The Afterglow of Memories

 Aster 'Paten'

First of the asters to bloom

Maybe Phylloporus rhodoxanthus, commonly known as the gilled bolete

Swallowed Up!

Winterthur viburnum

Dustin

 

In the desert of Nevada, there was a time in my childhood, when the month of August was always the rain month.  It rained every week, and the wide streets of that small town we called home turned into rivers on each side during the heavy storms.  If there was no lightning, we were allowed to play in the rain and street-rivers in our swim suits.  In the winter months we always had snow that came up to the knees of a little child.  In dry weather hellacious wind storms were common.
 
During one of these wind storms the sand was blowing so furiously, Mom pulled all the shades down and the draperies shut to block out the dust that was filling the rooms and causing us to cough.  The electricity was out, so being the self-contradicting demurely pushy child I was, I put on a sock puppet show with a magical made up story off of the top of my head, so to speak.  The puppets were Cecile, a dragon I made, with button eyes, thick black washer nostrils, red felt inside mouth with a forked tongue, and a felt zigzag fin down his back.  The other would go down in childhood history as the one eventually forgotten…poor creature.  My sister loves this memory.

I’m sure we ended the day playing canasta in candlelight, as it was the one card game mom loved and taught us all to play as her rivals and partners.  Another time, I took a play from a magazine, and talked my siblings into memorizing their lines and making their own costumes.  We preformed it in front of mom and dad, and maybe others; I don’t remember.  I even was their school teacher during one summer, having them sit at makeshift desks and doling out mathematical and spelling problems to solve.  My sister says she loved it, as I made it all so much fun, but I’ll never know if the others agreed.

Sometimes these memories give me a strange feeling of wanting to be there once more, to take in the sights and sounds as I remember a time when life was hope and innocence.  When exploring the world was my backyard or taking the path that one street over led through the grade school playground, past the small house division of Lake View (although the view of the lake was a myth only a telescope could disprove), and up that sandy desert road that soon meandered through the town's smoky and smelly mounds of burning garbage dumped and onward towards the foothills of that almighty looming Mount Grant. 

(sigh...)

American Dogwood Tree next to trunk of White Ash Tree

American beautyberry and Jeana phlox

A Florida predatory stink bug nymph, a species of carnivorous shield bugs.

Here it is eating a plant eating shield bug.

It is considered a beneficial insect.

Black walnut husks left by squirrel

Grey squirrel eating seeds hanging on American hornbeam

Euonymus americanus

Going to seed

This post is linked to:

My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters