Loose Leaf Notes

The water in the dog’s bowl froze.

I spotted my first snow shovel at the Floyd Elementary School when I was there as one of the judges for Reflections, a literary and art contest. My favorite part of this photo is the matchbox car on the bench and how in my twisted mind I can see how it and the shovel relate.

A cold and snowy day is always a good day to play Scrabble with friends. Well, any day is good for that.

I was shopping at Schoolhouse Fabrics when a mannequin scared me. Even she looked dressed for the snow.

I wondered why I don't have any snow pictures of the overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and then I remembered that the Parkway closes during bad weather. But we only got a couple of inches and I was able to make it up to Rocky Knob, just a few miles from my house, without sliding on black ice.

I call this Sign of The Times.

Posted by Colleen at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. The Power of Suggestion

2. Determination

3. For Spot

4. Air Guitar

5. A Well Rounded View

6. Light at the End of the Brick Wall

Photos from summer travels: 1. Boston Commons fountain. 2. Nantasket Beach in my hometown of Hull, Massachusetts. 3. Downtown Marshall NC, where my son Josh lives. 4. Downtown Marshall. 5. Downtown Portsmouth, VA, while visiting Maury Cooke. 6. I honestly don't remember where this one was taken. It seems manifested from a dream.

Posted by Colleen at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

1. Living off a Blue Ridge Parkway dirt driveway with no other houses in sight, this was the first time in the 17 years we’ve been here that we got any real live (two!) Trick or Treaters.

2. I didn’t have any candy so they settled for apples (which I didn’t make them bob for).

3. I wanted to trade some apples for a few coconuts off their mom’s costume but her coconuts weren’t ripe yet.

4. Later that night, Joe and I went to dance to The Kind at the Pine Pavilion. The band is longtime local favorite that plays mostly Grateful Dead cover tunes. They inspired my costume (see below), created for the Grateful Dead song “Dark Star” and influenced by recently seeing the movie Star*dust.

5. GET DOWN WITH YOUR BAD SELF!

6. Major Tom, the bartender host, dressed as The Colonel. In the email Costume Party invite, he posed: Join us as we attempt to answer the ultimate Halloween question … why do so many Floyd men seem to enjoy wearing women’s clothing?

7. My friend, builder Bob by day, who won a costume contest at the Sun Hall as a lady a couple of Halloween’s ago, can attest to how much fun it is to wear a skirt and wig.

8. I call this: Blind Date Gone Bad.

9. And this one: The Stalker

10. Question still looming: Are you a good witch or a bad witch and which witch is which?

11. The fortune teller predicted it would be a fun night of dancing, and it was!

Note: Soundtrack clip is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

This is the time of year when there are big changes around here. Not only do the trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway light up in blaze of color, but cars, trucks, and motorcycles stream up and down the road to see them.

I live down one of those wooded dirt roads tucked away off the Parkway and regularly drive up to the Saddle or the Rocky Knob overlook, just a few miles from my house, to watch the moonrise, the sunset, or just to get the perspective that I can only get under a big sky.

Since we moved here in 1991, the Parkway has been an important part of our lives. Before we were married Joe and I went to the Parkway to exchange our yearly vows in a ceremony we called “United Untied.” In 1997, when we did decide to marry, we had the wedding ceremony at the Parkway Saddle and our reception party at the Chateau Morrisette.

At any other time of year, I barely see another vehicle on my short trips up to the Parkway overlooks. This weekend, while Joe was teaching meditation, getting us firewood, and playing soccer, I went on an apple picking and photography outing with a Wall Resident client who was staying with us over the weekend. I did not own the road, could not pull over at every whim for every spectacular scene. The overlooks were packed with hikers, family picnickers, nature lovers, tourists, Hokies, and family reunion goers.

After taking in and photographing the views, my friend and I headed down to the Rock Castle Gorge trail to the same abandoned orchard where Joe and I went in the spring to see the blossoms and where we go every fall to pick apples. We found the trees were full of fruit high up in branches, so I picked up a stick and started whacking like the big bad wolf trying to shake down a little pig.

The moral of this story is apple crisp for everyone.

