Year Round

   New collections appear along the trail: designs of nature and creatures of God. Spring is full of surprises!

   Evidence of tail dragging can be found. What began as one turtle crossing mark turns into a proliferation. Low amplitude sine waves connect the meadow side of the path to the bank of the creek. Dual tracks cross with a central X – major turtle activity. 

   Further up on the path a folded white paper receipt has absorbed moisture from a fine intermittent drizzle. The words YEAR ROUND can be read, and a price $2.52.

   Near picnic bend, a heron wades, then fades away in flight.

   On the way back is a circle of bark without the wood of the tree in it – like a wrist cuff without a break, a wide bangle. I take footage of this, it is unusual.

   A egg-headed heron stands on an overturned tree of great girth that goes across a tiny tributary of the creek. It stays put, assuming the Pose of  a Flamingo, although lacking its coloration.

  A dead field mouse lies on the path, poor dear, and I take its body to the edge of the woods for safe keeping.

   At the World’s Cleanest Grocery Store, I pick up some juice from the ever dwindling frozen concentrate selection – the same kind I always buy that has gone up another ten cents in price, two cans of cat food to feed the clan and a French demi-baguette that will be breakfast with the jam at home.

   Self serve terminal 3 is open but not accepting of cash. Cash is all I have.

   The clerk at number 7 rings my $4.14 sale.

   “Would you like to buy pretzel rods for a dollar a package?”

    I note several packages emblazoned with the name bran UTZ, placed in the bagging area for convenience. White speckles of the bark of the pretzel trunks are conspicuous and suspicious.

  “Sea salt or regular?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “No, thank you.”

   At home I feed the kitties, finish coffee, prepare the toast, sit with the cats and read. My concentration is broken by surface guilt; it bothers me to have said no to the cashier. This will haunt me all day, making her feel badly when she was following a company directive for increasing add-on sales.

   An unpaid gas utility bill from yesterday rests in my calendar/planning book. I head out the door to pay it at the grocery. I plan to go stop at checkout seven and purchase some pretzel rods – it’s a contest and she gets credit for the sales. My purchase can help make her day.

   A bird flies near the front door as I step out of the house. Its wings are firm and outspread. Light peeks through fanned feathers. A tattered black bird, what do you know?

Moms Love Car Wash Booklets

  and other prominent sayings are on display at various venues around town: a car wash, a storage facility and other businesses that escape immediate memory and might be noted in my sketchbook which is momentarily separated from its owner.

   Did you know you can now buy stainless steel straws to help reduce the number of plastic straws in the wastestream? Do you know how many varieties of solar lighting are on the market? Do you know what fun it is to shop Oriental Trading? It’s bazaar! 

   One heron spotted this morning, in flight at 8:44. None to report from over the weekend. Hope you have a good week. I like I’ll Have Another in the Derby.

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.

Tel

  First two letters missng i.e., burnt out bulbs, leaving the tel in motel.  ESPN on QB substitution: we think you’re good enough. Just be yourself. Cambridge book on creativity. Operating from the cockpit. Muscle milk left stnding on piece of the architecture at the top of the library steps. Rain is making drops while the sun shines somewhere. Working nine days a week. Stellar. Telephone. Don;t tell on me.

Bulwark

   Brown paper Bulwark 6

Heron: 0

Deer crossing creek in twilight: 1

crushed rodents: 2

10.24

10.25

nothing, nothing, nothing but a sliver of crescent moon

Rain After Midnight

Rain After Midnight

    At 9:20 this morning a petite heron fishes at the mill race. Its shoulder and upper back looks like it has taken back a Victorian lady’s hat that was made from feathers taken from another heron long ago and put them back on where they belong, clean and fresh.

   Second heron fishing stalking pennant pose on two clumps of leaves in the creek that look like its shadow: a small clump below the head and a larger clump under its body & three more heron in points strung out along the upper stretch & across from the red sandstone structure that holds an outlet pipe area & across from a dirt foot path that shoots off the main trail & leads to the creek for fishing or drinking water, on l& that forms a flat lip below the trail.

   The forecast was for Rain After midnight & this held true. It is a day for water & blue. I have found a blue streamer, half a blue note & an L & M package. Hardly anyone is out & about. One portion of the trail is littered with sycamore leaves. Whereas most leaves have a tendency to fall flat & present as two-dimensional forms. these leaves have fallen as folded pieces of paper & stand with some parts upright, like small tombstones or cootie catchers or some kind of natural slalom flags to warrant attention.

   While I was driving to the park this morning a tractor trailer marked S & F,   with a bright red logo trucking flashed by along Route 422 heading north toward Allentown. All I caught was Sylvester. This makes it a good day for ampersands, helpful people & travel,& other things.

Saved and Unscathed

   Texas wildfires report as told by NPR transmits this wonderful sound bite – saved and unscathed - as I am on my way to walk in the rain. The creek swells without spilling over and the color of the water is yellow green and there are no herons until I think there are no herons, when one flies from under cover of overhanging trees below me as I cross the dam bridge. The rainy day heron lands on the shale shoal on the other side. It strides and struts toward the inlet pipe from which a full column of water spews into the Tulpehocken. The bird exudes relaxed confidence, is dressed in smooth slate gray feathers and the tips of its feet are the color of orange peels.

   I have noted one other walker on the trail and a pair of overlapping sycamore leaves; the smaller was on top of the top of the larger as they lay on the ground.

   Having missed a report yesterday due to electric failure of the kind caused by a wayward wire, a bent piece of cord, that seems to have shorted out the personal computer belonging to the author of  The Heron Report, the main item of interest yesterday was a five dollar bill marked with the letters or word ALL and a series of blue ballpoint pen ticks or slashes, the number  repeating series and combination of  four, six and nine. Receiving the benefit of the diacritical marks was 69464964B.

   While making my way into Reading town, a freight train with a dirty white or light gray box car rambled overhead away from town as it crossed Route 422. The hand printed name Shep passed like a banner in the breeze of time.

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.

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/

Road ID

DURO 4 almost two years old SEP 01 09 EL 49 A Ruth Torrealba and new rain. Sycamore bark byte and two-bit raffle for running that I fail to identify with, plus grunge trident box and a heron that stood so erect it was longitudinal. Today is a day for water, blue and irregular shapes, metal and earth. Sell at a loss for delayed gains. Lose money to make money. The road is open and the way is clear.