Falling leaves – thousands of them rained down in waves during my fifteen minutes of quiet focus.  The curled ones plummeted more quickly while those with larger exposed surface area danced and floated, bowing to their invisible partners in the air.  It was mesmerizing watching the dance and listening to the sounds.  I found myself trying to trace the path of individual leaves, getting so caught up in each leaf’s last airborne moments.  Such a peaceful experience but I recognized that I was missing the journeys of tens if not hundreds of other leaves as I focused on just one journey.  Perhaps that is the way of life – when we focus on one thing that selective attention fills up so much of our awareness that we can’t take in anything else….so many stories are lost.  But if we tried to focus on all of the stories at once then we would probably not see anything.

When I could pull myself away from the earthly journey of oak leaves, I tried to focus on sounds and activity in the nearby leaf litter.  My ravens called with their throaty voices to the north while their more high-pitched crow cousins cawed on occasion as they flew by towards the east and also to the west.  Though I heard their voices I never saw their black shadows in the sky or treetops.  Blue Jays were calling briefly to the east – probably hunting acorns which are not particularly plentiful this year though I do see some acorn caps in the leaf litter that were not there before.  The insects that buzzed like a chain saw have disappeared along with my funnel web spider.  Her web has now collapsed into the leaf litter and pine needles pierce the sanctuary retreat where she waited patiently for food.  Has she died or moved on?

Along with the collapse of web, my pine cone has also collapsed.  In fact it has changed so much in appearance I initially thought it had been moved but when I went to look at my earlier picture I noted it was in the same exact location – so this droopy gray pine cone must be the end result of my beautiful brown cone that has done its job of producing and dispersing seeds and now it returns to the earth slowly graying and collapsing under the weight of a job that is complete.  My chestnut oak still has 70%of its leaves and most are green tinged with brown this dry summer and fall has knocked out color change in my plot.

While the lack of water has knocked out color change, the soil can’t be completely dry as the remaining leaves on my oak tree are still flat and have the appearance of continuing their job of making sugars.  Of course I can’t see if the stomata are open nor measure the whisper of water as it evaporates from transpiration, but I like to imagine that pull of water molecules from under my sit pad up to the sunlight and assume these soils are still above the wilting point.  I wonder where the birds that were circling and the ants that are racing about in the leaf litter get their water.  Is the moisture they get from the food they eat enough for them to persist?  Birds have the option  of flying off to find water, ants are certainly more restricted.

And it is the ants that grabbed my attention.  About 4 mm in length they seemed to move at random in the leaf litter.  I tried to follow just an individual ant with its large dark abdomen and very narrow waist.  After doing a bit or research I found that the narrow waist is called a petiole – just like the narrow attachment of leaves to twigs.  The middle section seemed to be divided up into two parts which are called nodes I later learned and the head was much more substantial and red in color, though not nearly as large as the big abdomen.  I tried to figure out the species and much to my dismay realized what a monumental task that was going to be because there are over 700 species of ants in North America and the only ones that are highlighted on the internet are those that invade homes and cause problems (which are 7-8 species).  So I will call this the big bottom black and red ant (BBBR ant) until I have a correct scientific name.  So the BBBR’s seem to move in random motion.  I watched them for more than 10 minutes and never once saw one carrying anything.  Sometimes when they bumped into one another they would take an ever so brief pause and pat antennae but most of the time they just bounced off of one another or crawled on top of one another in their hurried movements.  I wonder how heavy an ant passing over one’s back feels?  They moved up leaves, down leaves, under leaves and at every angle generated by the complex leaf litter they traversed.  Gravity seemed to have no hold on these small creatures.  Like the leaves it was mesmerizing watching them move and bounce along….peaceful.

Time in my blog spot flies….I get lost in the stories which quiets my monkey mind….and that is a good thing!