Post notes: See the apple orchard in spring bloom HERE.
And apple picking with Joe in a past year is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

1. Hesitation

2. Tenacious Persistence

3. Unshakable Perseverance

Posted by Colleen at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. A Peter Pan Complex

2. For the Birds

3. October Surprise

4. Pink Floyd is Turning Red

Posted by Colleen at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

My interest in mushrooms has mushroomed. I live along the wooded Blue Ridge Parkway and recently the right combination of damp dark weather followed by sunshine has resulted in a virtual mushroom invasion. On my daily walks to the mailbox I find these spore-bearing fruit bodies of fungus popping everywhere. I don’t know most of their real names so I have nicknamed them thusly:

1. A Hole in Smurfette’s Hat

2. Coffee Grounds on Donut

3. Forrest Corsage

4. Candy Cane Zombies

5. Foam Rubber Flower

6. Dish TV

7. Nesting Dolls

8. Saucer Landing

9. I Hope it Wasn’t Poison

10. This One Takes the Cake

Note: I know #3 looks like lichen but it had a mushroom stem. See yesterday’s Mushroom’s Among Us HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

These Alien looking organisms can kill you or cure you. They can give you hallucinations or be part of a gourmet meal, and they’re just as likely to end up in a Science Fiction plot as they are to be the subject of a fairytale. The following mushrooms were all found in my yard and along the gravel driveway that leads to my mailbox. They seemed to have popped up overnight, as big as plates or smaller than a dime. I found over twenty varieties in one day. I gave some of them pet names:

1. Piece of the Pie

2. Venus of Willendorf

3. Sun Sombrero

4. Pottery Shards

5. Chocolate Truffles

6. Triple Scoop

7. Baby Bird Bath

8. A Fairy Trail

9. Mushroom Clown

10. Haunted Hands

11. Turtle Helmet

12. Lemon Shell
More Spore Lore: Many people do not know that mushroom identification is extremely difficult--not at all like identifying, say, trees. There are about 200 (natural) species of trees in North America, and a good field guide can usually help you figure out what tree you're looking at. In contrast, no one knows how many mushroom species there are (estimates range as high as 30,000 for North America); scientists do not even agree on what constitutes a "species" of mushroom or on how they can be identified; and most of the species that have been named so far require microscopic analysis for positive identification. ~ From mushroomexpert.com

Posted by Colleen at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

1. Downtown Upkeep

2. Flood of Memories

3. Light at the End of the Tunnel

Post notes: I got some pictures developed yesterday and thought these three somehow went together, visually and in a past, present, future sort of way. 1. Farmer’s Supply in Floyd recently got a touch up. 2. Nantasket Beach at sunset in my hometown of Hull, Massachusetts 3. Chesapeake Bay Tunnel on Virginia’s eastern shore. The future is in sight.

Posted by Colleen at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. Hollyhocks and Bees

2. A Birthday Tea

3. A Rainy Day Pair

4. A Window of Opportunity

Posted by Colleen at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. Magic Marks

2. Land Shark

3. A Bowl of Hole

4. A Strand of Sand

Post notes: During my beach days in Hull and Bethany Beach I regularly walked the beach and often came across interesting sand art. The first photo was taken when I was playing Scrabble on the beach with my sister Tricia and her sons. Her son Matthew had tattoo markers, which he used to draw a tattoo on my thigh as we played. The second photo is from Bethany Beach. That's Joe in the background not worried about the Land Shark that nephew David and I found nearby. Photo three is from a beach walk in Hull on a less than sunny day. That's my sister Kathy's grandkids Isabelle and Dom playing in the giant hole we came across. The strand of sand snowballs was some of the sand art I found on a sunset walk. I always felt bad knowing people's creative efforts would be washed away by the tide each night.

Posted by Colleen at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

1. View for Two

2. Catch of the Day

3. Crab Grab

4. Card Sharks

5. Playing for Sand Dollars

Post notes: Photos were taken during a visit to Joe’s family at Bethany Beach. A video clip that could be a scene out of Jaws is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

1. The Yin Yang of Flip Flops

2. Don’t Drink and Drive

3. Achoo and God Bless You

4. Time to Catch a Ride

Video: Chasing Sandpipers on Nantasket Beach HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Joe and I went to a wedding.

