November 5th, 2008 - Remember, remember the fifth of November

Happy day-after-election-day, Guy Fawkes Day, and the 5th of November.
Flowers DO bloom in November, and they have their own set of colors, which can't be found in the Crayola box.

I went to the River Gorge "Prairie Bowl" (click above pic for larger panorama) after my reintroduction to yoga with Solveig yesterday, to pick up trash. I had done some restoration work there with FMR and wanted to get in a walk and feel like I was contributing something to the area while I mulled over my election day feelings. Plus there's something about picking up trash that slows you WAY down and focuses your attention on every little color and shadow, even more than going out with just photography in mind.
Amongst the heavy hitters by trashmass were the fireworks remnants (don't get me started, and sorry Guy Fawkes, but there were some monstrous rocket-launcher bricks, one looked like an old car battery), weighing-in next would be beer & liquor bottles, then your basic paper food packaging products. By frequency the leaders would have to be cig butts, and shards of broken glass and plastic. People sure don't mind carrying a lot of heavy crap somewhere to have a party with it if they can just kick it down the hill and walk away without a conscience. I'm not sure how they do that. Maybe the penalty for littering should be to have to wear it around your neck for a week. That would work doubly well for not picking up your dogshit. Hmmm.

Also in the "silver-lining" department, these fungi were having a grand time growing out of an old oak stump. What a bunch of rot, I say.

Instead of "laying three score barrels below", I think Guy Fawkes should have just put them in his hat. Maybe he already had the King's silverware in there. My kind of strange holiday. Let us not forget this thing that didn't happen. Eh, what?