Fragments From Floyd

We have canned 30 quarts of green beans so far, two batches today, then we ran out of canning jars. Ann went to fetch some from the barn this afternoon. When she opened a cardboard box labeled "jars", a buzzing stream of stinging yellow jackets poured out...got her on the shoulder and the dog, who stupidly went and put his muzzle down in the box, twice, on the nose and ear.

You have to take the noxious parts of country living with the good. Doesn't mean I have to like it, and I'll be spraying the nasty beasties with one of those hornet-blasters a couple of times again tomorrow, early and late, before venturing cautiously in to get the jars. I'm going to hate it if I get stung and break my record, this being the first summer in living memory I have not sucked up a yellow-jacket nest out of the ground with the lawnmower. Knock on wood.

Note some additions to the sidebar AGAIN today. I am happy to add Bene Diction and blogs4god to my linked sites. Both of these sites are well constructed, point to worthwhile matters of faith, and the blogs4god site promises to be an excellent 'meeting place' for faith-friendly bloggers from around the world.

I am pleased that several bloggers thought enough of my 'bee and corn' picture to post links to it. I sort of figured Susanna Cornett would appreciate it, but did not know at the time that she was very familiar with honey-gathering, first-hand. She mentioned sourwood honey, and if you have never had it, you will not understand the salivation reflex it triggered here! Also, Anita Rowland appreciated another couple of my ramblings and reveries.

And to top the day, I was inducted into the Axis of Weevil Defenders of All That is Sacred and Southern Fried. I am humbled to be thought worthy. My son read Terry Oglesby's wonderful, if understated, introduction and welcome this afternoon and said "Dad, those sound like your kind of folks".

I'm afraid may be quite disconcerting to those presently sitting on this august body of bloggers. I have accepted this invitation, however, and am looking forward to my gift pack and to my parking permit, although Agnes at the front desk pressed the security buzzer under her desk when I told her I was now part of the AOW team. I forgive you, honey, bless your little heart, you and me gotta sit down over a sweaty glass of sweet tea and have us a heart to heart after I get my desk arranged.

He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower. Mary Howitt

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. Thich Nhat Hanh

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. Georgia O'Keeffe

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.
Henry Ward Beecher

I hate flowers-I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move. Georgia O'Keeffe

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decypher even fragments of their meaning. Lydia M. Child

Flowers ... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens... Thomas De Quincey

Well, we must be off the radar screen. Yes, blogspot is working; no, nobody's knocking. Good. Maybe people have a life outside their weblogs and computers. However, if one follows the visits curve downward along its present course, by noon Thursday of this week, I will be having negative visitors, and can only think that this means that some of you who have visited are going to be nothing more than a greasy spot on your LazyBoy by sometime later this week. I am very sorry.

We just got back from a walk (even in the heat it helps to be moving into the air; it simulates a breeze). In our usual loop around our valley we heard 7, perhaps 8 Wood Thrushes. Imagine hearing a half dozen or more of these, more or less simultaneously, echoing off the valley walls. (recommend the 253k file...I am using it for an alarm sound! Neat! The real thing is neater!)

The moon was beautiful last night. Once again, I found myself standing out on the walk about 2:00 in the morning, with the soundless summer lightning in the distance, silver-blue moonshadows in water-color silence across the valley. Handy rule: C for Coy, D for Daring. If the shadowy part of the moon makes it look like a C, it is getting smaller; if a D, it is heading toward the full moon. Step outside tonight and see if it is Coy or Daring.

Connie from Pennsylvania, our prayers were answered. And JP from the town of Dunn, Wisconsin, I am most impressed with what has happened in your rural area to preserve and protect precious wetlands and prairie. There is, perhaps, hope for Floyd, if town fathers can gain a 'vision'.

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect." Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

My old boots have been with me now for almost 10 years. I have taken good care of them, sno-sealing, polishing, and cleaning them. Made in Italy, the exact style is no longer available. They can't be replaced.

Our son came in absolutely drenching soaking wet yesterday after being caught out in a glorious storm; it pleased me to watch him and the dog saturated in the joy of an unexpected and much needed soaking, walking home in the knee-high pasture, barely visible through sheets of warm rain. Ah, a kodak moment...until I realized that he was wearing MY BOOTS, and they were way wetter than I have allowed them to get in years. One step closer to their final days. And I begin to think again about shopping for boots. More 'maturity' symptoms here: one thought leads to another, and we are back in the mid seventies, with a boot story:

As the John Lennon bespeckled bearded young Biology guy at the community college, I was seen rather widely around the county with his entourage of granola types, many from the Edgar Cayce Farm in Cedar Springs, out stalking the wild asparagus. Turns out there is a town cop who doesn't much like 'dirty hippies', which I guess I was, by association, and he had stopped me on a couple of occasions in town for very minor 'decal out of date' things, or for nothing in particular. I was just the least bit paranoid, but nothing really worth mentioning. Until one day....

As I left the Anatomy class I had just finished teaching, I was stopped at the door by two well-dressed gentlemen who 'wanted to have a private conversation with me'. Cool. Insurance salesmen, investment brokers, somesuch. We went back to my office and closed the door for a quick speil from these guys just out trying to make a buck, then I would get on to a committee meeting.

"Mr. First, we are investigators from the town Police Department, and we're here to ask you a few questions". Well, that got my attention. "A pair of boots was stolen yesterday from Modern Shoe Store across from the Post Office, and the owner has described the likely thief as someone who fits your description". Uh-oh. Deep do-do. "We know that you were at the scene of the crime because your vehicle was parked in front of the store at the time of the incident."

Okay. Think brain, think brain, think! "Let me see if I have this straight: I'm sure you know that my car was parked there at that time because I paid the parking meter fine...which I suppose I stopped to do before making my get-away with a $20 pair of boots while wearing the $100 pair of boots I am wearing now. This is ridiculous!"

"Mr. First, no body is accusing you of anything. We just need you to come down to the station and appear in a line-up".

Uh, I don't think so. "I am not going to any line-up, and if this **#$@@ continues to harass me, I will sue for defamation of character, and I will OWN ME A SHOE STORE!" This seemed at the moment like it was something I was watching on Perry Mason...couldn't be real life. Could it? I was glad I had seen enough lawyer-sleuth television to know how to play the part of the indignant accused.

They relented. "If you won't come for a line-up, we will need to take a picture and have it available to the shoe store owner and other witnesses. We will get in touch with you if further questioning is needed in the future". I repeated my threats, they left, and I never heard anything more about it. Until...

We moved away from the little town, but returned for a visit to the area several years later. While walking downtown, I ran into an acquaintance of mine, a lawyer who had become town mayor. We chatted a bit, and he said "I was thinking about you just the other day. Did you know that your picture is in the town Mug Book?"

In the way of clarification, I commented:

Dear Mr. Bear sir...

I am sorry to report that I did not pay my minion dues, and Lynn has had to let me go.

My NAME is Fred (Lynn would have called me IGOR if she had ever realized I was her minion) and I LIVE in Floyd and my weblog has some more F's in it.

I was perfectly happy being a millipede, although it is true I felt slighted as E Coli. However, Crawly Amphibians are good too, and I will need to discover now if I am a Plethodontid lunged salamander who can occasionally venture out over dry land (that would be nice) or must stay hidden under a rock (which would prevent me from adding daily to my weblog).

The microbial insurrection may be quelled for the moment, but now you should never turn your back on a 'spring lizard' or a 'flaccid flamingo'...right Lynn, er MASTER?

In other news, I have been labeled on Quae Nocent Docent as "insane" because I thought enough of my visitors to email them vegetables. Insane is it!? I must say, I resemble that remark!

What a tragedy that would have been. We suffer too often from what C S Lewis called 'chronological snobbery': the assumption that newer is always better. There is a grace and tranquility that comes about when a well-built old country barn weathers and ages.

Without putting too fine a point on it, I will leave it to your discerning minds to see the amazing and edifying parallels hidden in the following account. Suffice it to say, the microcosm reflects the macrocosm! No longer thought of as single-cellular microbes, lower level bloggers are on the verge of being recognized as the multicellular invertebrate dwellers of the leaf litter... performing a previously unrecognized and essential function in the Scheme of Things. The paradigm has shifted. Read between the lines here, wise reader:

The story begins with the recent discovery of a previously unknown centipede and an a new gnat! What joy! But consider the blog-relevance and deeper meaning contained in the following quotes from the NY Times:

Museum researchers found the new centipede, along with many other tiny beings, in "leaf litter — piles of broken twigs, fungi and decomposing plant and tree leaves mixed with soil. "Leaf litter is perhaps the "richest and most complex community in the woods", said Dr. Eleanor Sterling, director of the natural history museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. It is, she said, "predators, scavengers, vegetarians living together in a very complicated system."

