Cast Rite Metal

   A Cast Rite box truck is on the road the same time as I travel by car to walk. Cast Rite Metal is located in Birdsboro, from what my reading of the lettering on the vehicle tells me.

   My arrival at the park is greeted by something the crew has deposited in front of the dumpster: a crumpled 50-gallon steel  drum. The cast away container stands upright, yet is a third of its normal circumference. No longer round, its outline is irregular.

    The color, possibly once green, is now rust. Its patina is that of having been submerged in the water for a while. It looks like some of the crew dragged it out of the creek, there is the thread of a weed across the top, stuck on a jagged edge.

   It looks like a sculpture that an artist would make of a steel drum container – one that might cost a good sum. This is the original.

   As for this morning’s walk, there are no herons along the creek that I can see under the overcast light gray sky and clouds that bring intermittent rain. Trees and shrubs are filling out, the forest is filling in with new, green foliage and wildflowers such as Philadelphia fleabane and wild geranium polka dot nature’s dress.

One Piece Flow

   How we handle the events, obstacles and opportunities in the course of life is a subject of constant study, analysis and revision. In our daily receipts - of information, of material things, of alerts, tips and ideas that may be spurs to creativity, mundane quotidian nothings or deterrents that bring to a halt – we can only process things one at a time. We come into contact with an abundance of things, starting with the stimuli of our environments. There is a principle of batching to handle multiples.

   Life contains inbound and outbound shipments. We take in and we put out. Out of all the possibilities and probabilities in the current past and future worlds, one life receives a shipment of goods and one produces a finished product composed of character, habit and practice to leave a stamp, or hardly a trace, or a body of work, baskets of gestures. Sometimes it is just what you ordered and sometimes it is nothing of the sort! Appreciation is one of the most valuable tools of navigation that we can have.

   It takes a laser eye or ear, mind and mind’s eye to zero in on what is important among all the items and tasks before us and place it in stock, where it belongs for future reference, present use or past enhancement.

   It’s nice to receive and give something to Wow! at. It is necessary to manage the average regular and the mean. The worst process is to neglect. To neglect or deselect allows us to focus on the vital: how we tag thing is our choice. 

    One item, one box, one shipment, one truck; one order, one package, one delivery, one present.

Feliz Wear

   It is a slip of the tongue heard on the radio – feliz wear instead of fleece wear - and it is amusing and delightful because it means “happy” in Spanish. Fleece, a material blessing which makes smooth and nubby contributions to the worlds of comfort and warmth, also adds to happiness, which is not to say that relaxed, athletic and easy wear should lead to general sloppiness. Go happily about your day, if you please. Feliz Noel and wear it well!

PKGZ

Packages and more packages and a heart shaped smiley face on the mirror at the park. Today is for relationships and wisdom, enlightenment and secret plotting. A compass, with strokes and Evergreen, 99 and Geib on the roadway.  Two hawks flew in the vicinity of trees that have grown bare with the beginning of November. They have limbs to perch to peer and prey. One was especially large and plump as a pumpkin, a meaty sort. No heron to report other than an internet icon. beautiful morning with sunshine and sundance. We hours of morning featured moonlight shadows that seemed patterned with Venetian blind lines. I have covered two miles and processed these things.

“K”Line

   A red velvety-headed woodpecker alights on the decaying column of a tree beside the Tulpehocken creek. Both color and texture stand out, as if you could reach out and touch the fuzz, although it is twelve feet away and another twelve feet above the earth. A nubbin of twig rests on a dark ruby leaf that sits on the path amid the proliferations of bits of locust leaves, dry seeds and woody paraphernalia that reminds me of the fertile nature of the woods, the almost excessive richness in the museum of the great outdoors.

   Two heron are visible today: one that looks like a regular (small) bird, only larger, perching on an extended log, the arch of a fallen tree’s trunk. The bird seems to have its shoulders hunched up, accentuating the wings, and is in good position to look upon the water about two and a half feet below. The stream is quiet, neither stagnant nor raging. The sky on this late October morning is grey and overcast and warm with intermittent rain drops.

   A second heron stands on the new silt extension of the tip of picnic peninsula. Some of the park staff are stringing the holiday lights, blue bulbs line the split rail ence, beyond which the almond shaped heron searches for its next meal.

   The rig with a red trailer “K” Line rolls north on 422. The white Duro bag has no name stamped on the bottom, just a date from this past summer, when it was made. Inside the bag is part of a pecan sticky bun.

120 Pins Snip Spin

   Daddy long legs, the grass outside the kitchen is long and tall! Consciousness rests on green and three today.

   The Tulpehocken creek is overgrown into river dimensions. It is doubtful the towpath will be open for walking and other forms of recreation.

   Doubt becomes reality at the walk over the bridge. A chain holds the iron gates closed. A padlock holds the chain together. Yellow plastic tape draped cross the top tells a cautionary tale

   The way is barred like a mouth taped shut.

    Water covers the meadow and the mill-race.

   A heron stands at the edge of the trees that border the creek, on what is normally park grass. It wades toward the wooden pedestrian bridge. With each stride, less and less of its stilty legs are exposed to the air.

   The heron tilts its head in a sudden movement, as if it sees or senses a fish in the roiling water. How many more of the lone fishing birds are along the route?

   Maintenance van 120  of the county fleet is parked near the mill, which is next to picnic island. Picnic island is closed. A few tables await someone to put out a spread.

   Sources close to the park had told me over the weekend the island was covered in water. Three picnic tables were lost as they floated downstream to the dam breast snapping, crackling and popping against the concrete pylons. 

On ESPN Radio, three Mikes have already reviewed the National Football League quarterback performances from Sunday. Mike Dittka has said it is time for one of them (Tony Romo?) to “step up or step back.” 

   The World’s Cleanest Grocery Store provides supplies of pet food and treats that may be had for a price on the way home.

   The cats are fed. They may bask in the sun next. The cereal bowl on the coffee table holds a stainless steel spoon. The bowl of the spoon holds the reflection of the the ceiling fan spinning on high speed.

Gotta Love This Crazy Market and CCTV 115(degrees)

Fila delphia today and snapping Sleepymobile pictures along the  way, beginning at Chick-fil-a in Exeter/Mount Penn area proceeding along 422 east toward Pottstown to the GAS FOOD LODGING signs. Today is a four day and the end of the summer vacation month of August. There was a Thomas school bus 31 on Green Tree. Before my very driving eyes goes a brief flash of vanity in the form of auto tag GETSBRG, why not? I saw men in green painting the bike lanes along the parkway in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. GOTTA LOVE THIS CRAZY MARKET! was the clear lettering on a freestanding sign near a Douglassville agency. I saw a blue heron sketch on the white Hay Creek Watershed sign in Birdsboro on the way back. I saw a hard-hatted man digging a ditch near city hall; his hard hat was dotted with stickers and so was a nearby lamp or sign post. After presenting a coupon and tapping into a free coffee at ING Cafe on Walnut – where the Free Library Banner is purple and reads Prosperity (good Feng shui!), I tried some things on for size, as if Superwomanmodel, in dressing room 11 at Lucky Brand jeans, where Taina works. Short time and distance up block in the hereafter find a heads up penny on the sidewalk: glee ♣! I see a sign outdoors near city hall that has been slapped with a fine heart sticker with the word Lucky printed in cursive inside. I picked up trash with some urgency, including an evanescent fluorescent orange poster that has the permament writing: Can you please make a donation toward our football team…Saints family football THANK YOU #1 QB. Bought blue anchor notecards at Paper Source to send to Massachusetts. Paper Source is positively intoxicating. Alyson rings up my sale, giving the purchase a nice striped bag in which to ride home.  A Triune Color (paper * mailhouse * bindery) panel truck was parked out front. Carr & Duff Going Green employees worked along the Schuylkill expressway beneath the solar panels. The writing was on the cement walk near the PMA. One of the bronzes out front of the PMA seems to be missing its left arm and the whites of its eyes are pronounced beneath a streaky patina on its tresses. On Elm, a man exited an apartment building called the Nightmare. A hawk cried out from the peak of the garage roof between 519 and 520 this morning – that is not a time, that is a partial address – and one of the big tits of litter I scarfed up is a Hawk box. After the hawk and before Exeter, trainspotting in Wyomissing led to JBHunt Intermodal, Clipper Worldwide and the fascinating term controlled logistics. The drive-up ATM at Wells Fargo was tight-lipped, allowing for no card insertion, keeping all accounts intact.

