Dragon Spirit

The more I watch my rooster
(Or rather, as I turn and flee)
the deeper my conviction grows--
it wasn't giant lizards that inspired
the dragon myths.

It had to be a rooster.

10 pounds of flying fury
red nostrils breathing fire and steam
hooked talons and reptilian eyes--

That rooster has got dragon spirit.

After all, before the breath of time
when the earth was mud and slime,
 dinosaurs, ancient ancestors
of the rooster, evolved from--
or into birds and roosters
(or something like that)

Why not a rooster into a dragon?
Scales instead of feathers,
Add breadth and width, and length
and there you have it--

10,000 pounds of flying fury,
red nostrils breathing fire and steam
Hooked talons, reptillian eyes--

Dragon spirit--that is what my rooster's got.


Linked to Real Toads.

Fading Daffodil

...still lovely in its frailness...

Woods by Starlight

The forest is queenly in the night

she wears the crescent moon

upon her brow

Venus adorns her throat

a myriad of stars 

are tangled in her hair

one thousand frogs in chorus

serenade her beauty

majestically, protectively

she draws me into her shadows

woods by starlight,

where time stands still.

***

Linked to Real Toads.

(written using word sketching--my four words--well five really--are crescent moon, forest, Venus, and frogs.)

Peach Blossom and Curdled Milk Sky

The Garden Toad

This plump little toad has been keeping me company while I have been working in the front flower garden the past few days.

Linked to Macro Monday.

A Plea Regarding Word Verification

Please, for the love of blogging, turn word verification off!
I've finally figured out that if I try to leave a comment on a Blogger blog that has word verification turned on, the comment disappears into oblivion. This is very frustrating for me. One of my favorite things about blogging is the interaction between bloggers--I love your comments and enjoy leaving comments on your blogs.

I know a lot of people are concerned about spam comments and this is the reason they have word verification on. I've had mine turned off for about a year now. Blogger has a spam box that 99% of spam comments automatically go to. If a comment has links in it, it usually gets sent to a the spam box. A spammer has to get pretty creative to get around the spam box--I think I have only had 3 or 4 spam comments get through to a post in the past year. And honestly, because they were creative, I felt like I should be giving them an award or something!

I've also heard a lot frustration from other bloggers about how the new font Blogger is using for word verification is so difficult to read--and makes for extra work and time when trying to leave comment.

If you are concerned about spammers, please consider turning off word verification and turning on comment moderation. If you have both (and some blogs do), please consider just having the comment moderation.

If you don't have a clue how to turn word verification off, check out this handy post with instructions--Word Verification Woes. (She also expresses my frustrations very well!)

Also I have a question--for a long time, I had a problem leaving comments on Blogger blogs if the comment box was embedded below the post instead of being in a pop up window. I haven't have a problem with this for a few months and recently changed my comment box to be embedded below the post, so I could use Blogger's new "reply to comments" feature. Is anyone still having problems with this? If you can't leave a comment, I would appreciate if you were to send me an e-mail just to let me know--my email address is listed under my profile.

Plum Blossoms

First Day of Spring

...and a few of the flowers that are blooming in my garden today...

March Spider Web

I do believe this is a first in my life--we woke up on the eve of Spring to a dewy sunrise and a field full of spiderwebs.

 It has been 80 degrees every day for the past week, with more warm weather in the forecast. The grass is green, trees are budding out, flowers are bursting into bloom, and I finally had a day off today to spend in the garden. Quite a contrast to last spring which was one of the coldest on record.

Green Pastures

I wouldn't mind being buried in a place like this. It also makes for a nice place to stop in the middle of the work day and eat lunch and do some of my never ending charting. (Never ending charting is the reason I haven't been by too many of your blogs recently, but I hope to catch up some time next week--I have two whole days off in the middle of next week! As always, I love your comments.)

Evening

The sky before last night's storm.

Spring Has Sprung

...and the first spring flowers have opened into the sunshine...

Linked to Macro Monday.

Grain Elevators in Evening Light

The almost full moon rises over the skyscrapers of Michigan farm country...

(For a different view of these same grain elevators, taken earlier in the day, hop on over to Dandelion Haven's face book page.)

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Upper Falls in Old's Man's Gorge

(See the links at the bottom of this post to follow along as my husband and I explored one of the best kept secret in Ohio this past January--the waterfalls, caves, trails, and gorges of Hocking Hills State Park.)

The upper falls in Old Man's Gorge is the most visited of all the waterfalls most likely because it is located at the beginning of the Old Man's Gorge trail and is right across from a large parking in lot and the visitor's center. Even in the winter, with the visitor's center closed, there was  steady stream of visitors and I had to wait a bit to get some photos of the falls that didn't contain people posing in front of the falls.

In any case, it is still a beautiful little waterfall and a great place for echos with the way the surrounding gorge walls encircle the falls.

As with all the other gorge walls, there were lots of icicles and small waterfalls trickling down the rocky walls...

Next post will be the lower falls--which also has a spectacular recess cave of it's own!

Join us on our hike of Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio-

Hocking Hills Park Part one: Introduction

Hocking Hills Park Part two: Ash Cave
Hocking Hills Park Part three: Rock Bridge
Hocking Hills Park Part four: Grandma Gatewood Trail
Hocking Hills Park Part five: Old Man's Cave
Hocking Hills Park Part six: Upper Old Man's Gorge Trail

Related Posts:

Musings At Rock House (a poem)
Ice Swirls

Mossy Raindrops

Linked to Macro Monday.

Orchids at Hidden Lake Gardens

Last Tuesday we spent a day exploring the conservatory, woodland trails, and some of the winter landscape of Hidden Lake Gardens. The orchids in the temperate house were in full bloom. For more winter photos of Hidden Lake Gardens, both indoors and outdoors, visit Dandelion Haven's facebook page.

For some photos of our visit last summer check out these blog posts--

The Ultimate Play Tree

Hosta Garden

Call of the Woodcock

A simple sound--
the spleak spleak of the woodcock
a familiar sound that brings in spring
and with it tumbling emotions, memories

cool soft air through tangled hair
bare feet on newly sprung grass
still too cold, really, for bare feet
wind tugging on on my skirt
stars over the orchard, dampness, darkness
the richness of a spring night--

something about spring that intensifies
feelings of joy and hope
as well as loss and alone-ness
a dozen years have passed
but the sound of the woodcock
brings it all back
the intense ache of so many spring nights--
as the woodcock flies over the apple orchard
under a velvet spring sky.

(With thanks to my friend Diana Dyer, who writes today about hearing her first woodcock here in Michigan on her little farm not 30 miles from my 13 acres. I have not heard or seen a woodcock since leaving my parents' home in upstate NY--but even so, they are still the sound of spring to me.)

For an audio of a woodcock's call, click here.

Linked to Real Toads.