In one year, five tons can pile up in two and a half acres of woods. Invertebrates consume it and keep it from burying the forest, and there they are as numerous as litter. There are, for instance, some 50,000 springtails (an insect) in one square yard of litter, and that is only one of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of invertebrates found there.

All centipedes are predators with poisonous fangs, and eat any animal they can get their jaws around. The new discovery is no exception. "They're totally mindless killing machines," said Dr. Hoffman, who vastly prefers the more peaceable vegetarian millipedes.

Only 1.5 million of the estimated 10 million to 50 million invertebrates have been identified, Dr. Hoffman said.

"If they rake all the leaves, remove all the fallen twigs and branches, new species — and the regular guys — will not survive," she said. "The whole system will cease to function. We need to appreciate unmanicured nature.

Model synopsis:
The Oak Trees and Tigers and other Top Predators in the Blogosphere send down their crumbs and the picked carcasses of their food sources, their dead leaves and their effluent to the myriad detritavores without backbones, the lower echelons of the food chain keep the blog world from becoming buried in its own humus. These new multicellular creatures are vast in number, infrequently seen, of infinite variety, mostly undiscovered, and various in temperament: from the diminuitively predaceous centipedes, to the flitty superficial springtails, and the plodding but dependable millipedes...and on and on in infinite complexity...forming spheres within spheres of wonderment. Unappreciated, misunderstood, and as necessary as oxygen to the eternal cycle that is the unmanicured nature of the Blogosphere are the newly-discovered invertebrate ranks who live silently just above the microbial sludge.

Lynn...

I feeled compelled to voice my resentment at the reference by innuendo on behalf of my kindred corpuscles that our weblogs are 'mere microbes' at the bottom of the food chain. That this blogger and associated blogs are AT THE BOTTOM, there can be no debate. But microbes! Please!

Call it hubris, but I consider myself higher than the microbe level, much higher....more on the order of a rotifer, tardigrade, or
gastrotrich....perhaps not sentient in the InstaPundit way, but multicellular, by gosh....way beyond the level of staphlococcus.

And I think I speak for other hierarchy-impaired bloggers who hope one day, after regurgitating the crumbs that trickle down from the Top Feeders above, to one day grow into truly macroscopic creatures....flatworm, flukes, leeches!

Yes, we are small and insignificant, and the higher feeders swallow hundreds of us with their corn flakes every morning, but we ARE NOT MICROBES, and its time we took a stand:

I got my first 35mm (Minolta SRT101) in, er... a long time ago, after a class field trip to the Smokies during the wildflower peak month of May. Our little Polaroid had a minimum focal distance of about 4 feet; Miterwort flowers were not even visible as faint dots at that distance.

The first month of marriage (also time of the Snake-in-the-Box story) I spent $200 (my monthly teaching stipend) on the camera and a telephoto lens. Later, added another camera body (SRT202), wide angle and macro. Long story short: I carried this stuff with me everywhere for years...lots of years. Lots of slides (wildflowers, mushrooms, ferns, salamanders, you get the idea) in lots of boxes collecting lots of mold. I loaned my camera to my son for his Bar Harbour trip three years ago (future blog). The camera strap broke while he was in Boston, no more Minolta. Dang. Guess I will finally have to go digital (yippy!).

I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 950 in April, 2000. I lost my first 1000 digital images in April 2001 when my hard drive got wiped while installing a CDRW drive so I could archive my pictures so nothing would happen to them. I love the camera for its design (feels like a 35mm) and for the swivel body. I HAD some great 'from the ground up' shots of various wildflowers that would have been impossible with a fixed camera body.

I would love to post more pictures (a new one coming to Fragments tomorrow morning BTW) but have two concerns you nice, infinitely smart visitors might be able to advise me about:

1) I need more server space to house images. My 'free' 5MB that comes with my internet service is filling up fast. I may have to delete archived images to post new ones soon. Have had PAIR suggested as a server host. Any others you can recommend looking at? If I get a paid server, will consider moving Fragments off of Blogspot, perhaps.

2) What should I do about copyright protection for posted images? Mostly, I post small images that would not do for enlargement. I have had one request for permission to use one of my images on another weblog (posted link soon), and one friend who uses one of my images as a desktop...a nice compliment to the photographer. Should I be worried about posting unwatermarked images? Any experience out there?

Earlier this week (unfortunately, Blogger archives are down A G A I N!... can't grab the link) I mentioned that I was going to try ZIPPING them. This has proven ineffective. I apologise for those to whom yellow squash have been promised. They are now brown and limp from all the bouncing.

Reader Jim from FLA suggests that I try SQUASHING the files instead! Brilliant! Convert them to *.sqa format and they should go out splendidly!

And what does the early facade of investigation look like, you ask? Solomon has some suggestions, based on past scandals that finally came to roost in high places:

* "Damage control keeps the media barking but at bay. The press is so busy chewing on scraps near the outer perimeter that it stays away from the chicken house."

* "Despite all the hand-wringing, the press avoids basic questions that challenge institutional power and not just a few powerful individuals."

* "The scandal comes to light much later than it could have to prevent serious harm."

* "The focus is on scapegoats and fall guys, as though remedial action amounts to handing the public a few heads on a platter."

* "Sources on the inside supply tidbits of information to steer reporters in certain directions -- and away from others. With the media dashing through the woods, these sources keep pointing: 'The scandal went that-a-way!"

Thanks to our astute reader in the field, Curt-with-a-C, who points out that Ken Curtis once sang with Tommy Dorsey, doing the lead in one song clip you can hear on the net, as well singing with the Sons (including Tumbling Tumbleweeds), then having his own Sons of the Pioneers-type singing group for years.

Curtis owned his own production company in the early 50's, producing and starring in the 3-star (out of 10) "The Attack of the Killer Shrews" (yes, I exaggerate at times, but this one is for real, honest!) which a reviewer on IMDb called "unfair to shrews" and another who states "KILLER SHREWS is memorable to me ... because of the lovely Ingrid Goude as well as the stunt doggies, ridiculously disguised as shrews, that are running amuck with long 'hair blankets' covering their bodies".

The character of Festus was one that Curtis did grudingly, in a bit before Gunsmoke, but then was saddled with for 11 years until the series ended in 1975. He had a varied career and was really a nice looking guy behind the two weeks worth of stubble, the squinty right eye and the nasal whine that sorta makes ya skin crawl.

I have often observed in myself a tendency to adopt the speech and behavior mannerisms of those I am around a lot. And I am starting to hear my internal voice sound awful much like Festus Haggen of Gunsmoke.

The old reruns, colorized from the mid sixties, come on at lunch time. I allow myself this hour each day to venture outside my present, tiny reality, into the large lives of solid Gunsmoke characters from Saturday nights, growing up.

(Hey, where is Chester, by the way? Dennis Weaver's name is still on the marquee, but he never shows up in any of the episodes I see. I figure there is some Americans with Disabilities point being made here, since Chester had that frightful hoppity-hop-drag limp, it is probably illegal to show a feigned disability that is so poorly portrayed...something like that...but I digress).

(Nasally:) Th' thang is, fokes, that I'ma kindly gettin' worried-like, cause ya know, I mite some day wanna go out thar and git work agin. Now, this blame ol' place round hyear isa startin' to make me itch justa mite, ya unnerstand? Shore, ah been to college an' all an' ah thank ah could do jus fine back ere in Dodge an' all. But ah don't want them uppidy fokes like Doc Adams gettin' their faces all scrunched up and screwed up anda lookin' at me like ah was some kindofa bumpkin, don't ya see?

Maybe it would help if I shaved this 5-day beard and quit wearing my old broken-down Stetson around the house all day.

I am having some trouble with the vegetable email attachments. I apologise to those for whom this email has bounced. I am considering zipping the package for better success, as I have been getting bounced mail so far.

I am concerned that that yellow squash can only bounce so many times and remain edible. We are working on it.

So far, out of 200 visits, all have been anonymous. If you come here and feel that I would enjoy seeing your weblog (some common ground of interest, etc), please leave me a comment or send email as I am building my weblog list at Fragments.

The earth was silver and still, moonlight coming from over the barn shining lavendar through the thin clouds that veil its full brightness. The who-cooks-for-you call of the Barred Owl, last night very close to the house, tonight was calling from farther down the pasture, near the crook in the ridge where it disappears up the canyon of leaning oaks and white pines along the creek gorge. Crickets and katydids were in full evening voice, sound sine-wave rising, falling, their chorus mesmerizing in its repetitiveness, mantra-like, reassuring.

But there is something missing, and I could not quite say what it is at first, a layer in this night collage that was not in its accustomed place, disjointed.

Then it came to me that there is no water music. The creek now is so low that it is not the predominant background of sound that underlies the other natural noises. The murmur of the creek is a sound we have learned to hear past and don't in a sense hear it, until its source disappears. The creek's silence last night was a noise in itself. All across our region, wells are drying up from the three year drought. Of course it is not the wells that are drying but the very ground water source, the vast waters under the earth that contain the majority of potable water on Earth. When this source goes dry, it takes years, maybe decades to replenish. Some never come back after a sustained drought.

Even in my groggy state, I could not help but make the comparison between our water woes and the current drought and shrinking aquifers of the US Stock Market. I was not able to return to my dreams when I climbed back in bed. We are missing the water, now that the well is dry. Lord give us the rain, and give us wisdom during this drought.

My daughter, Holli and a friend conspired to pull a fast one on unsuspecting daddy. They patted out some giggly pink-brown cookie-shaped patties of PlayDough and baked them in the Easy Bake, with a plot in mind.

Reading in my LazyBoy, I looked up as the girls came tumbling into the room, falling over themselves to offer me the 'cookies'. You could tell they were about to pee their pants, so I milked it out to prolong the suspense. "Hmmmm! These look really good! Did you girls bake them yourselves? Maybe I should save this for later".

"No daddy, go ahead and eat them now" they chortled, barely able to contain their conspiratorial glee.

I got up from the LazyBoy and fetched a glass of milk from the refrigerator, and came back to nestle into a comfortable cookie-eating position.

I took up the whole mess of cookies and held them greedily, commending the girls on their efforts and telling them "I'm so hungry I think I could eat every one of these right now!" knowing they expected me to realize they were not REAL cookies and end the game soon.

I took the first cookie, stuffed in my mouth, chewed heartily, and swallowed.

The horror! The horror! Their eyeballs bulged as they looked at each other in disbelief.

"Daddy, those were not real cookies! They were PlayDough! Don't eat them!!! Spit it out!!"

The guilt of a trick too well pulled off came over them. I burped, then began to shake, bug-eyed, staring blankly into the distance. There was a pregnant moment there when they were not sure if I was about to croak, or was just jerking them around, as I had been known to do on more than one occasion in their short past. I never did tell them that I almost yakked in getting the dang thing down; but I was determined to show them that the tricked can become the tricker.

Fragments made some new friends over the course of the past week, and I look forward to getting to know the REAL PEOPLE behind their excellent weblogs. By way of Rebecca Blood of Rebecca's Pocket recommended the contemplative writing at Sainteros, hosted by Kurt B. down in Nashville, and I will likewise suggest you give him a read. His entries are generally quiet and reflective, but this week he is likely putting more thought into cardboard boxes, preparing for a move across town. And to Fragments via Sainteros, a nice comment and link from Francis at Xavier+.

Also this week, to us via a link at Poet and Peasant (where Lynn has unleased a feeding frenzy among us lower microbes in the Blogosphere food chain) comes Dave Trowbridge of Redwood Dragon from California. I think I have talked him into strapping himself at the top of a nearby redwood during a thunderstorm; you might want to read his account of that. Perhaps he can work the experience into one of his forthcoming SciFi stories. Dave has let his beliefs be known, in a kind and articulate manner, for which he has my respect.

Meanwhile, Meryl Y is moved, motivated and marauding the Richmond area, loaded for bear. She has recently LEFT THE CITY (Gasp!) for a visit to the country, and I hope some of those serenity molecules from the corn came home with her. She was kind enough to post a link to one of my SPIDER stories...oh great! You know how many curious souls will come to Fragments, eager for more, more, more details about SPIDERS!

Susanna Cornett is making changes in her weblog organization and focus...seems like a lot of that going on lately. I just had to send her a recent picture of the garden (which she kindly posted a link to) since we have had a bit of a discourse on the country life, and corn in particular. She has had some recent pointers to Silflay Hraka, on the Fragments list for about a month. Bigwig is now on vacation, expect upcoming entries incorporating sand, poop, and cotton candy...don't miss it!

There have been a number of kind comments this week, including encouragement from Joshua Claybourn from Indiana U, editor in chief of the Hoosier Review. And a visit from Donna Rae, who wants a farmhouse with a clothesline one day in Floyd County.

Thanks to all commenters this week, especially on the State of the Weblog (WhyBlog) thing. But hey, don't be so concrete folks. Did anybody really think I would limit my posts to 6 lines! I'm way more loquacious than that, and also verbose, and use too many words, and...

BTW, I sarcastically pulled a couple of DNS addresses from Site Meter in that post...two of them let me know who they were. Hi, and thanks for your visits, I'll know who dropped by now, including Dragonsong from Germany.

One of my romps through academia was as a psych major, for a full year! In the end, the psychological wiring of my profs and fellow students weirded me out, and I went on to, oh, maybe pre-dentistry. But mom and dad's change was not wasted. No sir. I learnt me some psychology, and it is paying big dividends.

We have this largish black cast iron garden bell just outside the back door. And we have this largish Black Laborador Retriever. Problem: large black dog runs off down the creek and won't come home. Solution: pair the ringing of the bell with a positive reinforcement...a yummy puppy treat! Dog associates sound with food, salivates and everything, and comes home.

Fred, you're a genius! It actually works and my wife thinks me brilliant! I admit I feel a bit guilty for taking advantage of a dumb beast who doesn't realize his behavior is being modified by a superior mind, but hey, if he'd been to college, who knows?

Well, even as I type, here comes Buster. He has my Teva in his mouth. "You put that down", I tell him, and he grudingly drops it at my feet. Good dog! So, I guess that's about all there is to this tale, and...here he comes with an item out of wifey's intimate apparel drawer. "Bad dog, drop it!". I will probably be writing more about our pets soon. I have an especially great lost dog story that...

I'm sorry, I don't seem to be able to get anything completed because this dumb dog keeps bringing me items of clothing, et cetera. Actually he does this every morning until I get up and go fetch him a puppy treat.

It was a bit of a performance, but there was no snake handling, potions or other bizarre carryings-on you would come to expect from television portrayals of rural southern Christian camp meetings.

We have a TV. It makes a nice notepad where we doodle messages to ourselves in the dust on the screen. But I have a moment of weakness every once in a while; or more recently, an incapacitating episode of back pain, and I plop down with the remotest hope there is something on worth watching. Yesterday, there was.

DO see Door to Door. Next airing on TNT is Sunday, July 28th @ 10:15pm(ET).

The road (hidden in the trees, passing through the notch in the center of the picture) meanders along an old farm-to-market wagon lane, in and out, hugging the edge of the dissected valleys, following the fall of Goose Creek down the path of least resistance towards a gentler gradient of the Roanoke Valley. This road was built a century ago, for hooves, not tires. There are hairpin turns aplenty. The rugged 'mountain land' on either side is punctuated here and there by picturesque notches, slips of pasture bordered by towering White Pine, and unpretentious farmhouses, few and far between.

After snapping a few images, I meandered along the road a ways, enjoying the silence here for a bit this morning. And then they came: at first a distant hum, then nearer, a rising and falling chorus of bellows and whines, coming quickly closer and closer. Down this cart path, out left of the middle of nowhere, the Miata and Other Small Brightly Colored Convertibles Club of the Roanoke Valley was having a field day. And at once they were past and out of sight, engines whining as they accelerated into each hairpin turn, brilliant blurs, doppler-fading into the distance, oblivious to anything but the pavement centered in their windshields and the G-force of speed.

Back when our son was about three yrs old, he and I were out driving the back roads, probably looking for places to take my biology classes for field trips. I did a lot of escapist travel using that excuse back then, the kids often went with me. I recall encountering a slow moving, oncoming truck heading our way somewhere out on the edge of the county. The driver threw up his index finger and thumb, lifting it just slightly but conspicously from the steering wheel. In reply, I did the same thing.

"Who was that, daddy" Nathan asked.
"Just a neighbor" I told him.
"Did you know him?"
"Well, no. I don't think we knew him".
"Then why did he wave, and why did you wave back?"

Good question. I really wasn't sure. It was just what you did, apparently, when you met someone driving country roads. I think I told Nathan that it was the 'neighborly thing to do'. Of course, city people in cars meet their neighbors on their roads; lots and lots of them, all the time. And they do, indeed, sometimes offer the middle finger of recognition. I have seen it many times, but never on a country road.

I think what it boils down to is this: in the country, where people are relatively few, there is the sense that neighbors, even strangers on a country road, will likely be seeing each other again. We are obliged to each other, and acknowledging the passing of a stranger is a good way of saying 'we belong here, so we belong to each other, be seeing ya again'. Is this just an Appalachian phenomenon? Is it accurate to think that this happens on rural roads everywhere? I would like to think so.

