Daily Archives: October 20, 2013

October 20, 2013 · 11:05 pm

Sharieland Once More 09

(continued from Sharieland Once More 08)

What an honor! Super famous toy avatars Woody and Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story franchise flew in on their Pink Piggy mid-morning to see what all the fuss was about over here at Herman Park. Woody, at least, would stay for the duration of the toy happening, and even accompanied me to Null Vale, although he decided not to remove himself from my coat pocket. Later on, he stated he had an irrational fear of wild animals hiding within all those rocks he could see while peeking out from the pocket. Shame.

Back in Philo: dump truck, bulldozer and roller hard at work in the morning sun.

In contrast, Lazy Sideburn Man just sits in his folding chair taking all the action around him in, and with an occasional arm stretching being his only type of exercise.

Ellie the Elephant, a refuge from the Psychic Zoo Stew, helps with moving some of the larger rocks.

Woody and Buzz’s transport of choice these days, The Pink Piggie, made a dramatic entrance from the east about 9:40am to deftly land on one of the highest and sandiest (read: safest) spots at Philo Beach. Is this see-through pig sentient like Buzz and Woody themselves? Turns out, according to both, that this is so; it is another toy avatar on equal footing with anyone or anything else appearing on the beach today. I wonder if he’s kin to Hamm from Toy Story?

Philo Beach, looking toward the stepping stone ford across Earth Stream.

The below pictures are from the visit to upper Sharieland this day that Woody accompanied me on, albeit only “in pocket”. The first picture is of an interestingly patterned Null Vale rock with fronting knotweed. Null Vale and other valleys connecting Heart and Head Lines are full of such interesting rocks. And ultra paranoid Woody, constantly shouting from my coat, seemed to think there was a lion, tiger or bear hiding behind each and every one of ’em.

Picture taken from the same spot, looking back toward the meadow from whence we came.

Rock with interesting patch of sunlight shining within. Details of this interior actually show up better on the photo than in person, which is the reverse of norm. Woody thought it was a cave demon.

The Walls of Null Vale.

Revisiting Mysten Rock, which Woody was curious to see as well from the safe confines of my coat pocket. When I took the rock and placed it on Platform Rock again, as I’d done several days before, some kind of insect (6 legged creature) appeared on one side, and a spider (8 legged) on the opposite side. Woody was terrified of each, not suprisingly. More surprising is that he couldn’t tell the difference between the two, nor that I’d flipped the rock around, even after demonstrating this to him. For Woody, the rock seeemed to be without dimension, as it were, like a Flatland.

Woody actually fainted for a spell when spying this trapped face in a rock. I was glad to have the small space of peace, actually. Again, this “face” showed up better on the photo than in person.

Add this, for sure, to the oddity rocks I’ve encountered this fall hiking season, and I need to create a post dealing exclusively with that batch. Very soon I promise!

A neighboring rock to the one above with the trapped man. Egads.

One valley over to the north exists this deeper swatch of erosion. This would be Won Valley (not One Valley). I’ll have to wait until another time to go into detail about its rocks. That might be another whole series in and of itself. Moving on, then…

(continued in Sharieland Once More 10)

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October 20, 2013 · 10:39 pm

Sharieland Once More 08

(continued from Sharieland Once More 07)

Bush with blue-black berries near the conjunction of Earth Stream and a primary feeder stream. Okay, *must* nail down names for these streams and pools. 1st, Heart Lake *is* nailed down, and then the main feeder stream of this lake is *Earth* Stream (as I’ve been calling it in the description of the last several photos anyhoot). Then the prominent rock lying near the mouth of Earth Stream, where it empties into Heart Lake, is called *Erath* Rock. *Now*, Philo itself may have been called Mysten at one point in its mythical, mystical past. Maybe Erath as well (after the rock?). It is said that Hater the Cow rearranged or reversed the “r” and “a” of Earth to make the word instead Erath, in his hate and spite of Earth and life in general. Hater may even represent *all* cows, or at least those possessed with this consuming hate. Hater (single cow now) seems to despise lazy animals or lazy humans, which is really only a projection of his own laziness that he loathes. A toy avatar sitting and watching others do the hard labor around him would represent a target to this mad cow, then. More on that soon (!)

