Tag Archives: Roanoke

“A Roanoke Thanksgiving”

I am thankful for

fine friends, gracious neighbors, and presently forgotten adversaries,

the smell of smoke outside, its rich and deep and ageless burning notes that sound upon the palette,

the hills under all my days, which pluck up my breath,

all the countless “hellos” their slopes will yield,

the mountains’ incandescence in this cooling season,

the colors now igniting their high and wooded perches,

this new home, this Old South,

this ranging, easy vale of firming winds and firm tradition,

its gentle people, and their surprising hearts —

this fair, far Star City.

~ Eric Robert Nolan, Thanksgiving 2019

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LEAF BRITNEY ALONE.

Dudes, this might be the biggest leaf I’ve ever seen.  That is indeed my foot next to it.  And I don’t have small feet; I wear a size 11 and 1/2.  (Now, now … this is a family blog, people.)

I found these tarp-sized leaves in the exact same place where I encountered that giant spider — the one the size of a housecat.  This makes me think there’s some sort of “Food of the Gods” -type sci-fi shenanigans going on in the vicinity.

Will investigate and report back.

 

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Southern hospitality, I guess.

Chilling in the Star City with a café mocha — courtesy of a super-cool writer pal. Thinking up some future stories.  (Thank you, m’Dear.)  No, I cannot close a Starbucks lid correctly — it’s why I’m always spilling coffee on myself.

Everyone is so extraordinarily nice in this town.  People actually slow their cars to a stop to allow you to cross the street — even when they have the right of way!  They even make eye contact, and smile and nod when they do it!  Such a thing would be virtually unheard of in New York, which is basically Thunderdome when compared with Roanoke.

How can such vast numbers of people in this city be so polite?  This city might be the eighth wonder of the world.

I need to learn to be a little more pleasant and sociable to match the spirit of humanity here.  I can think of it as getting into “Roanoke-mode.”

 

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KILL IT WITH FIRE.

I swear this spider was as long as my thumb.   I could have put my shoe or maybe a quarter next to it for scale, but I don’t want to stick any part of my body near this thing, and I don’t want to subsidize its hellish agenda.  (I did kinda zoom out so that you can compare it to the size of the curb.)

What does it eat?!  Birds?!  Why does it appear to have racing stripes?!

To quote the immortal Ellen Ripley, I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit.  It’s the only way to be sure.

Update: someone is trying to persuade me that this is a “garden spider,” and that they are quite harmless.  I’m not sure I buy that.

 

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THE CYCLOPS SPIDER?

No, this isn’t a terribly good picture.  And the lack of scale here prevents the viewer from appreciating this spider’s immense size.  (They’re huge in Southwest Virginia.)

But I still like the way that mark on its back makes it look like a fanged orange cyclops in this picture, don’t you?

My best guess is that this is some variation of an orb weaver spider, but don’t hold me to that.

 

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Just a few more pictures of yesterday’s rainbow by Mill Mountain.

(It was really damned cool.)

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Rainbow at Mill Mountain!!

This was the massive rainbow late yesterday afternoon in front of Mill Mountain. The video doesn’t do it justice. It was super-bright and it was gigantic.  It looked like it was hitting the ground just a few blocks away.

If you look carefully, you can see a second rainbow arc above it at right.

There was a pretty neat sunshower preceding it as well.

 

This is a giant frikkin’ dead caterpillar —

— although you kinda can’t tell from the photo.  I should have stuck a coin beside it for scale.

Insert the Dune joke of your choice, people.

Why the giant bugs, Roanoke?

 

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So, these guys are back.

He wouldn’t sit still for a photo, but he did alight my shoulder to say hello.

 

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