I let him do the heavy lifting.

Leaving me with most of the kissing.

My son has a son.

And a beautiful family.

Blessings to my daughter-in law Alexis' sister Darla and her husband Adam. It was a beautiful wedding and fun party. Watch Kaylee’s strobe light dance HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

1. Summer Snowball

2. Flower Shower

3. A Flurry of Flutter

4. A Butterfly bar serving nectar on tap

Posted by Colleen at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

1. Powered by the Sun

2. Baby’s Moon Roof

3. Flights of Fancy

4. Fleeting Youth

Post Note: The above photos were taken last Wednesday when my grandson Bryce's sister Kaylee and I babysat for him while his mother went to a class.

Posted by Colleen at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

1. A Tolkien Tree

2. A Martian Landing

This is the part where spooky music is played and you wonder what happened next.

Posted by Colleen at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

1. Keep your eye on the road

2. Keep your eye on the ball

3. Keep your eye on the camera

4. Keep your eye on the sky

And don’t forget to stop and smell the wildflowers.

Photos: 1. Hay is being cut all over Floyd County. I got behind a load of it on my way home from town yesterday. 2. Our nephew, David, who reads my blog, takes a practice swing. He’s in town to participate in the Teen Meditation Retreat that Joe is managing, hosted by at Earthsong in Stuart. 3. What can I say? I said ‘say cheese’ but only one person was listening. 4. A row of children watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July. 5. I was thinking of Sandy -- who lives in Florida and misses the wildflowers of this area -- when I took this photo on the side of the road. At least one person pulled over to see if my car had broke down.

Posted by Colleen at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

AKA: M&M&M

Little did my friends, Maria, Miriam, and Mara, know they were posing for a stars and stripes 4th of July photo when they struck this celebratory pose after dancing to Laura Reed and Deep Pocket last Friday night. Happy Fourth of July! ********** ////////////// ********* //////////********* //////////******* //////////******* //////////******* ////////

Posted by Colleen at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

1. Here in Floyd, we have Old-Time Bluegrass Pickin’

2. And Blue Ridge Parkway views

3. Another kind of blue perspective

4. Another kind of pickin'

Photos: 1. A street scene from the Friday Night Jamboree last week. 2. The Saddle Overlook, near where we live. 3. My favorite summer sun dress (from Winter Sun), as seen through my reading glasses. 4. Last night I picked two tubs of blueberries from our garden.

Posted by Colleen at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

1. Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

2. "I beg your pardon?" said Alice. "It isn't respectable to beg," said the King.

3. "I am real!" said Alice, and began to cry. "You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying," Tweedledee remarked: "there's nothing to cry about."

4. 'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

5. "That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first-----"

6. But it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

7. Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.

Post Notes: I’m getting some dental bridgework done in Blacksburg, so I’ve had more opportunities to take pictures of the mirrored mosaic wall on the Food Time gas station, which is near my dentist. The above lines are from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Every shot is self-portrait. More photos of it are HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I felt the need for some mountain green scenes. This one, just up the road from our The Blue Ridge Parkway driveway, was taken during the greening of May.

It's still easy to get farm fresh eggs here in the mountains. This sign is for the family-run Sweet Providence Farm, which I recently passed on my way down the mountain to Roanoke to babysit for my new grandson.

One of my neighbors. I actually got chased by a bull once, so I used my zoom lens for this shot.

Posted by Colleen at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

1. Double Take

2. Triple Threat

3. Double Trouble

4. One for the Fun House of it

Posted by Colleen at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

1. Downtown Floyd

2. Upside Down Floyd

3. Down to Earth

4. Downright cute

1. Changes in downtown Floyd: Joe at the new sitting wall with the new timber framed public bathroom building in the background.

2. Someone was having fun with the window at the renovation for the Village Square. See another funny scene at the same window HERE.

3. Mounding potatoes in my garden.

4. Notice the name on the hat, same as my last name. Must be a second cousin. I didn't know we had scarecrows in the family.