Duration: about three months since starting Fragments from Floyd. At the time it began, I really had no idea why I needed a blog, or what I would write about. Now, 100 days later, I have no idea why I needed a blog, or what I will write about. This shows stability, perserverance, and a high tolerance for boredom and ambiguity of purpose...important traits in a blogger of the 'lower forms of life' in the Blogosphere, such as the staff and production crew at Fragments.

Style: After considerable mucking about with fonts, backgrounds, and layout, we at Fragments continue to muck about with same. Failing to hear user comments pro or con, we feel free to use chartreuse text on fushia table cells, knowing that permanent night-sweats may result. Hey, you no speak, we no freak. And of course, being timid of heart, while all other successful bloggers have migrated to Moveable Type on dedicated, commercial servers, I continue to 'save money' by shoe-horning our content into a department-store template which is unavailable on Blogger.com most of time, but as my momma taught me, 'for free, take; for buy, waste time'.

Content: How should we describe these pages with proper mock-humility and feigned reticence: I would say that the dust-cover to Fragments would call us "a place where Euell Gibbons meets Uncle Remus". That should be provacatively ambiguous enough to score some visitors, eh? Our statisticians tell us that our average reader stays pouring over a single page load for a luxurious 3 minutes 13 seconds! If you remove multiple daily page loads by the staff of Fragments, that reader-dwell-time is reduced to 0 minutes 35 seconds. Since the projected read time for a typical Fragments entry is 4 minutes, 24 seconds, we have concluded that our faithful readers do consistently read the first 6 lines before clicking over to Meryl or Bigwig or *.pundit. Not bad, really. We are considering a retro-modification to our archives, removing all but the first 6 lines of each entry in Fragments, with the concensus among our staff that no one will notice the changes. One does have to be adaptable to the reading habits of ones readership.

Success: Of course, this can mean only one thing: page loads/unique visitors. (I should mention that the text 'snake-headed fish' from last week has brought unprecedented popularity to our log, and we are thinking of having a repeat episode next week, perhaps changing the text to whatever is at the top of DayPop.) I have just heard the terrible news that poor Meryl Yourish temporarily LOST 200 visitors during her recent move. Poor child, how awful. Get a life, woman! Pardon me, I lost my train of thought. We here at Fragments are not so petty as to base our achievements on such pedestrian measures as "visitors per day". If we were, the mere 20-30 visits each day for the grueling 15 minutes of random association put into these rare tales of slugs and zucchini would be most discouraging. No, it is the QUALITY of our small band of faithful visitors that is the fuel for our persistent efforts. Especially, we would like to thank 195.145.23.*, txucom.net, and aol.com for your faithfulness, but more than that, for just being yourselves, whoever you are.

Plans for the future: As previously mentioned, we are redesigning our format to a 6-line entry length. There will be perhaps 20-30 entries daily (keep those WebLogs.com hits coming in), with more plegarism, er linking to people with real weblogs where extremely controversial politically-volatile topics are discussed. This is anticipated to increase our Commenting Frequency, presently at 1 per 20 entries. We have found that our readers don't have opinions to share on topics such as the Music of the Spheres or the state of Fred's digestion. In addition, expect at least half our entries to heap praise on one or more bloggers at the 'top of the food chain', in shameless pimping for Fragments. Darwinian forces are at work here, folks. To resist is futile.

Unfortunately, I too infrequently follow my own advice. Adults have to sneak to do what children do naturally and without suspicion. It is not easy for a 'grown-up' to assume the posture I am prescribing here. I would embarass my children years ago, when we lived in the middle of town. There was their daddy flat of his back on the front walk, or slightly hidden to passing traffic, in the curve of the driveway wall, staring raptly into space, with his hands cradling his head, looking at....clouds? Leave him alone, kids, he is out having an 'attitude adjustment' in his own peculiar way.

Earlier this week I found myself sliding backwards down a slippery slope of despair brought on by a day of unrelenting bad news in the horizontal surface world. In retreat, I slithered out the door into the heat, and poured myself onto the brick walkway behind the house.

Now in shade of late afternoon, the air was cooling but the stones still retained heat from the vertical world of sunlight. Feeling the warmth against my back and bare legs, I began to give up the toxins that had accumulated with time. Time, blessing and curse.

Time: technological...horizontal time; Western time; linear, by the clock; nano-second, calibrated and precise; practical and efficient; time of schedules and deadlines; externally contrived, artificial; the time of commerce, it equals money; amoral and impersonal.

Time: ceremonial...vertical time; aboriginal time before clocks, subsuming more than the now; non-linear, measurement of internal rhythms, without units; time of meditation, daydreams and rapt participation; time of solitude and time linking every soul to all others before and beyond; cultural time, collective, time of frenzied dance and ritual; perhaps time as God knows it.

Lying on one's back under the sky reverses field and ground. This is one way to bring a tired soul face to face with non-linear, extra-cosmic time. Perspective, scale and ratio can be restored for brief moments in this peculiar kind of time, and so it is therapeutic in its own right. But there is also worth in the flat-of-the-back visions themselves; of silhouetted trees against the sky, the heavenlies, the sky itself in all its moods, day and night; and marvelous moving clouds of every imaginable combination of reflected and diaphanous light and texture, pulled, piled and boiling. Creatures traversing that infinite column of one's vision can be wonderous, too, and in some way hopeful, an antidote to the oppression of Western time and the news from our small, sad world.

So, here I lie, at this moment, warm, pliant, with little expectation. The featureless hazy sky given today as a backdrop is at first disappointing. Nothing for me here today, my oppression tells me, and my hope of epiphany plummets back to earth, heavy and inert. Be still, experience the quiet, and wait. And then I see.

Against the cloudless haze, just over the top of the chimney: dragonflies, hatched from sinister aquatic nymphs down there in the creek, they have become airborne, soundless body and wings at right angles, cursors like crosses, patrolling back and forth the same stratum, the same path, predictable and tireless.

And beyond this, another tier in the cosmic dance, chimney swifts occupy the next stratum; higher, coming, going wildly in formation, squadrons of fusiform bodies dart V-shaped, twittering, after insects that I cannot see, they are more than welcome to them. No chimneys for them here, they must roost in large hollow trees which have disappeared from cities, but remain here in our woods. Spending all their day in the air, they even mate on the wing, clumsy and obsolete when standing, rarely, on their vestigial legs.

Above that, see the chevrons of the nighthawks, a dozen coming in eerily from the east, soaring bent-winged, then changing course irratically as if pulled by invisible threads, 'peenting' their hoarse calls of exclamation. And beyond in this vertical tube above me, two disinterested black buzzards chart lopsided spirals, spectators to all below, not even specks to them which might look down on all of us from the jetliners leaving contrails above.

This 'here' where I lie is a point uniquely mine, me, a being seemingly at rest and fixed, self-knowing, while at just this longitude and latitude and moment my body is being carried, passive, speeding in a wobbly curcuit around the oblate spheroid of Earth, itself spinning about the Day Star, an insignificant point of light in a spiral swirling lace of stars innumerable, one of countless such clusters receding away from each other, toward the expanding edge of virgin space and time.

This we know. The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.

This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

We did not weave the web of life; We are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

This is the first garden worth any account that we have had in 15 years of working a combined 80+ hours a week between the two of us. We now have a gardener around to tend it. Me. This is my job. Gardens do not thrive on neglect. We've tried that for 15 years. Trust me.

This one is rather weeny...about a fourth of what we used to have when I was teaching and had most of the summers off. But then there were four mouths to feed, now two. There will be more squash and corn than we can eat, probably also enough tomatoes to can. Gonna be serious about getting in a Fall garden this year, too.

There must be something in the cosmic rays that fall on the godly and the ungodly alike that is making us all, all across the planet, gnaw our own paws off, like distempered dogs. Maybe it has finally happened; maybe today humankind has gone as far as it is going to go, up the long, steep gradient toward order and reason, that long moving wedge, that escalator of events, representing all of human history, its motors driven by invention, inspiration, genius, blood and tears, carrying its riders higher and higher, towards what? Doesn't matter. We're not gonna get there this way. If we keep doing what we have always done, we'll get what we've always got.

So much for the bootstrap theory of social evolution. I never believed in that false God anyway. Imperfect men do not create perfect societies. Neither, Perfect Women. We are lemmings, with the illusion of marching forward, while being carried inexorably backward, downgrade the slippery slope of entropy, headed for the lemming cliffs, falling backwards, all together.

Such is the nature of my angst and sadness, and there seems to be no consolation. A walk down the lane provided no solace. Even a long romp with the dog brought only temporary distraction. Like the psalmist, I find myself "counted among them that go down to the pit" and there is no digging out. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?.