Beautiful spot inside the pine grove on the edge of the Earth Stream delta, a grove which appears pyramid-shaped from Philo itself as discussed previously. Does the shape of the grove somehow purposely mirror the general shape of deltas in general? Had to be asked, it seems.

Interesting rock decorated with bright moss and lichen just outside the grove, on the “path” to Erath (Rock).

Looking across the Earth Stream Delta from Erath Rock toward Philo, lying just before the front of rhododendron plants and hidden by intervening weeds from this angle, once more.

Back in the Delta Grove — obvious appellation to be given.

Earth Delta: Erath Rock to left, and Philo just off shot to right.

Back in Philo, and the little, light green truck that couldn’t…

… until the big boys moved in with their earth moving and shaping talents. We’re talking Cat power here, toy style. Specifically we’re looking at a dump truck, a bulldozer, and a roller or soil compactor.

Mossman, leader of my collection of toy avatars, decided to send his right hand man Red Skeleton in to supervise the construction labor and ensuing toy happening.

Also present were several dinosaurs…

… a muscular toy-man with heavy sideburns who merely sat in his folding chair while others around him did the work…

… a foam cow who was assigned to look out for real cows and give a loud warning moo if any were spotted…

… and cars, quite a lot of cars.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 09)

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October 20, 2013 · 10:35 pm

Sharieland Once More 07

(continued from Sharieland Once More 06)

Pink flowering knotweed plant at Philo.

More knotweed plants. They kind of lined the whole eastern edge of the beach area.

Looking toward the ford at Philo from closer to the ground. This area contains the largest cluster of rocks on the beach — a “downtown” of sorts.

Pyramid shaped grove of pine trees seen from Philo, once more. An almost identical picture, as it turns out, can be found toward the bottom of the Sharieland Once More 01 post.

Down the middle of Philo runs a low ridge of dirt covered with various plants. I see it as Philo’s “Central Park”.

Ground level views into this park, looking more from the perspective of a toy avatar, say.

Bit of porcelain on the edge of this ridge…

… and also part of a brick.

The conjunction of “Earth” Creek and feeder spring at Philo. Notice the nail in the central wooden stick — I had to use a flash to get a focused picture of it. Downside: it’s a bit of a washed out photo.

That clump of dirt again which reminds me of the Mysten Rock from Null Vale.

Philo’s stream with overhanging rhododendron branches.

Sunlit Philo seen through the screen of rhododendrons once more. This would be a kind of Philo West, then.

Another spring feeding into Earth Stream just a bit north of Philo.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 08)

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October 20, 2013 · 10:17 pm

Sharieland Once More 06

(continued from Sharieland Once More 05)

Looking up the Null Valley of Sharieland toward The Walls, a series of low rock walls situated between Heart and Head Lines. Hard to get a good picture of them — perhaps I’ll try again in the winter when all the plants are dead. The Walls/ Null Vale is a very important region of Sharieland and also Herman Park as a whole. This is where the Sharies declared true independence from Herman, Lilly and their mansion, alongside the Truemann town at the top of the next vale to the south (One or Won Vale).

A Null Vale beetle enjoying a nice stroll through the rocks.

Looking up toward The Walls from just below Heart Line.

The Walls from further down the hill; the Sharie rock temple can just be made out in the mid-foreground, first discussed here in the F&HE! blog before its more recent, partial collapse.

Prominent holly tree in the meadow to the south of Null Valley, below Heart Line again.

Looking down the same meadow toward Heart Lake in the distance. We’ll be spending a lot of time there for the duration of this little Sharieland series of posts.

Wider grassy path — not far from Heart Lake now, still heading downhill. I’ll have to make a map of this area asap. I promise, dear reader or readers.

And now we’ve arrived back at the edge of Philo, where the culminating toy event will appear within a matter of days. Can you sense the electricity already?

The beach area that defines the meat of Philo can be brightly seen through the twisting rhododendron branches; an interesting angle into it. A person (like me) might be playing with his (or her — but it’s really me) toys in the sun at Philo, and not even be aware of someone sitting on this perch here, cloaked behind the dark fence of rhodo plants.

Peaking through the same tangle of rhododendron into Philo proper. The dark hump of dirt in the foreground reminded me of the Mysten Rock earlier found in Null Vale up the hill from here, just to note an association I made at the time.

Earth (or Erath or maybe Hater) Creek, the feeder stream of Heart Lake. This is just on the edge of Philo proper, beach to left and rhododendrons to right. There’s also a spring that merges with this creek immediately to the right of the below photo’s field of vision.

Philo proper. And the appearance of the first toy there: a light green or sea green truck. And the first problem: the beachy area was just rocky enough to impede the truck’s progress across it. A road making crew would soon come to the rescue, thanks to a stop at the local General Dollar Store. Hang on truckie!

Yes, cows have definitely frequented this place, witnessed by these two large patties (foreground center and background center). And a particular cow Hucka D. has come to call Hater would make a decisive visit soon as well.

Philo Ford, just beyond the patties. Again, not sure who could have placed these aligned rocks in Earth (or Erath or Hater) Creek. I think we can rule out cows. I think.

Earth (or Erath or Hater) Rock as seen through the tops of plants lining the Philo beach, and across a marshy area seeming to define a kind of pseudo-delta for Earth (or Erath or Hater) Creek as it empties into Heart Lake. This is one of the larger rocks of the area, and is first discussed in this post.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 07)

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October 20, 2013 · 10:09 pm

Sharieland Once More 05

(continued from Sharieland Once More 04)

… I soon learned that it perhaps indicated an even more interesting rock, lodged in-between two larger rocks, perhaps by accident, perhaps by man, perhaps by something not an accident but also not by man. Aliens I’m speaking of here (once more). Let’s take a closer look.

A rock just below, and just beside the red “pointer” rock discussed in the last post of this series, seemed to provide a natural, flat platform area on which to scrutinize the stone in question more closely.

I noticed a small but quite clear white “face”, which seems to be a spider web… maybe. Nothing else like that atall on the rest of the rock front…

… or back. Hucka D. has since indicated that this face has something to do with a lake named Mysten on an island off the southern coast of Sweden, a pool of water with 3 strategically placed islands which also act as a face, and of a similar proportion. The white face on this rock seems to be smiling, almost as if welcoming me (to its rock). The term Mysten has also been connected to the beach-y area near Heart Lake where a culminating toy happening took place last month.

Aforementioned red “pointing” rock with an oppositely colored, cyan rock nearby. This blue-ish rock lies almost directly underneath “Mysten” Rock. No… Hucka D. says the rock is not Mysten, but sort of Mysten backwards. Is it Earth? I ask him. No, he replies. He says we should get back to generating text for this blog post, and talk to each other later. He’s usually right about things more often than not, so we’ll press forward and leave the mystery of Mysten Stone behind for now.

I placed the rock back where I found it as exactly as possible. Several days later I reexamined the rock, and I’ll talk about that in a blog post coming up.

Just uphill from this Mysten mystery rock we have another interesting stone, which takes the appearance of a fish or perhaps dolphin. It even seems to have a little, beady eye in the right spot for the illusion.

Platform Rock, once more, where I sat Mysten Rock down for examination and found its little smiley face formation. The orange rock directly to the left of Platform Rock here also helped lead my eye toward Mysten Rock initially. Just after seeing the orange rock, I spied the redder rock, or Pointer Rock. And then Mysten Rock itself. It all unfolded very quickly, as many mystical events do.

