herbiehancock

The last several days here have been absolutely gorgeous.  The sun has been shining, the skies have been blue, and the temperatures have been mild and pleasant.  Although the leaves on our trees and most of the ones on our street are still green, I found a few spots of color around town and in the park to share with you.  These pictures were taken two or three days ago.  Since that time many more trees have started to change. I liked the way these dark branches and tree trunks stood out against the yellows and oranges of the leaves behind them.  This is a row of trees along the edge of the soccer fields in various stages of changing to red. A few evenings ago, I noticed they were cutting down some of the trees where the buzzards like to roost.  I imagine it was the buzzards roosting in them that caused the trees to die, at least in part. I wondered if maybe the buzzards had already gone farther south, but then saw dozens of them roosting in the pine trees a...

I took a walk through the neighborhood this morning. It has been quite cool here for several days now--back to hoodie weather. It was 38 degrees this morning. It is 53 degrees here now. I took a few pictures to share with you. Some of my neighbors have decorations up for Halloween. I remember when I was a kid, a pumpkin carved into a jack-o-lantern was the only decoration we ever had for Halloween. Here are some of the things I saw. Hmm...wonder who died? A bird or squirrel, maybe? HA! A skeleton hanging up and a Frankenstein head on the porch If you look closely at the bottom of Frankenstein, you will see chicken feet. That made me laugh. They put a Frankenstein mask over a statue of a chicken on their porch. There were lots of homes that had mums. And there were some pumpkins. Not too many trees have started changing color yet, but this beautiful red one was the exception. It stood out against the other trees and caught my eye . The leaves in the trees in front of my house...

One of the trees in my yard has some very large fungus growing out of holes in the side of it. The smaller one is pictured above. The larger one is pictured below. This is another view of the larger one. This fungus has been coming back every year for a while now. I think this tree is slowly dying. The smaller fungus is perhaps about a foot across the widest part. The larger one I would guess to be about 18 inches or so across the widest part. Fungus Elves have been redecorating in the dark of the night, sneaking so we won't see, adding pungent, spongy shelves to the sides of the maple tree. Now they have a place to store all their treasures and display their knickknacks, and the robins can sit and sing among the elfin bric-a-bracs.

A Choir Of Trees Across the river four trees stand together singing in the spirit choir a song of the seasons to the sky. A sugar maple tree, still clinging to a few clusters of leftover leaves, (as if they were a hymnal) sings about autumn's whispers in a sweet murmuring alto. A stout evergreen, in scratchy choir robes of fir, rumbles out the bass part howling about the winds of winter to any passing cloud that will listen. A tall eastern redbud, practically prancing in feather boas of pink flowers, sings in a jubilant tenor of the sweet smell of gentle spring breezes. And a naked birch, bleached white in the sun, has stripped off its clothes dancing in the heat and reaching high in the air to catch and hold the notes of the summer soprano song. A white board fence watches and listens, the church congregation swaying in the pew. A forsythia bush, the preacher, waits off to the side nodding with approval at the music and waiting for his turn to speak. Across the river four trees ...

I just wanted to share some pictures from my walk yesterday. Spring has arrived. This tree is just down the street from my house. I see a nest of some sort up there close to the top. They certainly have a beautiful view from there. As they say in the real estate business, "Location, location, location." Under the big old trees in the park was a whole carpet of tiny flowers. There were two different kinds. This was one of them. This was the other kind. They all have their heads hanging down. They remind me of little Dutch girl hats or maybe Sally Field as the Flying Nun . I tried to get a bug's eye view of them from the ground underneath them looking up at them. The carpet of flowers covers most of this whole area under the trees in the park. From a distance away, the white flowers on this bush looked like fluffy spiders floating in the air. This is what they looked like up close. My favorite weeping willow tree is getting new leaves. The branches look like big...