Saw this pile of leaves across the street.
A couple of swift kicks later, it looked much happier.
But all too soon, the work of art was vandalized and swept away.
The END.
Images
A few days ago, I posted some pictures from a nature preserve on Lake Ontario.
The lakeshore there has stretches of coarse gray sand and a fair number of fallen trees, where the clay bluffs eroded during winter storms.
And lots and lots of rocks, what they call a cobble beach.
I wanted to show what folks in the area did with all those “cobblestones.”
This is a one-room schoolhouse, built around 1820-24 and used for over a century.
I was happy to run across it and see the local historical society is maintaining it in fine shape. But it did strike me, that perhaps because it was a schoolhouse and not a bank, store, or private residence, the stones may not have been selected with as much care as usual, for uniformity and smoothness.  It’s seven or eight miles from Ontario, so they may be rocks from local fields or a glacial dump and not the lakeshore, there’s moraines and eskers a bit farther south. But nonetheless it’s a mellow, handsome little building.
Walks Around Upstate New York. Cobblestone Schoolhouse, Wayne County, October, Late Afternoon
A pair of swans were the only movement in a beaver pond
maples reflected in a small pond
A heronry appeared to be deserted, but I’ve still seen the birds fishing in local creeks. Most of the NY herons will take off for the Caribbean soon, but some Great Blues tough it out all winter.
along the shore of Lake Ontario
I’ve posted a few pictures from this place in past years.
The Sterling Preserve is not far from Oswego, NY, and about an hour’s drive from Rochester (maybe 45 minutes if you skip the leaf-peeping and drive down Route 104 like a bat out of hell, which is generally the custom in these parts).
In the 1970’s, a utility company acquired thousands of acres to build a nuclear power plant – – there were/are such plants near Rochester and Oswego. However the plans for this Sterling plant fell through and there’s now roughly 1400 protected acres of fields, wooded hillocks and marshes . And almost two miles of shoreline along Lake Ontario, all cobble beach.
The woods are nice – mostly maples, oaks, tulip trees and beeches. Along the eastern edge of the preserve, remnants of a stone boundary wall and an old apple orchard are visible, now overtaken by native trees. Near the marshes, there’s more buttonbush shrubs than I’ve seen anywhere else in the region.
WP seems to be doing that thing it does – – some of these photos fuzzy to me, I fiddled with them but no improvement. They seem to look ok when you click on them.
What a variety pack of colors on a single branch from an oak tree
Walks Around Upstate New York. Sterling Preserve, Cayuga County, October
One of the many nice things about autumn, is that a bit of rain doesn’t spoil the day.
In the summertime, if you’re headed to the beach, determined to swim and sunbathe
but then a rain storm blows in, your day is scuttled & scuppered.
(I thought those terms seemed more sea-worthy than “screwed up.”)
You can go back home, put on your DVD of “South Pacific,” stand real close to your plasma widescreen,
soaking up a bit of UV radiation, eating your rum raisin ice cream cone with a dusting of sand.
Uncork the vintage bottle of Coppertone you found behind the clothes dryer and have a few sniffs.
But it’s just not the same as a day at the beach.
In your living room, it’s rare to have a gull swoop down to steal your doughnut, for one thing.
But this time of year, a walk in the park on a cool drizzly day is A-OK with me,
bathing in a great woodsy, earthy aroma.
The color of the wet leaves and the mushroom-y notes in the air intensify.
It doesn’t smell of decay, but kind of rich, really.
It’s a smell of health & wealth, as the leaves fall to enrich the earth.
It’s cool enough to wear a rain jacket, so you’ve got pockets for an apple and a few snacks.
Just enough rain to lay the dust, same idea for taking a hip flask along.
So here’s a few cellphone snaps from a couple of walks, on wet days, sometimes taken during a brief sunshower or an actual outbreak of sunshine.
These two characters were hanging out together. Gray tree frogs. The one hunching on the right, looks much darker, because I didn’t notice him at first, and startled him when I shifted a trash can, so he jumped into a planter filled with water. I scooped him out and dried him off with some tissues but he’s still looking grouchy, or maybe just a bit woebegone, in this shot.
I liked this little alien guy, who cleverly disguised his flying saucer as a toadstool.
A walk in the park – early autumn
A shot of the lower half of the falls.
I did very little editing, mostly just made it a bit brighter, and didn’t fiddle with the balance or boost the “color saturation,” or whatever it’s called.
I think the color comes from minerals and perhaps fresh-water algae. Pale blue? Pale turquoise?
The Crayola box (the big one, my go-to reference for art stuff) indicates “aquamarine,” but when I look online at a color chart, that’s way too green.
“Bluish” will have to do.
Taughannock Falls & Icicles, Tompkins County, February
I went out one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
I picked up my shovel and began to whine
I loaded sixteen tons of wet gray snow
And my neighbor said “It’s just started to blow.”
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
It’s another foot deeper and my socks are wet
Saint Peter don’t you call me when there’s all this snow
It’s hellish cold and the wind does blow
If you see me comin’, better step aside
Snowblower’s goin’ and we’re goin’ for a ride
Throttle is stickin’ and you’re gonna take a lickin’
If the auger sucks your foot inside.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
It’s another foot deeper and my socks are wet
Saint Peter don’t you call me when there’s all this snow
It’s hellish cold and the wind does blow
Apologies to Merle Travis
A little exertion & one ton of exaggeration
On a recent walk, snapped a cellphone shot of the elusive Burdock Bear.
Prickly-looking but surprisingly friendly, they’ll attach themselves your coat and follow you home.
UpState & Away - - - - Waterlooseneca.com 
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