linky linky linky linky:

http://www.thomasbus.com/

http://www.papersource.com/

http://www.luckybrand.com/

http://www.sleepys.com/

Dainty

Dainty 8.24.2011 by Allison Huyett

Six letters on the glass door at a closed business on Walnut street, around the corner from Callowhill coffee shop. On ESPN rookie and starting quarterback talk is reaching a predictive peak. Colin Cowherd brings up the 26/27/60 rule which states a quarterback who scores at least a 26 on the Wunderlich test, starts 27 times in college football and completed 60 per cent of passes has a better chance of success in the National Football League than players with fewer than three of those qualifications. I do not hear Tom Brady’s name in there and wonder where he falls. Football is not dainty. There were no herons, but two men fishing near Reber’s bridge when I went for a walk this morning, the third in a series of splendid days. It is a day for helpful people and travel. I purchased a 29 cent Sage post card stamp at the Reading post office.

Dixie Rich

Dixie Rich 8.22.11 by Allison Huyett

Three light green pattern paper compostable drinking cups, crimped and thrown onto the ground, remind me an organized running event took place at the park yesterday. One blue and white paper cup is found along the trail, which has been washed almost completely clean from Sunday rain.

I find a few locust fronds – my favorite to-do list prompt – and an abundance of sycamore bark on the gravel screenings. Other people on the path wear citrus colors – lime and orange laces and clothing. These are to ward off Lyme disease and scurvy.

A heron perches about two heron heights above the creek, on a broken bare branch, overlooking the water. The bird performs preening and cleaning tasks and therefore is not a combustion engine in repose. The low humidity helps make today pleasant; a high degree of atmospheric clarity, wealth of warm sunshine and bonus breeze add interest. This is divine.

Navajo Merchant

The name of a freight hauler flashes above the overpass as the Navajo truck takes a bend to the west. I drive to the park for a  Monday morning walk. The brown duck swims near the far shore of the creek. Its back looks like yellow leaves have fallen on it. All the noise is quiet.

An AVIA label dots the path. A heron with light-colored fluffed feathers crouches on a limestone rock in the creek, 30 yards downstream from the red covered bridge.  Further on, the names MCKENZIE + HEIDI have been hand drawn in the fine stone screening s of the path. The large letters are like miniature track portions with lanes, four lanes, formed by the fingers on one hand. I can imagine some track and field entrants running dashes and distances inside.

There is a series of x markings and a kind of open eye formed by bowing an x outward. The name JENNA, done with the smooth stroke leaving no trace of fingers, has been spelled out in fifteen inch tall letters near the 10 marker. Members of the Wilson high school cross-country team train in the rain. They account for 90% of the foot traffic. Solitary metallic mylar shreds thread through the grass edge to the path in a few spots like benign girlish garter snakes. Some are magenta and some are pink.

A heron struts in the process of fishing activity between there and the locks. At the locks several invisible bullfrogs bellow and twang as if strumming and plucking big rubber bands.

The rain is light  – not a mist – not a drenching downpour – so light it makes me think of The rain as being the quality of mercy and I mentally rehearse Portia’s speech from the Merchant of Venice The quality of mercy is not strain’d. It droppeth like a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

A few shirts tossed onto the diamond-shaped park sign are now in a condition damp to soaked. I have come home with my list and a sketch of some leaves + pieces of sycamore bark. Some have the angles of Navajo blanket geometric designs and some have irregular undulating shapes. The surface of the creek showed similar irregular patches as the rain increased and speckled it. I stop at the World’s Cleanest Grocery Store to buy six cans of cat food, two boxes of pasta, a bag of dry cat food and a box of cereal stamped with a best by date of May 05 12 K 8:22 on the way home, startling the janitor, who has never seen me this wet. The coupons save $1.50, keeping my total at lane six under ten dollars. It is a six-day – I wear the Six of Cups shirt. I have to sell it.

For more about Navajo, fast safe and reliable transportation for 75 years, and to see what I have seen please go to: http://www.navajo.com/