Tag Archives: walks

Thoughts

The shit days of spring

I am pleased to announce that the shit days of spring are approaching their malodorous end. If you happen to live in non-temperate climates, you may not be accustomed with this rite-of-passage period that takes place every year where I live.

The shit days of spring are that time of the year when pig farmers get to spread the joy of their filthy farm by-products throughout the land, at insanely high prices, under the pretense of fertilizing our grounds. It must put a smile on their faces to know that they’re putting the city slickers through the same shitty time they have year-round, even if it is only for a couple of weeks every year. The regret of not being able to make us smell the offal of their filthy beasts all day, every day, is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that their bank accounts are getting fatter, just like their pigs, with every shovel-full of the nasty stuff they throw our way.

Others are in on the fun as well. Landscaping companies throughout the land rejoice every March. This is their own Christmas time, when they get to sell us pig shit at crazy prices. Just how crazy? Friends of ours who own a house told us they were charged $200 per tree for the privilege of having pig shit dumped around the trunk a couple of springs ago. I can only assume the price has gone up since. That’s right, ladies and gents… The going rate is about $200 for two bags of pig shit mixed with wood chips in the DC area. Ain’t that grand?

So it is with a doubly-chagrined expression that I take walks through our community each spring. For one thing, it smells like shit, and not just like cow shit or horse shit, which would at least smell somewhat decent, but like pig shit, arguably the filthiest, smelliest shit on earth. And for another thing, I can’t believe how much us suckers are paying for the damned pig shit. For shit’s sake, shouldn’t it cost less?

At least the shit days of spring are drawing to a close. Trees and flowers are beginning to blossom, and recent rains have flushed away the nasty stuff. I welcome sweet April, and think of Chaucer as I open my windows and can still get a whiff of March’s filthy stank:

“Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr;”

Indeed. Although Chaucer must not have realized that “swich licour” is really just rain water and pig shit. Who knows, perhaps during his time they used cow dung, which would be the civilized thing to do. At any rate, Republican politicians must get a chuckle out of the whole thing too. Who knew that entire armies of Karl Roves blossom out of the turds every spring?

Standard
Places

Document your community through photos

Trevor Carpenter is running the “2008 Challenge“, a project which is meant to encourage people to document their community through photos and to share them online. All it takes is to publish one photo per week (52 in total) to your site or to a photo sharing site. Check out Trevor’s post for the details.

I thought I’d share a few photos from my community a little ahead of the deadline. After all, I’ve been doing it all along, but you may not have known about it since I didn’t call attention to it.

This is a typical morning view from our terrace.

Reflected sunrise

We took a walk during a warm fall afternoon. This is one of the photos taken on that walk. A “Now Leasing” blimp floated in the sky above a neighboring building. The beautiful trees in the forefront obscured that photo, so it looks as if the blimp is advertising them instead.

Now leasing - trees

These next few photos were taken during various afternoon walks.

Red and redder

Bloomathingamajig

A brook dressed for fall

Twigalicious

I am literally in love with the color of these tree branches. It’s not personal bias because I took the photo, but that shade of brown coupled with the fresh green just floors me.

Stretching toward the sky

This is another view from our terrace. It’s a night scene, taken during a dark and stormy night.

Night rain

You might think there’s something wrong with the next photo. It seems a bit off, and there’s that strange thing jutting out in the bottom left corner. Look carefully. That’s a reflection you see in the water of a lake from our community. The odd piece in the corner is the shore I stood on when I took the photo. If you examine the bottom of the photo, you’ll see tiny ripples.

Looking glass

Standard
Places

Bethesda Flea Market

Friends of ours and we visited the Bethesda Flea Market recently. I forgot to take my 5D along, and used our little Kodak v610 compact. Still, I got some nice photos, and wanted to share them with you.

I’d passed by the market many times, but never bothered to stop before. I’m glad our friends convinced us to finally have a look, because it was a lot of fun to stroll around and look at the items put up for sale. We walked away with two nutcracker sets, and a few old song scores, and we found them at bargain prices.

A lot of oriental rugs were up for sale.

Ali’s flying carpets

Some mannequin was laughing her head off while hanging around…

Laugh your head off

There were many colorful beads and stones for sale. Being obsessed with color, I was sorely tempted to buy a few.

I was told she likes these

Vanity, thou art a beady-eyed vamp

I liked the way sunlight lit up this green embroidery.

Sunlit embroidery

I’m not sure these “nature flavored” prunes would be very tasty. They sure are an odd looking bunch, aren’t they?

The “Nature Flavored” prunes

Found an old Royal typewriter. It must have been nice when only those things were around. One had time to think about what they were writing, about every word, as they put it on the page. It’s much too easy to dash something off nowadays…

It spells QWERTY

Hershey’s still has a kiss for you.

A kiss for you

Nothing but Standard Seeds for her.

Standard Seeds for her

These doors are showing their age, but then that’s the fun of antique furniture, isn’t it?

Doors

Here are some African doors for good measure. These were about 5 feet tall.

Doorway

It’s hip to be square.

Squares

Don’t bowl me over.

Multi-colored bowls

Some fashionable item of sorts… Still can’t figure out if that’s a snake or baby aligator. If it’s a snake, why are there little feet dangling off from the neck? Strange to say the least…

A fashionable item

There’s a shadow over the Capitol… We’d be fortunate indeed if that were the only shadow over our Capitol. Between the lobbyists and the politicians, this country is just about suffocated by all that “patriotic” love… Quick, someone pull out a flag and wave it! It’ll make everything better…

Shadow over the Capitol

The Bethesda Flea Market even has a website. Who knew! 🙂 All in all, it was a pretty fun trip!

Standard
Places

Walking at dusk

Sometimes, Ligia manages to pry me away from the computer long enough to take a walk around the neighborhood. Of course, I take my camera along. This is one of the photos I took this past Thursday, during one of our dusk walks. We live in North Bethesda, MD.

Grosvenor dusk

Standard
Places

Contrail

I was out walking with Ligia at dusk, and thought this opportunity too good to pass. A jet was leaving a perfect contrail behind it, right above our heads. Taken in North Bethesda, MD.

Contrail

Standard