Posted by Colleen at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. For a small window of time in the spring, three blooms converge in symphony of color in the corner of my yard.

2. Dogwood, azalea, and baby irises come in one after the other, and for a week or two they co-exist together like the colorful layered fruit of an English trifle.

3. I especially love this winning combination because all the players are wild. A purple carpet of naturalized irises circles the white blossomed dogwood tree, while wild azaleas spin around it like a pink skirt. I’ve take dozens of pictures at different times of day and in different weather but none of them do the scene justice. It’s a like a poem that needs to be heard out loud, a living beauty that needs to be seen face to face to be fully enjoyed.

Post note: Happy Birthday to my brother Johnny.

Posted by Colleen at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

1. A front row seat at the First Friday Irish Night Jam at Oddfellas Cantina.

2. Lucy Goldman Singing Dougie Mclean’s “Ready for the Storm.” Tina Liza Jones (on the left) was strumming an unusual guitar; I think it was THIS.

3. Several played fiddle and one played a harp. I wish someone in the group played THIS, an instrument that when played well can bring tears to my eyes.

Posted by Colleen at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

1. Last May I hiked down into the abandoned orchard, where Joe and I pick apples in the fall, to see the trees in bloom. But because of a late freeze, there wasn’t a single a bloom on a single tree. Disappointed, I trudged back out of the valley knowing there wouldn’t be a single apple in the fall, and there wasn’t.

2. After seeing that the crabapple tree in our yard was in bloom, I knew it was time. We parked the truck on the Blue Ridge Parkway and hiked down to the orchard.

3. We were giddy with delight at what we found, a spectacular abundance of bloom. Where last year I felt life’s frailty, now I felt its fertility. How magical to think that every flower would be transformed into an apple -- winter food, pies, and crisp -- and that each seed from each piece of fruit could become another tree.

3. Our favorite tree at the bottom of the valley looked like a bride in gown of lacy white.

4. No charge for this affair. No planning. Nothing to buy. Free corsages for all the spring prom dresses, for the maidens and maids of honor, and the fairytale heroes and heroines.

5. We laid on our backs in the grass and watched a butterfly feasting on flower nectar. Bees buzzed, birds chirped, and with every gust of wind paper thin white petals, popped from fuchsia pink buds, drifted down on us.

6. Drinking in so much apple blossom aroma can be intoxicating. I thought about Sleeping beauty and Rip Van Winkle and remembered the time we set up camp on a beach in St. John and woke up in bed of jasmine. I drifted off, wondering if there would be an apple blossom hangover the next day.

Post note: Read The Romance of Wild Apples (the orchard in the fall) HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

1. Illumination

2. Social Graces

3. Bold Faces

Posted by Colleen at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

1. A friend of a friend, named Pet Pet Ping Pong.

2. Breakfast at Alwyn’s, where I recently spent the night.

3. Someone saved a seat with their flat footing dance shoes for the Friday Night Jamboree.

4. Chalk on the sidewalk in front of the Blackwater Loft.

5. Is that a six word memoir Chelsea is writing on Mara’s cargo shorts, under the skirt that she wore to the Country Store poetry reading?

Post notes: Read my cargo pants interview with Mara HERE.
Poets at the Floyd Country Store is below or HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

1. A puddle of petals

2. A litter of yellow

3. Not crying over spilled flowers

Posted by Colleen at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

1. Winning Hand

2. A Pupil of Poetry

3. Self portrait in the eye of the beholder

4. Pose of Ponder

5. Gold Finger

Post note: Body Language Part I is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

1. My Father’s Nose

2. Teardrops

3. Last Leg
4. Earshot

Post note: All the above photos were taken while on a walk in the neighborhood with Joe yesterday.

Posted by Colleen at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Poet pandemonium

at the VMI Poetry Symposium

The Power of Poetry makes us say Cheese

It rhymes with Please

Post Notes: Left to right, back row first, is (mostly): Kara, Mara, Julie, (and then Noren), Sharon, Sharon's husband. Colleen and Melanie are in front. The first photo also shows VMI Professor Gordon Ball. To read more about The Power of Poetry Symposium, which feature Claudia Emerson and Bruce Weigl, and to view more photos, go HERE and HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

1. This is my version of ‘I can’t resist a man in uniform.’

2. So I follow him around like an adoring fan.

3. This is him, my soccer coach husband, simulating the bicycle kick he did on the soccer field during practice earlier that day.

