A Snowy Road leads to Lizards

I woke up on Saturday, expecting to see the 5" of snow that had been forecast, and wondering how it would affect my day's plans. I was elated to look out of the window and see a mere 2" on the ground, yet it was a winter wonderland. All the trees and bushes were balancing a coating of white powder on their branches, and then I realized that all the roads were completely clear. Joy! I would still be able to get out and enjoy the scenery. I was meeting a friend later that morning, so grabbed my camera, and began driving the back roads towards Berryville.

Despite the roads being completely clear, there was very little traffic, so I was able to drive slowly and stop often to take photos without being a bother to anyone else. The countryside was beautiful, serenely peaceful, the quiet only broken by the chatter of birds as they hopped among the branches. A brilliant blue sky broke through clusters of clouds, and occasionally the wind would blow a dusting of powdery snow across the road, or nudge clumps down to the ground, as I stood on the verges with my camera. The snow was supposed to melt quickly with the promised higher temperatures during the day, but it was bitterly cold here in the countryside.

I constantly checked the time while I was photographing this beautiful scenery, slowly working my way north, and eventually arrived in Berryville, where a Reptile Expo was taking place. I'd never been to one before, and wanted to add this to my list of experiences. My friend, Angelina, has 21 spiders, as well as snakes and other reptilian pets, so I was happy she was joining me, with her knowledge of these animals and events.

 I have to admit that I was shocked when I entered the first building, my initial sight being a table laden with multiple clear plastic pots containing geckos. My immediate reaction was that this was a cruel practice, these poor creatures crammed into containers, with no food or water, and hoards of humans peering at them and picking them up. I asked a couple of vendors about this, and was told that they were fine, they didn't need food or water for the short period of time that they were there, from 9am to 3pm. Yet how long were they sitting in these 'pots' during transit, and before the show started, and before they were released into bigger containers when they got 'home', I wondered. 

This is Alien, a very big, but placid, python. Her owner had only had her for 3 months, yet she was obviously well used to being handled. I was allowed to hold her, and she immediately wound herself around my neck and rested her head on the hood of my jacket. She enjoyed being stroked and I could have stood there all day caressing her, she was so sweet. I reluctantly gave her back to the vendor after a 5 minute snuggle, and looked at the other snakes in their small plastic containers.

Above, we have a male Super Banana Clown snake, at $1000, a couple of Mountain Horned Dragons at $25 each, a very handsome Blue Tongue skink at $150, and 2 Solomon Island Mangrove Monitors at $100 each. All of these appealed to me, but not enough to want to own any, although maintenance isn’t that difficult apparently.

The ‘creepy crawly’ critters were a different story. I really didn’t want to get close to any of these, paranoid that they’d heave their lids off and jump on me. I tried very hard to see them through Angelina’s eyes as she, very knowledgeably, described their traits and needs. The spider was a Goliath Bird Eating Tarantula, and the Vietnamese Giant Centipede wasn’t charming me either. I imagine both of these can move very fast.

I think this chap was a Bearded Dragon. I was so captivated by him that I forgot to look at his label. His owner had opened her laptop and left it running, so he could snooze on the warm keyboard. He looked very content, but did open one eye, somehow aware that I was staring at him.

The expo had definitely been an eye-opener for me, and I was glad that I went, but when Angelina suggested going to another in Manassas next month, I declined. I’d seen some incredible creatures, and the ones I’d really loved, the jumping spiders, I hadn’t got photos of. I was amazed that people kept them as pets, yet the vendors were selling gaudy plastic houses for them, filled with plastic figurines, plastic foliage, and beads and baubles. I see these cute little spiders in the garden, and had never considered catching them to keep indoors. I prefer to see them on living flowers and plants. But they were very popular at the expo, especially with kids.

