Blogging in the time of the pandemic is, well, sort of boring. Not much really happens, so there’s not much to write about. And, people are so sick of screens that I’m not sure they need any more reading-on-a-screen.
But, still, what is a blog for anyhow? Mine, because I have relatively few readers, is as much a chronicle of where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing than something I think will ever go viral or have hundreds, much less thousands, of readers.
And, so, as usual I go through my latest photos to see what I’ve found interesting or important to document. Much of them had to do with getting outside in our portion of rural PA. Enjoy if you have not been able to do so yourself and stay safe!
We”ve been taking a lot of long walks in the woods. Finding new parks and new trails.I take a lot of photos of plants, sort of a digital herbarium. Then you can check their identity with a Google i.d. tool. This is mayapple which I should have known!)Revamp of garden previously mostly rocks and weeds! Thanks to our landscaping buddy, Tim, and his marvelous little digger.The late spring has meant more time to appreciate cherry blossoms. These were on the campus of the Mercersburg Academy.Driving around rural Pennsylvania you inevidibly come across some interesting industrial history like these old coke ovens that fed the steel industry in earlier times. Now a good place for wildflowers to grow.and theres this on nights when it’s clear…
The paths of old railroad tracks trace history, and since some of them have now been turned into walking tracks like the Lower (rhymes with “flower”) Trail in central Pennsylvania, you can take a stroll through the past. The interpretation is spotty (there are a few signs, and a sort of helpful brochure), so much is left to the imagination. Industry and settlements once thrived along here — now there is just an overgrown ditch where the canal preceded the railroad, and the graceful arches of the stone bridge are mossy and almost obscured. It is hard to believe that this track once carried countless people and tons of goods aboard panting steam trains. On a Tuesday early afternoon, it is so quiet that you can almost hear the ghosts whispering, until a distant chainsaw growls or a lone cycler whizzes by. We walked part of the trail along which “the remains” of a stone company town were supposed to be evident. As you can see by the photo above, “evident” is a relative term. We wanted there to be more than one blank-eyed roofless grey building blending in with the forest so badly that we thought we saw several, only to discover from another angle that it was just more trees and gray underbrush playing with our fantasy. (Mood music from Twin Peaks rose in my mind.) Despite the occasional creepiness, the Lower Trail is a pleasant place to spend a couple of hours. To catch the mood, I am going to attempt my very first audio clip of one of the babbling brooks along the trail, under the stone bridge. Close your eyes and think calm, if slightly disturbing, thoughts of the spirits that must inhabit these woods, and of structures that have melted into the forest so completely that only their shadows remain.