4. This is what the second part of a bicycle kick looks like, the part where you end up on the ground. The one he did on the field while coaching made a goal, causing an uproar of cheers.

5. This is about as close as I get to kicking a soccer ball.

Posted by Colleen at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Washington D.C. has it's cherry blossoms. We have forsythia bushes.

They surround our porch, casting their buttercup glow, their 100 watt sun-loving gold, and wide-eyed early spring bloom.

For the next couple of weeks we’ll be wearing sunglasses.

Posted by Colleen at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

It’s the only place I drink tea and wine at the same time. The Winery was where I first discovered sachet pyramid tea, and I look forward to sipping it whenever I’m back. I usually don’t order wine because it tends to make me feel tired, but Sweet Mountain Laurel is different. Light, sweet, with a fresh grapey taste, I can drink it like well water.

Last year, we knew we were in the right place to celebrate Easter in style when we saw the orchid colored orchids in the Winery lobby and were greeted by the familiar Floyd faces of people we know who work there. This year the faces were still familiar and friendly and the orchids were white.

The Chateau Morrisette Restaurant, which once housed the whole winery, is where Joe and I celebrated our wedding with our family and community. A few years later, Joe worked as a timber framer when the new Winery building was being built.

We had worked preparing the garden all morning and were ready to be pampered. I had quiche with a perfect pastry crust, garden and pesto pasta salad, bacon, and home fries. Joe had lamb with all the fixings. Once we were full, I took a deep breath and let the warm glow of wine take hold while my eyes soaked up the sun drenched room full of people wearing bright Easter colors.

A big draw of the Chateau Morrisette Easter Brunch for me is the desserts. It’s the reason we started the Easter Brunch tradition. I was sad not to have any kids doing Easter egg hunts anymore. Sampling the desserts at the buffet table was like seeing what the Easter Bunny brought for me. This year the Winery Easter Baker put a smile on the face of the girl that lives in me.

Posted by Colleen at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

All Over Again

Posted by Colleen at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

When the Café Del Sol Spoken Word chair is “off-duty,” it sometimes hosts unexpected guests that aren't necessarily poets, like those on their home to Boston from a car show in Florida; my sister Kathy and her husband Ozzie.

Waiting for my grandson to be born

Alternative to Scrabble

Posted by Colleen at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

1. The Tin man’s hat

2. Rumplestiltskin’s moonshine jug

3. Peter and Wendy’s shadows

4. Three wishes granted

Post notes: Photos were taken on a fairytale walk in the neighborhood with Joe this past Sunday. The flower, one of the first signs of spring, is coltsfoot.

Posted by Colleen at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

1. Distracted

2. Two-faced moon

3. Triangle angle

4. Fashion Feng Shui

Post notes: 1. Downtown window. 2. Kitchen window. 3. View from my cellar stairs. 4. In Feng sui, the Chinese art of right design placement, splashes of red are said to bring good luck and overcome negative energy.

Posted by Colleen at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

This is the place where a tropical winter vacation picture should be, but instead it’s photo of our truck that just had an $800 repair. Our dog Jazzy is guarding our investment. A couple of hours after I took this shot it started snowing. HERE is the videotape that resulted from that, titled “Truck Full of Snow: AKA This is going to take awhile."

Posted by Colleen at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

1. Magnets and words go together for me like peanut butter and chocolate.

2. When I was a little girl, my grandmother had Terrier dog magnets. They were my first introduction to magnets and I remember thinking they were magical, the way they stuck to each other. I tried hard to make the ones that repelled each other stick together because I thought they should, but they wouldn’t.

3. The first time I saw magnetic poetry was in a café in Radford, Virginia, that no longer exists. The booth I sat in had a portable magnetic stand. A friend joined me and we played with the words as we talked. It was li