I’d been amazed at how many people turned up for this event, both of the big barns were crowded, with long queues of folk outside the doors. With over 100 vendors, selling everything needed to set up a reptile home, it was incredibly busy, and until this visit, I’d had no idea how popular reptiles were, yet money was being passed over the tables continuously. Vendor tables had all been taken by the beginning of January, and the event had had no plans to postpone, despite the snow forecast. Angelina bought quite a lot of stuff. A live baby mouse and a frozen rabbit to feed her snakes, some cork bark for aquariums, and 2 more spiders. I bought a prayer plant.

Back Trails and Buttons

 On Friday, I strapped up my toe, my ankle, and leaving my knee to fend for itself, set off for a short hike. Up on the Skyline Drive, it was quiet and cold. There were few people about, even the lookouts were empty of visitors, a shame,  as the views were magnificent.

I spotted a grassy lay by, with a trail heading up onto the mountain, so parked up, grabbed my backpack and poles, and began walking. The air was crisp and quiet. I heard a couple of cars pass on the road behind me, but as I climbed, the traffic sounds faded away, and silence surrounded me. At the top of the trail, a marker told me I was now on the Appalachian Trail, and could go left or right. I went left, stopping to admire the spectacular vistas.

I was now walking along the top of the mountain, where the trees are short and stubby, due to them being exposed to the elements, including heavy winds. But today, there was no wind, just fresh, chilly air punctuated occasionally with a few crow cries and the chatter of squirrels, angry at  having their peace and quiet disturbed by a human. Yet, despite dealing with adverse conditions, nature is thriving up here. Bright green lichens cover the trees and rocks, with glorious clumps of emerald mosses. Shelf fungi clung to fallen trunks and the autumn leaves shimmered on the ground in the winter sunshine. I looked for lions mane mushrooms, a fluffy, tendriled mushroom, on the trees, but there were none of their host trees up here on the exposed ridge line.

I walked 2 miles along the AT, the trail descending down the side of the mountain, crossing the Skyline Drive, and then climbing back up again, then down and up some more before I decided to stop. I sat on some huge rocks to drink water, and chewed a Cliff bar with an expiration date of September 2022. It didn’t taste any different from what I remembered, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I gave myself a scare while I sat munching, as ahead of me, among the bare tree trunks, I saw a large black shape, and thought it was a bear that had got a whiff of my peanut bar. But after some scrutinizing and moving from side to side, I realized it was an uprooted tree, its bare root base facing me with black earth still clinging and hanging in clods.  But I hurriedly finished my snack and began the walk back.

Along a more sheltered part of the trail, there were large clumps of mountain laurel, their dark green, shiny leaves encroaching over the trail, beginning to form a tunnel. This will be a pretty spot in early spring when their white and pink flowers bloom. On the way up, I had noticed the path was covered with acorns. Called a mast year, when trees put out a bigger crop of seeds than usual, this is also a sign of a severe winter approaching, according to folklore and the Farmer’s Almanac. On the way back I stopped and picked up several handfuls, stuffing them in my backpack, for the squirrels and blue jays at home.

Heading home, I stopped at one of the lookouts, the Blue Ridge Mountains looking somber under the heavy winter sky. I felt a few drops of rain, and was glad to be warm and dry in Stanley as I drove back to The Blue House..

I had decided to get crafty on Thursday evening. I have a rose colored lampshade on a vintage lamp stand, given to me by friends many years ago. I used to like the lampshade, but have discovered it’s one commonly seen, so now I dislike it, as I prefer to be different. I pulled off the fabric, and decided to create something original.

Over 30 years ago, I bought an old gramophone cabinet, which, inside, had some old sewing bits and pieces, scissors, fabric tape measure, wooden reels of cotton, needle cases, other odds and ends, including a tub of vintage buttons. Moving from England, I parted with the cabinet, but kept the contents, as I was using them, and the buttons went into some ancient Balls canning jars for decoration. I tipped them out onto the dining room table, and with wire, started to recover the lampshade frame with old buttons.