Mr. Smith was a simple man with a particuluarly curious abdominal pain complaint (a hernia of some sort, I think) that he described in detail as being "like they was a squirrel tryin' to come up outta ma belly right here, I can even see its little head a pokin' up tryin' to get out, and I hafta take my hand a poke it back down in there". (The staff suggested in our private rounds that perhaps if we offered the rodent it a peanut, it would just come on out, and Mr. Smith could go back to work.) But this is beside the point.

On this particular day, I told Mr. Smith that it was time for group session with the psychologist and he would have to head on down the hall. I expected the typical grousing and stalling. Instead, he brightens up quite unexpectedly, and jumps right up and starts down the hallway.

As he leaves he says to me: "Ya know, I didn't care much for that mental mumbo-jumbo at first. But I tell, ya, I'm starting to believe that there is really something to that GAZEBO EFFECT".

"Out, out, brief candle" is a pretty good statement of human frailty. Permanence is a profound illusion, a lie we must tell ourselves from minute to minute.

It is not good to have a medical emergency when one must follow a parade of at least three cars and a large piece of farm equipment to reach the ER. Talking 16 miles of parade here. No clowns, no bands. Two lane road like varicose veins and no, I mean NO passing.

The cobblers children have no shoes. At our house, the pharmacist's medicine cabinet has no pills. But we will be adding Benedryl. You should too. It's not just for breakfast anymore. This med is helpful with bee sting allergies which can be just annoying, but this and other swellings can be life threatening. Some simple antihistamine can save a life. Just do it.

Live each day as if it might be your last. Be prepared...in life, for death. They waltz together to music we do not hear.

"...he fills my head with oil; he runs over my cup".

Impression: I am struck by the language, the word choice: particularly by those who write for a living, or profess to desire to write more, to become writers, and so on. The majority of visited logs this morning, by chance, were written by females. At least 40% of those I visited have chosen to use the "F" word in their weblog writings in a most gratuitous manner. I find this disappointing. Color me an old frump.

I am not a prude, nor am I a sailor. I confess to resorting to the use of short gutteral words at moments when it is desired that I impart the maximum injury or express the vilest of hatred or anger toward another person. I am not proud of this. I have always considered those who use 'foul language' on a routine, everyday basis to be substituting armed and deadly words as a way of compensating for their lack of expressing their feelings more precisely. I am disappointed with myself when I resort to the 'vulgar'.

Lack of education or abiility is certainly not the case with the ladies of which I speak. I do not know if the increasingly widespread use of the "F" word (if this rise is indeed more than my imagination or a non-random sampling) is a sign of communications laziness; a concession, a colloquialism, if you will, in order to fit in with their anticipated readership, 'bless their little hearts'; or a sign of yet another ramping down of our standards of acceptable and appropriate language among our educated young men and ladies.

We just listened to a Fairfield Four gospel CD. Stop the music, I can't quit clappin' and dancin'. And my bass vocal cords need a rest!

What to do with this empty crater of space created by my recent joblessness? That is the question. In my most optimistic moments, I see that this is not a problem, it is an opportunity. Heard it knocks only once, better get up from Gunsmoke and go see who's rappin'.

Actually, there is no doubt that there will NOT be any knocking; my chance to Do Something With The Rest of My Life will have to be found, it will NOT find me. Hmmm...

Surely there is something to be done to create income or security with our land as a base. Raise Chinchillas! Llamas! Ostriches! maybe Snakeheaded Fish culture? Or in the vegetable world: hydroponic tomatos! Kiwi! Tofu plants!

Doe anyone really Work from Home, making "two, five, even NINE thousand dollars a month, working part time, using your computer"? I haven't had the guts to even look at what part of the soul one would sell to find paying customers, to build a 'downline'; how many friends and relatives would not answer their phone calls or emails once you were 'on your way to financial freedom' with the rising, rapidly expanding, exciting (OOH! OOH!) Viagra Diet and Hair Restoration Program.

And of course, there is always writing for a living.

You know the difference between a (musician, writer...substitute one) and a large pizza?

A large pizza can feed a family of four!

On the other hand, this might be just the time to act on marketing my physical therapy inventions. The ones that patients always said, "hey, you could sell that one!" Hmmm. Materials: a buck fifty. Printed matter, 20 cents. Patent attorney: $7500 upfront, then three bags full when product goes to market. Marketing: one arm, one leg. Distribution and advertizing: 25 of 24 hours a day, no pee breaks. Profit: 20 cents per unit, before taxes. Taxes: whatever is left. Sounds like a plan to me!

Okay, who am I kidding. I need to hunker down and cut to the chase. There is one phrase that can reliably redeem the fallen from the rank and file of the unemployed. If conquered and expressed with conviction, confidence and poise, this phrase can lead to financial independence, employment in any American city of your choice, a nifty cap and a oh-so-kewl Britney Spears microphone headpiece. All of you who share my plight, say it with me now:

Towering over the actual puny intentional edible forbs in the garden, casting shadows on the other lesser weeds like Purslane and Gallant Soldiers, Jimson Weed has risen to prominence with the recent rains. Datura stramonium: a giant among green garden pests. It is also called Stink Weed, guess why; and for its 2" ovoid evil-spiny seed pods: Thorn Apple. As I recall, the name Jimson is an adulteration of Jamestown: a word about this later.

At the time, in a galaxy far far away, I was twenty-seven years old, and new to the Biology faculty at a community college in southwest Virginia. I had gained some notoriety as the 'hippie teacher', since I alone among my colleagues had hair barely over my collar and John Lennon glasses; but more than that, I was seen around the county with my entourage of tree-hugger Earth Children in my Field Botany class. We were quite conspicuous as we scoured the roadsides and fields for new and wonderful plants to identify and admire, photograph, or consume.

It is a mid-summer evening and the phone rings at the house. It is the police. Gulp. Quick check of recent and past experience with illegal substances, activities or those suspected of same. Innocent, but gulp again. They are calling from the hospital regarding the identification of plant substance associated with a possible poisoning. They want to know if I can help them identify the plant source from the seeds they found with the young man. Yea, right. There is no Petersons Field Guide to Spores and Seeds, gentlemen. I doubt I would be able to help you, I told them. But...I am on my way. Urgent, they said. Hurry.

A teenage boy presents in the ER with accelerated heart rate, ataxia (can't walk), and profuse sweating. And he is gorked out of his ever-lovin' head...trippin' right near the edge, man. What a rush! Seizures, dude! And in his pocket was a vial of seeds, the assumption being that many more of them were in his GI tract sending substances unknown to what was left of his brain. Depending on what the active property was, a decision needed to be made right away whether to do gastric lavage, induce vomiting, or start administering an antidote.

Sometimes you get lucky. I poured the seeds out into a stainless steel basin under bright examination lights. I was starting to get into this. Tight-lipped, with only the occasional knowing hmmmmmmm or unnHuhhh I turned the seeds over, scraped a few arcanely with a scalpel (for no real purpose), and then sat silently for a pregnant moment. (Break here at the peak of tension for a commercial...)

Jimminy! What were the chances that I could identify a SEED! But the distinctive, thick, kidney shaped seeds of Jimson Weed could not be mistaken. Case solved. Possible outcome without prompt intervention: death. Start the stomach pumps, administer physostigmine, call the kid's parents and, after he is able to stand up again, arrange to have his butt kicked.

The folks in early Jamestown didn't know hay from horseapples, and were starving to death in the new land of unknown plants. After consuming a big mess of this abundant weed, some died, more just experienced hallucinations and psychosis, in addition to the anticholinergic symptoms seen in our young seed-tripper in the hospital. Datura is also called Loco Weed. A tough lesson; Jamestown had ignorance as an excuse. Jethro here was just a fortunate idiot with a bottle of magic weed seeds that Country Columbo just happened to know.

Same summer a few weeks later, another call at home. This time from a physician. His two-year-old daughter had been entertaining herself in the yard. Noticed to have been intently picking something out of the grass for some time, the mother discovered many small, brown mushrooms in the area. Had the baby eaten any? many? were they poisonous? Should they pump her stomach (a traumatic thing for anyone, much less a two-year-old). Again, what do I know about identifying small, non-descript brown lawn mushrooms...there are dozens of them! Again, I got lucky. This time, I made a quick spore print and got some spores also on a microscope slide. Oh, this was really forensic science of the first stripe! No time to enjoy this one, a child's life may be at stake. Gilled mushroom of lawns, peaked cap, brown spores shaped like an apple pip: Marasmius oreades.

It has been a glass-half-empty sort of morning. Don't know why. Sun spots. Biorhythms. That time of the month. I have overcome inertia this morning only by doing. Not thinking, writing or planning. Doing. I am pleasantly tired, sweaty, and smell like walnut branches and gasoline. If the General in charge of Hygiene and Dinner Guest Preparation were here, I would be de-licing and looking for the soap-on-a-rope. Instead, I stink, therefore, I am.

