August Solitude

My RBF

Forest Sidewalk

This is what mating Japanese beetles look like

This is what the leaf looks like when they are done.

I thought a lot about fear while i was at Windridge.
Oftentimes, it stems from the unknown.  But sometimes the things we are most comfortable should cause us more alarm.
A co-worker and I had a conversation about camping, in which he assured me he would never go camping.  Or go into the woods, for it was too scary.
This man lives in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in one of the most dangerous cities.  We laughed about this peculiarity.
Recently, he was arrested for a double homicide, which occurred in the alley behind his house.

I have been coming here for years and i enjoy a camaraderie with the land.
I love to see how much a creek changes.  Our area had record rainfall in June and the creek had been washed clean of all it's gravely rock.  Instead, there was smooth, flat rock underneath and all of the rock had been pushed into tidy piles.
The extra rain made the meadows lush. There were pools of water throughout the creek bed, a rarity in August.
I went for a 4 hour ramble, down the creek, up into the forest, through the meadow.
Headed inside around dusk to get supper.  Left again with a flashlight and walked down the creek, up into the forest, and through the meadow.
I grabbed a chair and set it up in a clearing to watch the stars come out.
The sounds and smells were deafening.