luminous and unstoppable

Hollyhocks everywhere

good by 2007 hello 2008!

Another snow shower for you! Hope you’re keeping cool. ❄️

Little birds flitting around a cold stream in the snow

Various odds and ends from the Blackwater River Canyon and Canaan Valley, captured earlier in the week before a massive heat dome set in across the East Coast. The Blackwater River and tributaries were at full flow from several days of heavy rain and the spruce-hemlock woods looked damp, lush and mysterious, the way I love them. On any given weekday, the white tails seem to outnumber the human beings in the valley - many skittish fawns leaping and darting about their mamas this past week. On the downside, the black flies are now at their summer peak, and they can make a long hike a miserable experience. But I love this place dearly, and biting bugs are but a small price to pay for a couple days of restorative communion with Mother Nature.

Thunderstorm and then a rainbow! I actually saw a bolt of lightning in the rainbow for an instant.

Our local shelter is full and doesn't have the resources to help us right now. We really, *really* need help finding a place for her to finish her treatment. She has been started on oral and topical meds and is receiving anti-fungal baths. She's a really, really good and easy dog (or we wouldn't have fostered her at all) but it's not longer feasible to keep her here, and I don't know what to do. Feel free to reach out and ask me any additional questions if you have them. Willing to drive her somewhere if it will get her to a good foster. Thanks for reading.

June 2026

Mary Oliver in “Dog Songs”