Quotes below excerpted from Common Dreams article by John LaForge.

...In January 2001, the world press finally discovered depleted uranium (DU) weapons(1), the super hard munitions made with waste U-238 -- an alpha emitter with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years. Nine years of radiation-induced death, disease, and birth abnormalities in Iraq did not move major news organizations to investigate, but the deaths from leukemia of 15 Western Europeans -- after their participation in military missions in Bosnia and Kosovo -- prompted the major media, the European Parliament and 11 European governments to launch investigations into the health and environmental consequences of what Dr. Rosalie Bertell calls "shooting radioactive waste at your enemy." ...

...Because the U.S. government has known since at least 1984 about the poisonous effects of its DU warfare, the commanders of its bombing raids over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan may well hope the White House wins its fight for immunity in the International Criminal Court. If not, the Pentagon’s dirty bomb contamination may move from the gene pool and the water table into the court room.

"BlahblahblahblahDUSTMOP BlahblahblahblahPLACEMATSblahblah..." shouts the General in charge of Counter-Invasion Forces; er, force...just me. An Army of One.

I honestly try to follow the endless list of orders and heed the warnings. I make sincere effort to feign interest by continuous affirmative head-bobbing...sort of a military wobble-head doll...eager to please but more eager just to get on with my day! Good Lord, it's two adults coming for a meal, not the approach of the DeathStar Battallion!

IF just once, the Dire Consequences anticipated by the General in her battle strategy would actually occur, I would become a believer, and would re-enlist:

The invaders refuse to eat from the plates because there are water spots on the underside.

The Landing Forces examine my sock drawer and the top shelf of my closet

Aliens demand to see our storage room AND cellar, particularly looking behind things in the corners with their X-ray vision.

The Exotic Ones become ill, dissolving into green goo before our eyes because the salad forks were INCORRECTLY PLACED on the left side! No, make that the right side! WhatEVER!

The Horde becomes enraged and violent (or lapses into a comatose state) because the Army of One made the incorrect choice in dinner music. Or it was too loud. Not loud enough

The General-in-Charge is the object of wrath and loathing for any infractions or shortcomings suffered because of the incompetence of the Troop, is condemned as a Really Bad Person, and is excommunicated from the Legion of Friends foreverSigh.

I walk alone under the constellations of the night sky in my own fields. I wander unhurried in the woods down along the creek, stopping to search for salamanders, waterpennies, and mayflies under the rocks rounded by age and the etching of currents. Yet, I know there is more for me to both remember and to know anew of this rich garden than human vision, course and truncated, can show me.

Now I wish I had two tools to help me expand my view within the material world: a microscope, and a telescope. How I would love to see again the beauty of detail in the microcosm of a drop of pond water: rotifers and ostracods; Stentor, Paramecium, Volvox. And to find binary stars, nebulae and moons, catching ancient light from galaxies whose age and dimensions give perspective to this brief candle of flesh.

If I were king, it would be required that every schoolchild be able to identify the fifty most common small invertebrates and microscopic denizens who share their back yards; and to know the constellations, be able to explain the seasons, and have some understanding of the term lightyear as compared to the time between human birthdays. I can't help but believe that seeing and knowing these things would make us better citizens of this world. It may also point us toward the knowing of things not seen and vastly more eternal and worthy of our search.

The futility of our plight is articulated well by Blaise Pascal in his 'thought' entitled Man's Disproportion, excerpted here. I will let him say for me what I cannot say. It would be worth your time to follow the link and read it all.

...for who will not admire our body, which before was imperceptible within the universe, imperceptible itself within the bosom of nature, and which is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in comparison to the nothing, the smallness, we can't arrive at?

Anyone who considers himself in this way will be seized with terror and, discovering that the mass nature has given him supports itself between two abysses of infinity and nothingness, he will tremble in the face of these marvels; and I believe that as his curiosity changes to admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than search them out with presumption.

For, finally, what is man in nature? He is nothing in comparison with the infinite, and everything in comparison with nothingness, a middle term between all and nothing. He is infinitely severed from comprehending the extremes; the end of things and their principle are for him invincibly hidden in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he arises and the infinity into which he is engulfed.

This is not to be, thanks to horrendous reductions in certain insurance reimbursement for PT services. So, that was Plan A. For the first time in my life, I don't have a Plan B. (Unless one can make a life's work out of drinking coffee). Basically, this change represents the end of a 13 year career in physical therapy, and that is a rather major realization that is sinking in this morning.

99: I whistle. The theme from the High and the Mighty is my favorite. Most of my whistling has somewhat the register and tremulo of a musical saw: the world's most hated 'instrument'. I whistle when I'm happy. More often than not, I whistle when I'm up to my elbows in alligators and want the people around me to think I am casual, in charge and chipper. More people have told me that they enjoy my whistling than have asked me to stop. My wife is consistently in the latter group.

100: I play the accordion. Let me amend that. I have an accordion and at one time (during my teenage years) I played it with some degree of regularity and modest virtuosity. I have since learned, from my wife, that at least in some circles (and my wife is definitely part of this particular circle) the musical saw is strongly preferred to the accordion. In fact, I have heard it said:

Truth of the matter: these beautiful arachnids were (sort of) rescued from becoming a meal. This is not entirely true, since each one of these sedated spiders has a fertilized 'organpipe mud dauber' egg growing inside it. They are out of their muddy casket, but they are still somebody's supper.

Cleaning up in the shed this morning, the solitary black wasp would come to the opening of the tubular column with an assortment of spiders. What a wonderful food: slow, softbodied, widely available in the places these wasps build their spider-dungeons: sheds, barns, back porches. A quick sting sedates the spider. They were moving ever so slightly when I my son (no stranger to dad's naturophilic weirdness) was recruited to offer his palm for this picture. Most of the spiders pictured here will become much larger, so they serve as food only for a short while when they are not too heavy a load or too large a deposit for the organ-pipes.

When you hear his work described as a "new paradigm of thought" and its author called "the next Newton", it sort of makes you wonder what is going on. This guy goes toe to toe with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which Stephen Wolfram states is "not universally valid". Huh? Yep. Mr. Wolfram "believes that his methods can generate essentially any degree of complexity exhibited by life, and they have nothing to do with natural selection".

This George-Costanza-looking guy is stepping on some large toes here. "A New Kind of Science" will certainly create waves, and will probably also help explain complex systems in a unique way, with spin-off technologies and areas of study. In the end, though, it will likely do nothing toward helping us solve the 'soft' problems that plague mankind, those that stem from our lack of wisdom and charity. Wolfram's new science may drill down a few more layers in the reduction of everything to 'nothing but'; in his case, the weather, consciousness, and free will are nothing but the product of 'cellular automata'.

The explanatory power of Wolfram's new paradigm may be vast. The theory of Darwinian selection likewise 'explains everything', if you squint your eyes just a little bit, and Dawkins Selfish Genes pretty well explain away any meaning in the world of living things beyond making more gene copies. All stories that are plausible are not necessarily true, and the application of large explanatory theories applied toward human biology, societies, emotions and behavior have not necessarily improved the state of our coexistence on the planet. Coming to a better understanding of how things work will be exciting and perhaps utilitarian, but we are perhaps less in need of more details and facts, in these chaotic times, than wisdom.

I happened on the quote below quite by 'chance'. It comes from an essay on Annie Dillard's autobiography. It is only right that words about her, a Christian mystic who knows her point and place in life, should afford some measure of meaning to this early reader of Tinker Creek so many years ago. She saw the 'tree with the lights in it'. I have seen it too. Here, perhaps, is a portion of the purpose of Fragments from Floyd:

This impulse to tell one’s story comes at a time when the end of life is suddenly all too imaginable. All of the past (but especially the years of childhood) becomes an endangered species worthy of memory’s protection. The urge to hold on tight takes over with the realizations usually reserved for Forty Something: parents can die, relationships meant to last forever come to an end, and the once invulnerable flesh proves astonishingly frail. At a point one hopes to be no less than halfway through – "midway in the journey of our life," according to Dante -- it is time at last to come to oneself.

Shoring up the fragments of the past against the future’s ruin (and savoring all the riches that in fact remain), the autobiographer comforts us with the record of a continuous self and a coherent history. Self-indulgence is transcended as one person’s memoir becomes an open invitation to remember. It can also be an act of love. For just as we alone among the creatures are given the difficult gift of imagining our own death, we are also uniquely endowed with the ability to tell our stories to one another, to give ourselves away in narrative.

Today in church, we heard a 15 minute recording of CS reading a selection from his essays "The Four Loves". There was his actual voice, thickly British, jowly and viscid, raspy from years of pipe smoking, he sounded nothing like I had imagined. It was unsettling at first, like finding that someone familiar has been wearing a mask and is slightly alien underneath. I imposed the mask, I realized, and was able after a few minutes of adjustment to accept him as he was/is, and soon found myself mesmerized by his wonderful examples, clear logic and typical mastery of the language and his (and my) faith.

Somewhat in the same vein, I have never seen Fiona Ritchie of Thistle and Shamrock (Celtic Music program on NPR that we listen to rather regularly). Her lilting Scottish accent is so fresh and crisp, so perky and sexy. Surely she must be rather tall, thin, with long auburn hair, unpretentious, with green eyes and strong but attractive features. And I fancy that she secretly is in love with me. How I dread the day when, despite all my avoidance, I will see her pictured somewhere. Could I love her, fat and dowdy, gray and coarse?

One time as I hung out, I heard this pleasant voice say "is there anybody on this line that is older than 13 and has a brain?" I answered. We shouted at one another for a few minutes. She eventually offered: "Call me at this number and maybe we can actually talk". We did.

I have remembered this upon my joining the babel and cacophony of the Bloggosphere. So many voices, so little time. We want communication, community, entertainment, enlightenment, a thousand voices with a thousand points of view. How does one leave the noise of the party line (you young sprouts will not even understand the term, perhaps) and find a more quiet place where self-disclosure is possible, permissable, and practical?

That perhaps is overstating the point here, but will serve as a way to mention a few recent contacts in the world of bloggers that gives me hope in the end-result of this medium: creating community, understanding, common ground among the world's languages and rich diversity of thought and culture.

Perhaps among the most encouraging of trends I am seeing is that bloggers actually meet and touch-see-smell-hear each other in the real world; sometimes en masse at blog parties, sometimes one on one. Susanna Cornett (cut on the bias) and Meryl Yourish (of yourish.com) have recently met in the Jersey City area, only to have Meryl leave for the 'uncrowded' open spaces of Richmond, Va. The author of HairyEyeball, like the previously-mentioned bloggers, resides in NYC, is an designer of words (in several languages) and wanders down on Goose Creek by blog-visit from time to time. For urban readers, Fragments must seem like extra-terrestrial semi-intelligence at best; our worlds are very different, and hence the benefit of this mutual 'cross-pollination' via our w'logs. Hands across the galaxies.

More recently, via other bloggers, I have 'met' Bigwig of Silflay Hraka (if you are not Watership Down literate, do your homework); he forays the weeds and vegetable patches in the Chapel Hill area and conspires with several other Lagomorphs on the always-interesting web effort. Also never a waste of time is wood s lot, issuing from 'a small town' in Canada. Not sound-bites oriented, visit when you can sit down with a pot of coffee and read the excellent exerpts leading to complete and substantial articles.

So, meanwhile back at the ranch: I did call this sultry voice out of teen-age Babel back long ago. Several times, as a matter of fact. I learned that she was a singer. She was performing at a night club on the side of town I never visited. She was very good looking. She really wanted to meet me. It was the mid sixties in Birmingham. She was black. I didn't care. But I didn't go meet her; the times in Dixie were not auspicious; and I am shy around police dogs and water cannon.

I tend to gravitate to log-writers who appear to have fun with their topics (though certainly not all topics are humourous or lite) without taking themselves too seriously. Moreover, they do so with style (both verbal and in their layout) and are channels through which I can find other similar bloggers.

Matter of fact, I am just starting to have some daily reads that I look forward to keeping up with. Some even occasionally drop by Fragments here to read an entry or two, post a comment, or send a wee bit of traffic our way by mentioning something that is going on here on Goose Creek in their weblogs. Amazingly, Fragments is turning up in the logs-list of a few of my fellow bloggers and I am most flattered and appreciative; I will try not to embarass you by association.

Having just the tinyest wee bit of a sense of community here, ya'll.

Our first evidence that the entertainment was near was a sound of mingled voices, leaves lifting from below by the swirling vacuum that preceded the storm, sweeping the distant ridges from bottom to top. Soon we could hear it, a sizzle like someone frying bacon in the next room or the one beyond that. The first drops hit the walkway with heavy fluid splats; first just a few, then more, then nothing at all while the bacon sizzled closer and closer.

The percussion section leading the parade banged far-off rumblings, then more crowd voices rose as the winds neared and intensified. Soon the drum section was playing in earnest, taking turns between those associated with the towering airmass to our east and the broader, more subdued cymbol band to our west. It was apparent that they would be meeting on main street, just overhead, and then the real show would begin.

The first really big ooooohhhh! aaahhhhhh! explosion was right here right now! Jagged white from cloud to ground flash-KKKKBOOOOMMMMMMMM back and forth between this valley then the next then the next in infinite receding echoes,. No! That was not the big one: it came and we felt it viscerally long before the thought reached consciousness. Not merely a concussion but having a tonal quality, low frequency but a true note, a VARRROOOOM that sounded like a huge cast-iron pipe being struck by Thor's sledghammer, this being followed by divers variations on the theme. Magnificent!

Soon the entertainment passed southeast of us, now preparing to thrill viewers in Carroll County, Grayson, and down into North Carolina. What a glorious program of fireworks, and right from our front porch. No crowds. No traffic. Very impressive.

We've done a fair job of weeding before the invaders set seed to inflict even more aggravation in the gardening season to come. Even so, with the rain, the weeds abound. Today for the first time, I am seeing a plant whose name I learned from a elderly farmer back in Wytheville years ago. "Now that'n there is Gallant Soldiers", he told me, between spits of RedMan, as we surveyed my hopeful garden. "Hit'll take off and spread seeds all over, so ya wanna get than'n out o'your garden quick like".

Gallant Soldiers? Hmmmm. Generally one can see a trait in the plant that leads to the common name (which may be different from one holler and one county to the next). Consider Black-eyed Susan has the black center, like an eye; Touch-me-not that has the exploding seed pod; Poison Ivy Lord'll make you itch; and one that I have dubbed "Mountain Toilet Paper" which is self-describing. But Gallant Soldiers?

We can thank Mr. Linneaus for saving us from speaking in plant-babel when referring to world vegetation, since the latin species designation is hard and fast, always linked to a certain set of plant features. Helianthus rudbeckia always refers to the same plant, all around the world. Even common names are rather firmly established, except in the rural hinterlands far from the towers of botanical academe. Common names can come from necessity, since when you live around garden and pasture plants, it helps to have a name to call it by, don't you see. Some colloquial names are quite creative, if confusing, and I have heard several good'uns since living the rural life.

I had a patient once who worked for the Park Service. He was lamenting how much time the roadside crew had to spend clearing 'them spindly trees' from the Blue Ridge Parkway right-of-way. I asked him what tree he was talking about. "We call 'em 'Lancers'" he told me. I prodded him for details about its leaf, bark, growth habit, and so on. I was stumped. He finally got around to saying that Lancers had a pithy center and that it 'smelt something awful'. AHA! He was talking about Tree of Heaven, an awful, invasive non-native plant, scientific name: Ailanthus. Lancers. Pretty close, and easier to say.

Another person I got into conversation with in downtown Floyd told me he was taking the afternoon off. He and his brother we going out in the woods near home and cut down some Bologny Wood to sell and make some money. Huh? "yea, they ship it over to Japan and pay right good money for it". Again, I thought I knew my trees fairly well; but this was a new one for me. I ran through the same series of questions about shape and size and habitat and so on. Finally, when he said that it had 'lots of purple flowers out on the ends', the light in my head blinked on. What he had told me about there being a market for it overseas was true, but most foresters know it as Paulonia. Okay. Bologny, whatever. He knew which trees to cut, and the woodlot man probably also called it Bologny. As long as they understand one another.

So, when I finally got around to keying out this new garden pest that my neighbor had identified for me, I found out that, here again, a little knowledge is dangerous. This plant is known among botanical types as Galinsoga. Granted, it's a scientific name adulteration but I like Gallant Soldiers...science touched by dirt, and that is what I have called this garden vagrant ever since.

So for almost a week, I am stuck with the paint stirring attachment frozen tight in the jaws of the drill. Finally, I make the excursion to Home Depot and purchase a key; not the one that came with the drill, of course. That one ALWAYS stayed in its appointed clip right on the tool; I was religious about putting it back every time I used it. Dang. Don't know how I could have lost it, but now I am headed home with a replacement and can get on with my tasks.

Screws are in the sack, shelving brackets and seed are in the sack. No drill chuck key in the sack from Home Depot. Rats! So the next time I am near a store (Tuesday), I bought another one. I really needed it so I could get the shelves up in the store room.

Yesterday, I pull the shelf brackets out of the bag, and THERE is the Home Depot chuck key. Now I have two. Great! You idiot. So I fetch the useless drill from the shed and prepare to remove the paint stirring tool and finish the jobs that have languished now for almost two weeks. The HORROR! There, just so in its appointed place on the handle of the drill, is the original key I "lost" two weeks ago. Arrgggghhhhh!

There is really no true beginning to our story, as every event in our lives, in infinite regression, is the outcome of prior events; of momentum and inertia, choice and chance, omission and commision...going back to our zygotic beginnings and beyond, perhaps to the primordial ooze, or Adams apple. But for the sake of our story, lets say our journey's beginning happens on the south side of Birmingham, Alabama in the early 70's.

Our first forward motion toward our new and unknown life on the land was to buy warm coats. We knew we would be moving north, away from the torrid swelter of Dixie and toward real seasons, snow, and mountains. I ordered a down jacket and a 20-below-zero sleeping bag...an investment toward hope. I sat on the steps at night, when the temperature fell below 80, in that jacket, a prop to help me imagine being in that place where the weather would suit my clothes. The dream had surely begun and we were certain that we would know it when our time and place arrived. Then we waited. And waited.

If you are new to Goose Creek, you might find some of this worth knowing, so that when you visit Fragments, you will know where we put the key, and come on in and make yourself at home. We certainly are. At last.

Can't say that I have any set ideas about where this might take us. I'll try not to get too long winded with it. It would probably be good to include a few pictures. Think of this as an abbreviated family album about how Fred and Ann found their place in the country.

A book synopsis might read: Middle-aged couple find semi-abandoned farm in rural southwest Virginia county and set out to breathe life into the 130 year old farmhouse.

"Fred" also must be an inherently funny first name. Fred Flintstone; J Fred Muggs the monkey; Fred Mertz. I use Frederick whenever I want to be taken seriously. Which is not often.

I have never quite forgiven my estranged father's estranged step-father for having such an goofy last name. Yeah, step father. My genes aren't First genes even! I as supposed to be Strickland. Nor have I forgiven my parents for perpetuating this injury of nomenclature. My father was Fred, and now I am Fred Jr., or, Fred First, the second. That's right. FRED FIRST. Try not to spit all over yourself when you say it.

"Please state your last name" she demanded. "First", I answer. The nice lady glowers. Smart alek, she thinks.

But there is the thrill of making a joke out of my name that has been available to every one of the thousands who have thought that he or she was the first, so to speak, to ever contrive such wittiness re my name. They crack their selves up. Ha Ha.

"Bet you're never last!" "Where's Frank Third?" "Is your brother Larry Second?" And there is always the inevitable: "Who's on First?"

That was especially a problem back when I was teaching at the community college. Wouldn't you know, there was a Chinese physics professor whose last name, unfortunately, was Hwu, pronounced WHO. We caught hell from faculty and students alike. I'm not sure he ever got the joke, with Abbot and Costello not being extremely popular back in his country. Crazy Americans.

What has incited this name-blame is the fact that today, for what reason I can only speculate, someone found my weblog by searching Yahoo for 'fred first'. Maybe they were looking for Fred First Ford of Someplace, Indiana. Also found is Fred's first trip to the hospital, all about Mr. Rogers' really scarry surgery thing. I dunno. I just thought it was weird to be 'searched for' by my name on Yahoo. Weirder than that, Fragments from Floyd is listed second among the thousands of hits for 'fred first'. I guess the searchers found me. Now what?

You know, I have always known that if I had been born Frederick Strickland I coulda been marked for greatness...a Man of Destiny. A CEO of a multinational corporation, a renowned statesman, a federal judge. That's a name that demands respect, sounds solid and refined.

Now that the garden is in and the Kingdom of Grasses has been suppressed by the heat of mid summer, I have been thinking forward to Fall. Both Ann and I are Fall People; it is our favorite season, and most of our friends find this quite strange. I see the peak of summer as an intimation of Autumn, and am already thinking about gathering firewood for two winters hence (I try to cut at least a year or two ahead, and this winter's four cords is already split and stacked and nicely seasoned and dry).

Fall is not all about chores and garden responsibilities. It occurred to me this morning, especially in the shadow of the death of our friend Lynn two weeks ago, that we really need to spend more time together as a family this Fall. When we lived in Wytheville, we never missed our late August trip to Grayson Highlands State Park to pick blueberries. This is a cherished but abandoned family tradition that has languished in our busier lives in Floyd County, and suffered too from the fact that we are two hours drive from the berries now. We could buy organically grown blueberries, even pick-our-own down the road. But the sweetness of Highlands berries is all about place.

Grayson Highlands evokes in me a sense of the numinous: "there is a Presence here". I don't know why. But I do know that the hair on my arms stood up, when we saw the Highlands of Scotland last year, and I thought "this is where I have belonged, Grayson Highlands points me HERE. I know this place and it is home". I don't believe in reincarnation but have the sense that I have lived, or should have lived, in just such a setting. Odd coming from a guy raised in Alabama. So, that is the canvas on which this tale is painted, the blueberries take their place somewhere along the edge of all that.

There were places I just had to 'go' when I got the 3D Topo Altas software last week. Of course, the blueberry-pickin' place was one of the first I visited. Seeing the terrain brought back lots of memories: of spending a night alone on Pine Mt. beyond Massie Gap, watching the fog creep up the ridge like a cat in slippers and shroud me in my tent well into the next morning; of being caught in a summer storm, again in a tent, holding up the poles against 50 mph winds, realizing that there were NO seconds between lightning flash and gut-thudding thunder; getting lost in the frozen fog of a January day, discovering the rail fence that would lead me back to the car and prevent death by freezing.

The map is not the territory, and memory too is merely representational. Once life events are "past", the warp and woof of neurons, the chemistry and synaptic tangle of memory are the only maps we have of where we have been. Sometimes it is enough.

On the utilitarian side of this nostalgic ramble through the high country, I searched Google this morning to see what information was available these days on Grayson Highland. Before the Internet, this remote Virginia state park was a 'best-kept secret' and very few knew about it. I liked it that way. Now I discover that it is 'on the map', and probably threatened with being loved to death, like the Smokies and other places that suffer from tourist-blight. There is an excellent guide to the park and the trails, and you could be well prepared for a visit, now that I've let the cat out of the bag and told the world about it.

Back to the blueberries: The bushes are so tall that I have seen folks picking from horse-back! Some of the berries are as big as your thumbnail, and you can pick handsful at a time. Count on up to a gallon an hour or more per person. We cut the tops (but not the handles) out of milkjugs, loop these through our belts, so we can pick with both hands. When the milk carton gets so heavy that you start to lose your drawers, transfer the berries to a bucket.

The very best berry bushes are found...well...we have our secret places, discovered after years of wandering the hillsides in late August to early September. I remember where to go, now that I have seen the maps again. I can almost smell the dank sour smell of the Appalachians in the dying-back of early fall, and the ripe blue smell of the berries warming in the bucket.

Sweeter than berries are the recollections of memories of friends and family that have shared this Fall ritual, just there on the map, high up on Massie Gap where we sat on thrones of ancient granite, with a bottle of wine, the wind in our faces, views as far as a week from Wednesday, blessed with the illusion of the full possession of our bearings in time and place, and blueberry stains all around our happy mouths.

Makes me think back long years ago, to when our Vermont-bound son was 5 years old, a precocious reader, and very vocal in large groups.

We were gathered on the occasion of the impending relocation of a friend and co-worker (Tim S, if you're out there listening). Having dinner at the Chinese Restaurant in the small Virginia town where we lived, a dozen or so friends of the soon-to-be former associate were coming to the end of our last meal together. It was time for the fortune cookies.

We went around the table reading our predictable mock-confusian hackneyed fortunes. You know the routine. The reading came round the table to young Nathan, who insisted that he would take his turn, and no help here, thank you. He started out with relative ease:

"Your....wor...working....life....will be...fi....filled..."

"Your working life will be filled...with...(and he completed the sentence loudly in triumph)...EXCREMENT!"

This has become a family mantra, and when, as the bumper stickers say, IT happens on our jobs, we just say

~~Fragment~~ How to remove corn from the cob: Cut on the Bias. Susanna Cornett started this corny exchange with her fried corn recipe from a few weeks back. Also appreciated her comments on the Footprint entry where we obviously see the issue as half-empty and half-full respectively (or is it the other way round?) This thread may call for a rejoinder! Somebody that knows what they are talking about is welcome to take over my role.

~~Fragment~~ I am pleased to note Fragments listed among the 'read blogs' (at the very end of the page) on a very nice, newly-discovered (at least by me) weblog from Planet Brooklyn. I will add HairyEyeBall to my links list later today, and gladly. Drop by and visit.