Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Poem for Wednesday and Currituck Heritage Park

The Noble Nature
By Ben Jonson

     It is not growing like a tree
     In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
          A lily of a day
          Is fairer far in May,
     Although it fall and die that night—
     It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.

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Daniel went out to lunch with my father, so I spent most of the afternoon with Adam for a change after he got back from cross country practice (tryouts are Thursday, and while he's not worried about making the team, he wants his time to be good). We had lunch and went driving, which he has only done once before, in a parking lot, but we drove around the neighborhood to the high school and back for an hour and he did fine. Then we came home and he started sorting his stuffed animals to give many away because he wants to redecorate his bedroom -- for a while there was an avalanche of animals on my bed and it was kind of sad in a nostalgic way!

I went for a walk during the half hour when it looked like it was going to rain hard, though we ended up only getting drizzle. The local animals must have been expecting a storm, though, because they were all over the place -- three bunnies, lots of chipmunks and squirrels and birds, six deer that went walking at their own pace across the street while cars waited for them. I had found the original Total Recall on Blu-Ray in Target yesterday for $5, which is about the same cost as renting it, so I bought it and we watched it tonight; it was bloodier than I remembered and Inception clearly owes it a debt, as does Stargate. Here are some photos from Currituck Heritage Park:


Two kids pulled this crab up with a little net. It did the Angry Crab Dance and raced back into the water.


There were cacti growing at the entrance to the park...


...and gulls flying over the boats docked there.


We walked on the boardwalk through the wetlands, where we saw this egret...


...and a snake in the wetlands grasses.


Families were fishing, crabbing, and sharing picnics...


...and the seagulls were hoping to find leftovers, both from people's lunches and from shellfish caught by other birds.


But the most famous feature of the park is Currituck Lighthouse, one of the few in the area in its original location.

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