Greetings from Huntley Meadows

We had thought about going to Calvert Cliffs on Friday, but it rained and the ground was muddy enough near home that we were afraid it would be extremely muddy hiking to the Chesapeake. So instead we went to Huntley Meadows, which we haven't visited in over a year. The beavers have been busy -- whole sections are flooded which weren't before, while the water is shallow enough in other places that on a warm day like today, turtles were on the fallen logs. 

 

When we got home, we watched the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which was...cute? I don't like Christmas specials and I've had to listen to the internet trash Thor: Love and Thunder for family stuff and jokes that didn't quite land when this one had a lot more of those (and not nearly enough Nebula). Then, after dinner, we watched the last episode of Limitless, in which Chris Hemsworth and his wife are adorable together, and played Azul.  

 

Poem for Saturday and Huntley Meadows

Everyone in Me Is a Bird
By Melissa Studdard

Mind was a prison, ruby lined
in its lipstick noir—everything woman
I was expected to be, trapped between
papered walls. What they said to do, I did not
but only levitated at the burning,

the body a water in which I drowned, the life
a windshield dirty with love. What they
said to think, I thought not but instead made
my mind into a birdcage with wings

-------- 

Friday was a pretty, chilly day during which I thankfully had only a few things I had to get done, since we're saving the vacuuming till right before we pick up the kids since the cats will only make more vacuuming necessary. I finished the book I was reading in bed in the morning since I had a cat pinning me there anyway, did a bunch of holiday-related work, and we had my parents here for pizza since we're going there twice next week. 

It was a shit news day because of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. We caught up on Ghosts and Legends of Tomorrow, but the real highlight (?) of my evening TV-watching was Netflix's The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star, which was just as ridiculous as the first two and just as ridiculous as you'd expect, meaning quite enjoyable -- the cast is fun and the scenery is pretty. Here's Huntley Meadows fall leaf and water color: 

Poem for Thursday and Huntley Meadows Herons

The Gray Heron
By Galway Kinnell

It held its head still
while its body and green
legs wobbled in wide arcs
from side to side.  When
it stalked out of sight,
I went after it, but all
I could find where I was
expecting to see the bird
was a three-foot-long lizard
in ill-fitting skin
and with linear mouth
expressive of the even temper
of the mineral kingdom.
It stopped and tilted its head,
which was much like
a fieldstone with an eye
in it, which was watching me
to see if I would go
or change into something else.

-------- 

A lot of my Wednesday was a chore day, though I got to talk to my high school friends at lunchtime (2/3 of them, anyway; the other is in the Virgin Islands with her dad) and just before I got off that call, we had an estimator arrive to inspect the flood damage and figure out what is going to be necessary to repair the drywall. So at least stuff is getting done. 

We took a walk in the late afternoon because the weather was once again gorgeous, had veggie chili for dinner, watched The Masked Singer which finally unmasked Duck Dynasty, and then watched some Ted Lasso including the Christmas episode (sure it's sappy but why does the internet care so much?). Some of the herons we saw at Huntley Meadows last weekend: 

Greetings from Huntley Meadows

Sunday was a chilly but beautiful day, so after a morning of chores so we wouldn't have to get all the trash and recycling sorted in the evening, we went to Huntley Meadows near Alexandria. It's too late in the season to see turtles and frogs, but we saw several herons, many ducks, and lots of evidence of busy beavers -- they have built dams that flooded a section of the woods since we were there last year. It was overcast when we arrived, but we had blue sky by the time we left, with lots of crows cawing in it. 

 

We had to stop at Giant and Home Depot on the way back to get stuff for when the kids are here next week, so we had dinner on the late side, just in time for Doctor Who, which seems to be better written than last season but is not really holding my attention for some reason. We also watched some of the Kansas City-Raiders game, because the Seahawks game was a total disappointment and we were in shock about the Washington-Tampa Bay result. We talked briefly to the kids too just to coordinate shopping for their visit! 

 

Greetings from Huntley Meadows

It was a lovely, overcast Saturday, so after lunch we went to Huntley Meadows in Fairfax County, which we haven't visited all year. We saw a muskrat almost as soon as we got to the boardwalk, though it was diving in and out of plants in the water and then swam off so it was hard to photograph! Then we walked around the wetlands (almost no cattails this year, there are other flowering plants and lots of trees turning already) and saw many herons, egrets, turtles, ducks, a couple of kingfishers, and some splashing far away that turned out to be another (or perhaps the same) muskrat: 

Saturday was also Daniel's birthday, so we came home for pizza, then Skyped with him and his girlfriend Kayla, whom he's visiting for the weekend, plus Adam (now looking for jobs in Seattle) and Katherine (who started her new job this week) and my parents. Afterward we watched the new episode of The Boys (I was really ready for Homelander to break Stormfront's neck, so of course they're in love instead) and I was subjected to several hours of college football, including a game I'm pretty sure Virginia Tech won by a lot over NC State although half the Hokies are out with coronavirus.

Poem for Tuesday and Huntley Meadows Wildlife

Tell Me Not Here, It Needs Not Saying
By A.E. Housman

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses
The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,
The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger’s feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.

--------

We had beautiful, unseasonably warm weather on Monday to make up for the cold front that's coming tomorrow, but I did nothing exciting -- laundry, kitchen cleanup, getting a blister changing drawer pulls, walk in the park, Pokemon raid in a church parking lot. I didn't do anything Veterans Day-specific except talk to some veteran friends and raid with people off work for the government.

We watched the fourth episode of Watchmen, which is still dark but holding my interest, and His Dark Materials, which I find a little hard to get into, having never read the books and only seen the mediocre movie once. Then we watched the final episode of Catherine the Great, in which I loved Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke and the sets and costumes but not much else. From Huntley Meadows:

Greetings from Fairfax

It was a chilly, lovely November day that demanded to be enjoyed outdoors, so after a brief visit to the small, very crowded Icelandic Association holiday bazaar at the American Legion post in Fairfax, we went to nearby Huntley Meadows, where the herons and geese were plentiful despite the chill but we saw only one turtle and it dove before I could get a photo into the unexpectedly high water (the beavers have been busy, there were several new dams, though we did not see the beavers themselves).

We drove home under an amazing fall sky, stopped at the food store, and had stew for dinner because it was that kind of day. Then we watched part of Ron Howard's Beatles series on PBS, followed by the first three episodes of the new season of Jack Ryan, which is more violent than I prefer to watch and the female characters thus far are more types than fully developed people, but I'm sure I'll watch the rest of the season so maybe they will get better storylines. A few pics over the course of the day: