Bolin Forest – Page 2

damp, dark and dreary

What a strange month August has been so far. After July ended with the distinction of being the hottest month ever recorded in North Carolina history, in stark contrast, the first 17 days of August never reached the average high temperature of 90. But the dew point has remained very high, giving me a new appreciation for the term warm and muggy. We’ve had a lot of rain and every day feels damp, dark and dreary.

On August 6 we spent two and a half hours seeing a pulmonologist and received an alarming diagnosis for Tim, interstitial lung disease. This finally explains his increasing shortness of breath and the cough, in spite of having all his heart disease issues addressed. We’re still trying to come to terms with all this new information and future uncertainties. It didn’t help having the washing machine and the air conditioning break down in the middle of things.

I’m more and more impatient for some better weather in the autumn so we can get outside again. In the meantime, as far as blogging goes, I distract myself with searching for and then pairing quotes and paintings, and have scheduled quite a few of them to be published many months from now. I’m making good progress with my resistance training, treadmill walking, and tai chi, but it’s not the same as walking among the trees. Work on my family history boxes has stalled.

Returning home from the laundromat early one morning I discovered these ghostly white things sticking up out of the moss in our front yard. My first thought was ghost plants but these are much smaller and don’t have a flower on top. I learned they are a fungus called clavaria. There may be 1200 species in the genus and I don’t know which species these are. They do seem to love my very damp moss garden, though.

wordless wednesday

a fledgling cardinal

It’s been so sweet listening to our cardinals sing this summer, and now they have some youngsters exploring the world around them.

This one seemed particularly interested in our birdbath so I was able to get some fuzzy pictures through the sliding glass doors. He kept picking up and putting down catkins, splinters, and twigs, as if he was learning what might or might not be edible. He never did go into the water, though.

So, art thou feathered, art thou flown,
Thou naked thing? — and canst alone
Upon the unsolid summer air
Sustain thyself, and prosper there?
Shall no more with anxious note
Advise thee through the happy day,
Thrusting the worm into thy throat,
Bearing thine excrement away?
Alas, I think I see thee yet,
Perched on the windy parapet,
Defer thy flight a moment still
To clean thy wing with careful bill.
And thou are feathered, thou art flown;
And hast a project of thine own.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(The Fledgling)

wordless wednesday

bluebird bath at high noon

7.1.25 ~ eastern bluebird couple in for a bath

male bluebird drying off on the deck railing

young chipping sparrow under the birdbath, waiting for a turn

same young chipping sparrow waiting patiently from the railing
(he/she never did get a turn)

male contemplating a third dip in the bath

silent sunday

bluebirds and friends

Visitors to our deck and birdfeeder are fun to watch, and sometimes, even hold still long enough for getting some pictures through the sliding glass doors. The birds have already eaten one seed cylinder and we decided to move a new one a little closer to the deck and birdbath. So far the squirrels have not been able to get to it.

We have a large red mulberry tree which has been tagged for removal. 🙁 I think the birds will miss its branches, where they perch waiting for their turn at the feeder. From the nuts and blossoms deposited on our deck, from way up high, I know we also have a sweet gum tree and a tulip tree, but they don’t have nice eye-level branches.

Blue has always been my favorite color, and I love the blue and brown color combination found on bluebirds. Up north, I got my fix of blue from the blue jays who came for peanuts along with the squirrels on our balcony. Down south here I rarely see a blue jay. But the lovely bluebirds are everywhere!

bluebird photo shoot

A bluebird finally sat still long enough on our deck railing for me to get some pictures through the sliding glass doors! He seemed to be waiting for a pair of goldfinches to finish splashing around in the birdbath.

As my chronic illness is making it harder to plan long walks and spend much time away from my home, the way we spend our days is changing. Most of my walks are now taken on a new treadmill, so I don’t have to worry about the weather or ticks or the location of the nearest restroom. I’ve fallen in love with tai chi and have also started resistance training to strengthen my bones. Tim gets plenty of exercise at cardiac rehab three mornings a week.

None of those activities make for good photo opportunities, though! We still try to visit the botanical garden once a week, as it has bathrooms for me and benches for Tim. But since we have so many birds right outside our windows we have started trying to make our garden even more inviting for them. We now have a birdbath and a suet feeder and a cylinder feeder, all of which are visited often.

We even hung up a little birdhouse. And much to our delight we have both seen a chickadee flying into it, on two separate occasions, but have yet to witness anyone coming out of it, even though we wait patiently.

a goldfinch and a male flower from the sweetgum tree

I so wished I could attend one of the Hands Off! protests on April 5th! I was there with everyone in spirit, but my illness prevented me from being there in person. It was very encouraging to see from news reports and social media posts that a sizable (5.2 million protestors) resistance to tyranny exists and my hope is that we will find a way to prevail.

Freeze warning this morning. I brought my new potted geranium inside.

tulips and a giant troll

3.29.25 ~ Eno River Farm, Hillsborough, North Carolina

I had never gone tulip-picking before so I was excited to visit Eno River Farm for a new experience. What a unique place this farm was. The first thing to be seen was a giant troll, half-buried on top of a grassy hill. We should have walked up the hill to investigate because I later learned that you can climb up the troll’s leg or go inside of his head.

head, hand, leg, and foot of a giant troll

This picture illustrates how incredibly tall some of the trees down here are. And the people in the picture highlight just how big that troll is. But we were here for tulips! We passed an ice cream parlor with plenty of outdoor seating overlooking fields of organic strawberries and made a note to return with the grandchildren when strawberry-picking season arrives.

my favorites ~ these rosy pink ones
I cut three of them to take home

We went inside a nursery to pay for the tulips we cut and came out with an additional, but unplanned purchase, a big red potted geranium for the back deck. We’ll have to see if the squirrels and deer will leave it alone. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the simple beauty of these large tulips on the dining room table where I sit with my laptop most mornings.