It was going well, but after a while, my fingers were getting sore from the tugging and pulling on the wire. I did some more after my hike, and then finished it on Saturday morning. I had worried that I would run out of buttons, I used about 350, but I had plenty, and some still left over. So now, I have a lampshade unlike anyone else, and my vintage buttons are on display, instead of hidden in a jar. I’m content with that.

Roaming Roads and Rippling Rivers

After a hectic week, when I’d passed my citizenship test, gained a Tree Steward course certificate, come second place with my Trivia Team, become a U.S. citizen, and then spent a couple of nights losing sleep and a vet visit with poor Malcolm having urinary issues, I was ready to spend time in the garden, catching up with overdue jobs. But I was actually quite relieved to wake up to rain falling, rendering any garden work unlikely, and so decided to take an overdue ‘me’ trip into the countryside and capture the fall foliage, which was peaking this weekend.

While the city folk leaf peepers drove the smooth tarmac roads along the Skline Drive to enjoy the foliage colors, I headed for the graveled and dusty back roads where I met less than a handful of the more adventurous explorers who had chosen to leave the paved roads. The morning’s rain had enhanced the leaf colors. I was surrounded with dark chocolate, rust, golden ochre, lemon yellow, aged raspberry wine, mellowed merlot red, corn husk yellow, and forest greens of firs, pines and cedars.

I stopped by a river, my car the only one in the lay by, and crossed the road to a track I’d spotted between the trees. The trail was muddy from the rain, but the air was crisp, fragrant with the damp earth and Mother Nature beginning the decomposition of fallen leaves.

Purple asters lined the trail, with green mosses on fallen trunks and between tree roots. The river was low after the summer’s drought, more rocks than usual jutting out of the water, and the flow of the river slower than I’d seen it before. The river had always cascaded noisily along its route, white caps surfing over the boulders, but today, it meandered around the obstacles, no froth or rivulets swirling along its path. I climbed down to the water’s edge to take photos, mindful of the slippery smooth surfaces of the rocks, still wet from the earlier rain, and if I’d felt more daring, I could have rock hopped from one bank to the other.

Back in the car, I continued along the valley and stopped at a few points, admiring the long shadows from the sun, that had now made an effort to break through the dark clouds and shine down, lighting up the trees and making their colors even more vibrant. The sun’s rays lit up the oranges, yellows and reds, the trees glowing as though aflame.

I left the valley road, and drove upwards into the mountains, the pavement giving way to dusty gravel where Stanley rumbled over washboard ruts that stretched across the road. Friendly locals waved from their homes, some from cars that they bent over and worked on, some sitting on front porches with a beer and chewing tobacco, slowly raising an arm as I trundled by. There was a quiet golden solitude up here, with chilly cool air, the cloudy haze that had hung low in pockets of the valley slowly evaporating in the sunshine. Squirrels leaped and jumped across the road in front of me, busy collecting black walnuts and acorns for their winter store, cheeks stuffed with their treasure.

I spent a couple of hours up on the mountains, meandering along narrow lanes, and passing no other vehicles, apart from a teenager on his ATV, also out for a ride, and enjoying this picturesque afternoon, just like me. I eventually began my descent into the valley, down a rutted switchback road, a steep drop on one side, with the mountain rising up high on the other. I came across a small community, where upon turning a corner, was startled by Jason from Friday the 13th, brandishing a knife, and initially appearing as though he was lurching towards my car. There were also witches hanging from trees, these folks obviously enjoyed Halloween. The next little town had some mystical people with gourd heads, which I admired, but also found a little unsettling.

And then I was back down to a river again, and low and behold, there was a winery on the other side. I stopped for a glass of wine, and chatted to a local environmental group, whose events I’d been to in the past. It had been a lovely relaxing day, and as I made my way home, I was thankful for the rain that morning, I hadn’t realized how much I needed some downtime. Garden jobs could resume after work on Monday.