There are other interesting rocks in the area for sure, but the focus was on Mysten Rock. I’m tempted to call the area Kermit, seemingly linked to Kermit, Kentucky surrounded by Lovely, Beauty, and Warfield. Paul Warfield is a famous Miami Dophin, and a Warfield, Virginia just happens to be near one of the few US Dolphin population places. The smiling face reminds me of Kermit the Frog, but the (puppet-like) *mouth* of Dolphin Rock seems to be the other half of the association — the smiley face, by itself, just doesn’t seem to complete the analogy and make it Kermit. So my reasoning is that the whole cluster of rocks here must be Kermit. More on that soon as I have a chance to ponder more upon it, hand on chin.*

Omphalos Rock again.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 06)

—–

*Kermit the Frog

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October 20, 2013 · 10:01 pm

Sharieland Once More 04

(continued from Sharieland Once More 03)

Head Line’s central tree of unknown species, once more.

Shot from a little further down the hill. We’ve properly entered the Null Vale here, considered the most sacred valley directly descending the hill below Herman’s Mansion for most Sharies.

What appears to be man-made rock stackings in the Null Vale (NV).

Null Vale rock wall, this time natural and also more impressive. At some point (not this fall, most likely), I will make a very detailed map of NV and perhaps Sharieland as a whole. The latter could come sooner than the former.

A shockingly stark “fairy house” in a NV tree.

Nearby is a twinned tree trunk with a queerly projecting limb. Reminds me of a unicorn’s horn.

Same tree with accompanying rocks.

Nearby rock wall.

Another bit of man-made rock wall nearby, closer to what we’ve seemingly designated as Trumann in this here blog, or perhaps actually part of Trumann.

Trumann rocks. And it does!

Longer shot of that Null Valley fairy residence.

This nearby, bright red rock caught my eye…

(continued in Sharieland Once More 05)

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October 20, 2013 · 9:50 pm

Sharieland Once More 03

(continued from Sharieland Once More 02)

Smaller tree twisting around larger tree off the Head Line or Head Path.

Another interesting tree off this same path.

Yet another, whose trunk grows around a rock. I didn’t take a detailed photo, though.

Interesting fall maple leaf, with rocks near the top of Negative 2 vale behind it, I believe. We’re still on Head Line for this picture.

Head Line’s central tree, once more. Must figure out what type it is.

A photo of a Boulder (town) ruin, shot while taking the long route back to my car this beautiful day.

Back on Head Line — this may have been the next day — we have the eastern edge of what I’m calling, for now, Original Bedrock (name subject to quick change). I see it as an ancient Sharie population place where they first carved a *true*, independent niche away from Herman Mansion and immediate environs. Herman Mansion, to us humans, would only be about a football field’s length away up the hill and to the right here.

The center of Original Bedrock, right on Head Line. Was this community called Trumann, after the famous *headline*, “Dewey Wins”?

Details of center.

Details. It could be that I set up a toy happening sometime in the future in an attempt to psychically trace out more of this “Trumann.” And actually this was the second or backup choice this fall for such an art event, eventually losing out to Philo at Heart Lake.

Rock situated on western edge of “Trumann.”

Probably from the same spot, looking back toward central “Trumann”.

That oh so central Head Line bush again of undetermined species.

Looking up the hill just beyond toward Herman’s Mansion, clearly in view in person but not showing up in the photo. I’ll have to try again later with a different camera setting.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 04)

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October 20, 2013 · 9:46 pm

Sharieland Once More 02

(continued from Sharieland Once More 01)

Rock crossing at the north end of Philo. It’s a good guess that this is human made, but I’m not sure the reason why except for fun and games — know all about those reasons, for certain!

Another cluster of rocks on Heart Stream (sole feeder stream of Heart Lake). Or is that Earth Stream? Anyhoot, this is at conjunction of two streams actually, Heart and its own main tributary running down the hill from the northwest. The below pictured rocky patch is not nearly as large and interesting as Philo, which lies about 30 yards downstream.

A delapidated Sharieland cow enclosure, no longer used.

There are all kinds of interesting looking rocks littering the fields and woods of Sharieland. I’ll have to make a detailed map soon.

