Rural Light, Rural Shadow

Scrolling through photos for the last post, I came upon a forgotten photo safari. The images were too beautiful to let them die in my library. So here's a little flashback to the lush beauty of early November along an Appalachian Ohio run.

On Voting Day, November 4, Chet and Bill and I went early to our tiny community hall in Dalzell to vote.

We were the sixth and seventh people through the door, and probably the first and last Boston terrier of the day. (He had to inspect the booths, meet and greet).

It being a very cold and damp but sunny morning, I decided to run a nearby road as far as I could, then turn around and come back. Which turned out to be three miles out, three back.

It was BEAUTIFUL and I was so glad to be out, even though it was terribly damp and cold down along 15 Mile Creek and I had not remembered gloves. I think I finally warmed up around Mile 4.

Two hundred fifty

Waxwings trill and coalesce.

Pileated yaks.

Hermit thrush whispers

Rings silver bells in my soul.

A perfect morning

on a dirt road near town hall.

We blackened ovals.

The light being perfect and golden and the morning shadows being long, the photos came out well.

There are a couple of ways to see this: A cross commemorating an accident where a child perhaps died, or a panda crucifixion. Either way it's an odd image. I'm sure I could get the story if I half tried. Just have to talk to the right people.

 How would this barn look painted red? Let's see. Slap some paint on her...

Along the roadside, the witch hazel was in bloom, sending out a scent like freshly printed mimeo paper. I'm glad I remember what that smelled like, when the teacher would bring the purple-blue tests, still wet and cold from the printer, and we'd smash the paper against our noses and huff the smell. That was the nice part about taking tests in elementary school.

I have gotten in the habit of sticking my iPhone up to cracks in barns, to see what's inside. I love the patterns, the light, the mystery of it all. These are scenes I can't see with my big ol' eye. The cracks are too small.

Egad, the shadow of this simple chain and padlock.

Long winter shadows

Old rough boards...may they never

cease to fascinate!

One thing we've got here

is long winter shadows and

old rough boards. Plenty.

Chet sniffs out mysteries of his own. His coat shines like burnished iron.

This is a good good road. We should take new roads more often.

These cobwebs were blowing back and forth in the draft coming into the barn, giving them a wonderful blur of motion.

What's inside? Do you see a gently smiling gorilla face? Mona Lisa Gorilla?

The interior.  

So many lines and rectangles.

Virginia creeper makes crazy caterpillar shadows.

It's one of those mornings when I'm finding little paintings everywhere I look.

This is a hideous exotic Miscanthus grass that I kill wherever I find it on our land. Not everyone shares my abhorrence of it; some of my neighbors dig it up and plant it in their yards because they think it's pretty. Knock yourself out. Before long that's all you'll have in your yard. And you might try to walk through a stand of it before you decide to plant it. Your funeral.

I never see a house like this, standing patient and abandoned, but I want to move in and write a book there, mice and musty air and all. I come to these little roads to move my old bones, to dream.