luscious beautiful red cherries growing in abundance on this cherry tree that was grafted to be an ornamental weeping cherry. Now 3/4 of the tree is fruit bearing! Where the graft had been made on the tree, due to that late frost several years ago, we now have a fabulous yield of yummy red cherries!  We are all excited and ready to plant more cherry trees now!