This particular rock is found right on the Heart Line, and has been depicted in the F and H E! Blog several times previous to this. It seems to convey a message, perhaps as part of a map itself. It lies between +1 and +2 valleys on this line/path. More on -2, -1, Null, +1, +2, +3, +4 valleys running from Head Line down to Heart Line very soon.

The remainder of the pictures from this blog post come from Vale +2, and specifically an area I seem to want to call Sunklands or Sunk Lands, originally in these earlier posts on the subject here and here.

—-

Unnamed rock looking like a small grave marker.

Heart o’ Sunklands.

Unusual rock at this heart.

Briars weaving around the tree trunk seen 2 pictures above.

Poke Rock — notice the 2 “eyes” and the gaping mouth.

http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20shining%20-%20chap%2012.html

Not as gaping as the Danny’s mouth in the above still from The Shining movie, but I thought I would include since it seemed weird that the picture came up at the top of an image search for “gaping mouth” just accomplished. I’ve mentioned The Shining in several more recent blog posts, and actually gave a link for the home page for the article that photo is from here. I’ve also read all of these articles by Ager recently.

(continued in Sharieland Once More 03)

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October 20, 2013 · 9:40 pm

Sharieland Once More 01

With several days of clear weather ahead, I enter the meat of my Fall Hiking Season. I begin at Heart Lake… at the very start we have confusion, for there are actually *2* nearby but different pools of water named Heart in Sharieland. The below picture depicts the one nearest Head Lake, which is more the actual shape of a heart. I cannot give the full story of this pool for privacy reasons, but I wanted to include a picture of it in this blog anyway. The 2nd, larger and less heart-shaped Heart pool lies about 150 yards behind the tree with the red leaves in the center. That’s what I call Heart Lake; we’ll just call this Heart Pool to differentiate the two.

Sign next to Heart Pool warning about past pesticide use in Herman Park, specifically mentioning the poisons arsenic and lead.

This picture is of the sole feeder stream of Heart Lake, reached by walking through a cow pasture behind Head Lake and attached Heart Pool. The quite green stream is mere feet from emptying its waters into the still pool, situated just offshot to the right.

And then just upstream from the above location we find a very important place for Fall Hiking Season: what I originally called Myst or Mysten but have probably changed to Philo, partially in honor of my Second Life home sim of Philudoria. It’s a unique site on the as yet unnamed stream (I suppose I could call this Heart Stream?), being a larger, beachy spot dotted with small and large rocks in an otherwise marshier, non-beach and nony-rocky area. Distance from Heart Lake here: about 20 yards. We’ll return to this spot soon for some toy avatar adventures. Stay tuned!

Below we have a larger rock perched on the opposite end of the same marshy area above south of Heart Lake. We look directly toward Philo here, but cannot make out the beach because of the tallness of intervening plants.

This is the cow pasture separating Heart Pool/Head Lake and Heart Lake, taken from the earthen Heart Lake dam. Mist is beginning to roll in.

Shot from the same spot, looking the opposite direction across Heart Lake toward Philo.

Path beside Heart Lake eventually leading to the white “Jupiter” rock and accompanying pine branch discussed in this earlier Sharieland post.

A not-so-successfully hidden deer spotted on the way to the Jupiter area. He stands in the stream that enters “Heart Stream” between Heart Lake and Heart Pool, near where an interesting waterfall forms that I haven’t even taken pictures of yet for this blog. So many picture to take, so little relative time!

The Jupiter rock again, with the branch’s “4” still beside it.

Heart Lake as the mist comes even closer.

Interesting triangle of pine trees seen from Philo. Pyramid shaped, even.

Bigger rock pictured in several places above, looking across the marsh from Philo. Must get a name for it — Heart Rock seems too obvious and unimaginative. Maybe *Earth* Rock (Earth being an anagram of Heart). But, then, is Heart Lake itself actually Earth Lake? See here for a comparison of Heart Lake both with Earth and The Sun, but perhaps more the former now. Translation (if so): Earth = Heart. Earth and Heart are direct anagrams of each other, and the only other word that fits this category is “Hater”.