A walk in the woods

A funnel-weaving spiderRain, glorious rain … almost the words and tune of a song I cannot quite name or sing, but last night! The music all was outside. Giant kettle drums, flashing strobes – I loved it. This morning, the rain gauge registered an inch and-a-half. We needed it, and more.

A few evenings ago, I slowly poked along the road next to the near-dry stream bed, collecting the webs of funnel spiders with my camera – intriguing creations designed to direct an unsuspecting dinner guest down the inviting hole to the waiting host. I found a lone yellow puff of a caterpillar, likely preparing to weave a home for the winter.

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Castle Craig

Castle Craig pokes like a chess rook from a hill overlooking Meriden, C T

From Interstate 691, while enroute from home in Gettysburg to a nearly year-old great-niece I had not yet hugged, I spied poking out of the trees near the top of a granite mountain at the outskirts of Meriden, Conn., a  structure with the appearance of a super-sized rook from a giant chess set.

“What the heck is a castle doing out here,” I wondered aloud to my travel partner.

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