Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Curious Things That You See

On Wednesday I went to our local button collectors meeting in Holyoke. I parked on Locust Street about two houses down from the home of our late member Martha B. who passed away about two and a half years ago. Now, the very first meeting I attended was at Martha's house in February 2003. I have been to her house for meetings, to park in her and and attend the Holyoke St. Patrick's Day parade, and have parked on Locust Street and walked past her house for at least four or five years to attend meetings in a room we rent from the Holyoke Health Center next door to the house.

This past Wednesday I was walking back to my car with fellow button club member Betty K. when we reached Martha's former house. I was looking at the tree roots of the big maple tree on the tree belt between the sidewalk and curb. Betty was looking the other way, but also looking at the tree roots. Oddly enough we were both looking at the same tree's roots, but on different sides of the sidewalk. This tree's roots had burrowed beneath the sidewalk and there were all sorts of odd root formations in the lawn. The first formation Betty commented on was a perfect ring formed by a protruding root that she said looked like a fairy ring. I agreed. One step further along she goes, "Oh! Look at the pig!" I looked and was amazed. In this place on the front lawn along the sidewalk the root had the appearance of a flattened, sleeping pig- you could see it's forehead, both eyes, it's snout (the looked pinkish in color even!) and chin. I had to dig out my cellphone and snap a couple pictures to put on facebook as a What Do You See in This Picture? post (most everyone saw the sleeping pig, except for Patty M who saw a troll). And just to the other side of the pig the root had grown in another circle in concentric circles that reminded me of a spiral.

We were totally fascinated by the pig root and couldn't believe we must have walked by that root a hundred times and never noticed it before.

We probably could have prowled around Martha's former front yard and found more cool formations of those sturdy and defiant roots but the house has new owners now and we didn't want to get shot for trespassing in their front yard!

There was a near full moon that night. When I got home from a 7-9PM meeting I looked up at the moon and it was encircled by a hazy purple ring and then a brighter white ring, like the ring around the moon before a snowstorm. Kelly and I both went out to get some cool moon pictures. Tonight is the full moon but it's a bit overcast.

Anyway- while I was standing on the bench on the back deck to get a shot an airplane flew by and I captured the lights of the plane just above the moon- the kind of picture people would pass off as a UFO picture. Four bright lights above the moon!

I usually take cloud pictures...finding a pig in a tree root now has me looking down instead of up!!

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