BLEAK DECEMBER

This final month is passing quickly - breathless days tumbling towards the end of a frantic year.

I'm now a year older, feeling a thousand years older, feeling completely exhausted to the ultimate point of no return. The unexpected pitfalls of life have a way of doing that. I'm used to them, of course, but they become more brutally incessant and draining with the passing of time.

Is this too depressing? I'm a hardcore realist seasoned with the morbid shadow of poetic flair. I've chased enough illusive rainbows to finally realize that they don't exist. Think what you like.

No rainbows in sight today, but my shredded nerves were slightly calmed by a brief walk in my back yard - shortly before the predicted rain arrived. 

No ice today, no bitter cold weather like there was last week, but a penetrating dampness that chills the soul and withers the heart like the echo of death's kiss.

My camera batteries are dying....but they valiantly lasted during my trek in the woods.
The photos capture the essence of my environment but give no indication of the damp chill, the perilous mud and slippery moss, the persistent stickers that take up residence in my clothes, and the abundant thorns that delight in piercing my flesh.

 December dawn, as seen from the back porch

....and the group of tall bleak trees that I love, which are near the back porch.

I took this photo from my bedroom window about a week ago - when the morning sun illuminated the neighboring mountain. This mountain is only visible during the winter months - when the trees are bare.

Another view of the mountain during my walk today.

 A few distant evergreens in my "yard", which occasionally pique my imagination and make me think I'm in the Alps.

Tall, bare tree

(much taller in real than it appears here)

Meanwhile, in the forest, some lazy autumn leaves still cling to the trees.

My house (or shack) is just to the left of this photo (a tiny fraction of the back porch is almost visible).

The unnerving sound of nearby hunter's rifles encouraged me to cut the walk short and go inside. No matter, since my back and knee were hurting like hell.

Thank you for accompanying me on my walk.

A WALK IN THE WOODS

 
I always have interesting blog posts that I intend to write - and then laziness gets in the way and I wind up doing annoyingly boring crap about the cats....or the forest.

Did I ever mention that living with three cats could drive a completely sane and rational person to insanity and thoughts of murder?

Not that I'm completely sane or rational, mind you. It was merely an inconsequential figure of speech. 

Did I ever mention that this has been the coldest April I can remember?
It's finally slightly warming up, but the next two nights are supposed to be in the 30's again (Fahrenheit).

The frigid night frosts have killed all of the beautiful pink and purple spring blossoms, but - miraculously - some of the white blossoms have survived. These are courtesy of the dogwood trees.  

After days (weeks? months??) of torrential rain, it finally cleared today and the sun actually appeared. Which is cause for celebration.

My celebratory mood was momentarily thwarted when I went outside and saw the first tick of the season.....and soon afterwards was chased back inside by a rowdy mob of angry bees.

Undaunted and admirably persistent, I grabbed my El Cheapo camera and decided to go for a brief walk in the woods.

Fortunately the woods are on my property and only a few yards from the back door. Otherwise I wouldn't survive the ordeal.

The intense joy that I get from sharing these photos with you is almost indescribable. 
I can only imagine the intense joy you get from seeing them.

Am I being a sarcastic wise guy?
Naw. Not a chance. 

 Actually, this dogwood tree is not exactly in the woods - it's right near my garage. 

Okay - here we are in the woods. It's high noon on a lovely day. All the trees are coming to life, thanks to the endless recent rain. 

 The forest is filled with the incessant warble (warble??) of birds. Robins, wrens, cardinals, bluebirds, and lots of woodpeckers. And hawks soaring high above the trees.

I saw wild turkeys in the front yard a few days ago, but they wandered away before I could get the camera.

 I like this one. The sun is right behind the tree.

A thought:

Should I copyright my photos? I was  suddenly thinking about the copyrighted stolen questions that I used on my previous blog post.

Anyway, if you use these photos for any purpose other than your own personal intense pleasure, I'll find out where you live and beat the stuffing out of you. Then I'll put an eternal Hungarian curse on you.

I might look sweet and adorable, but I'm tough.

 

INTERMISSION

I feel lousy and things have been going bad (or badly, for all you grammar freaks). 

This morning, despite my abject misery and negative attitude, I decided to venture outside for a walk in the woods.
It has been raining for the past three days (remnants of Hurricane Irma), so I didn't go far - - just stayed on my own property.

It was a pleasant walk - despite mud up to my ankles and distant gunfire. I always worry that a trigger-happy myopic hillbilly will mistake me for Big Foot.

Despite running into a twenty foot spider web which looked like something from Conan Doyle's Lost World, I didn't have any mishaps.
But I came home annoyingly wet and covered in mud. With remnants of spider web on my hat, face.....
...and in my mustache....

For your viewing pleasure, boys and girls, I brought my El Cheapo camera with me and took some unremarkable and uninteresting pictures of the gloomy wet forest.
The forest won't be beautiful until the foliage transforms into autumnal colors - which won't happen for another month.
A few random leaves just couldn't wait until autumn....

 The entrance of the forest:

which reeks with the possibility of Red Riding Hood wolves and Hansel and Gretel witches.

It was so dark that my camera flash kept going off, but when I tried taking a few pics without the flash they looked really crappy.

The good news is that all the ticks are gone (for the season), so I only had to worry about running into 15,000 other kinds of creepy bugs. Including mega giant spiders.

But I'm a tough dude. I can take it.

 

I never allow my cats to go anywhere near the forest, but I do let them out on the back porch for a breath of air. Scruffy was very reluctant to come back inside this morning.

(I plan to paint the back porch within the next few weeks - because it looks like hell. I already painted the front porch)

I didn't intend to center these final paragraphs, but the Blogger gremlins won't allow me to fix it.

FIRST WALK IN THE WOODS

 This morning

Actually, it's my first forest walk of the autumnal season. There's not much to see in the summer - except eternal greenery, bugs, spider webs, moss, and snakes.

Now that it's autumn, the only thing I have to fear is being shot by a hunter - - or intimidated by a ghost.....
The autumn foliage isn't at its glorious peak yet, but it's such a beautifully warm day that I was inspired to get up off my sedentary ass and wander. 

I didn't really wander too far at all (only on my property), but it was enough to absorb the essence of my surroundings.....whatever that means.

I have several Halloweeny-type posts lined up, but decided to do a few photo posts first - - in order to disarm you with my charm and photographic expertise - - and hopefully to expunge the bitter taste of my recent political rants.

I'm actually a harmless sweetheart, but there are a few clueless souls who don't realize it (I'm writing this accompanied by a wry smile).

This has been a fairly good week, by my standards. On Tuesday my cousin Nancy drove me into one of the big cities (big meaning population over 100....just jesting...). We visited a huge bookstore and later had a fantastic dinner - which we both deserved.

On Thursday I drove into town to get much-needed supplies (photo documentation on my previous post).

Here are some of the pics I took this morning.

This was taken at around noon, and I'm surprised at how low the sun is this time of year.

It's difficult to see on the photos just how tall some of the trees are.

Scratch preferred to watch from a window.