Early morning, pre-dawn, that in-between stretch where the house is quiet and the day has not quite taken shape yet.

Did the usual check of the backyard cam. Not expecting much. Maybe a squirrel, maybe nothing.

Instead – a visitor.

A small skunk, Flying V, the one with the little tail-dred.

He comes into frame slowly, like he has all the time in the world. No rush, no jittery movement. Just that steady, deliberate pace. Nose down, working his way along like he is following a set of instructions written somewhere just out of our reach.

It is always striking how calm they are. Not sneaking. Not darting. Just existing with a kind of quiet confidence. Like this space – the yard, the edge of the house, even the small cement slab of the porch – is just another part of his regular route.

Midway through, he pauses.

Of course he does.

Right there in the center, like a checkpoint. A brief stillness. You find yourself watching closer, like you might miss something important if you look away. Maybe he is listening. Maybe he is deciding. Maybe that is just how the world works when you move at that pace.

The light catches him just enough, and there it is – that little white tip on his tail. Not the full dramatic display. Just a small, quiet signal. Understated. Enough.

Inside, everything is still. Pearl asleep, unaware of how close we are to a very different kind of morning.

Then he continues on.

No drama, no sudden movement. Just exits the frame the same way he came in, steady and unbothered. Gone as simply as he arrived.

And that is it.

A short clip on a slightly grainy camera, but it ends up being the most real moment of the morning. No noise, no rush. Just a small creature passing through on his own terms.

The day starts not long after.

But for a minute there, it felt like we were tuned into something quieter running alongside it.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/startrek05.html

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/mapswild.html

It snuck in quietly this year.

No drumroll, no big announcement. Just a soft shift in the light when I stepped outside this morning. The kind of light that does not feel like winter anymore, even if the air still has a little bite to it.

Today is the Vernal Equinox. The day where everything balances out. Equal parts day and night. A brief moment where the planet seems to pause and say, alright, let’s start fresh.

You would think something that ancient and precise would feel more dramatic. But here, it feels like Roanoke does most things – understated, a little bit hidden, waiting for you to notice.

The redbuds are trying.

Not fully there yet, but if you look closely along the edges of the neighborhoods, you can see the first hints of purple pushing through. The trees are still mostly bare, but they have that restless look about them, like they are deciding whether it is finally safe to wake up.

Up along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I would bet the wind is still cold enough to remind you it is only March. But down in the city, the sun is starting to linger just a little longer on the sidewalks, on the brick, on the parked cars that somehow already have a thin layer of pollen beginning to think about existing.

That is how spring starts here. Not all at once. Not like flipping a switch.

More like a negotiation.

Winter is still in the room, arms crossed, not quite ready to leave. But spring has shown up anyway, set its bag down, and is making itself comfortable.

And today, right in the middle of it, the math works out perfectly. Twelve hours of light, twelve hours of dark. A rare kind of fairness that we do not get much of anywhere else.

It makes you think about balance in a different way.

Not the big, life-changing kind. Just the small things. Opening the windows for a few minutes in the afternoon. Letting the house breathe. Taking a walk a little later than you would have last week because now you can. Noticing that you do not need quite as heavy a jacket, even if you still bring it along out of habit.

Pearl spent a good part of the afternoon parked in a sunbeam like it was her job. Which, honestly, might be the correct way to observe the equinox. Find the light. Sit in it. Do not overcomplicate things.

There is something reassuring about it.

No matter how strange things get, no matter how long winter feels some years, the tilt of the Earth keeps doing its thing. The balance comes back, even if just for a day.

And from here on out, the light wins a little more each evening.

You can feel it already.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/chrono.html

Dumb little time visualization

There is something about this stretch of late winter pretending to be spring that feels like the region is trying on different outfits in front of a mirror.

The past few days have been a little indecisive. Not unpleasant, just… unsettled. Gray mornings that take their time waking up. Temperatures hovering in that middle ground where you hesitate at the closet. Jacket? No jacket? Regret either way by noon.

Old timers used to say this kind of weather meant the mountains were “breathing.” Cold air slipping down the hollers at night, warmer air pushing back up during the day. Like the land itself could not decide if it was done with winter.

We had that brief tease – a soft warmth, almost generous. Enough to crack a window, let the house breathe a little. You could feel it in the air, that subtle shift where winter loosens its grip just slightly. Not gone, never that easy, but distracted.

Some folks call it “false spring.” Others say it is when winter “steps outside for a smoke,” which feels about right. It never means winter has left. It just means it is taking five.

And then, right on cue, the clouds rolled back in.

Rain threatened, sometimes followed through, sometimes just hung there like it might. The kind of weather that keeps everything muted. Colors dull down. Sound carries differently. Even time feels like it slows a notch.

There is an old saying you still hear now and then – if you get thunder before the trees bud, expect one more cold snap. Not scientific, maybe, but around here it has a way of lining up just often enough to make you pay attention.

Looking ahead, the forecast reads like a conversation between seasons that cannot quite agree.

A warm push toward the weekend. Real warmth, the kind that makes you think about sitting outside longer than planned. Maybe even short sleeves if you are feeling optimistic.

Then, just as quickly, the reminder.

A sharp turn back. Wind picking up. Temperatures dropping like someone flipped a switch. The kind of cold that rolls down off the ridges and settles in low, the way it always has. The kind people used to blame on “the mountain holding winter a little longer.”

And yet, underneath all of it, something has changed.

The cold does not feel permanent anymore.

Even when it dips again, even when the wind cuts through, there is a sense that it is temporary. The days are stretching out. The light is sticking around longer. The sun, when it shows up, has a little more authority to it.

Some say you can tell spring is close when the light hits the slopes just right in the evening, when everything takes on that softer, almost golden edge. Not quite green yet, but no longer fully asleep.

You can feel the season turning, even if it is doing so in fits and starts.

How it all fits together:

Recent days: mild, cloudy, a little damp, the mountains “breathing”

Near term: warming up into that classic false spring

Early next week: a sharp cooldown, just like the old sayings warn

After that: a gradual climb again, winter losing its argument

If you are planning anything, the move is simple. Take advantage of the warmth when it shows up. Do not trust it completely, but do not ignore it either.

Around here, spring does not arrive all at once. It circles. It tests the ground. It tells a few stories first.

And if the old wisdom holds, we have at least one more cold reminder coming before it finally settles in.

I was asked which tarot card resonated most with me. After a very brief moment of consideration, I have settled on the 7 of Cups for now.

I would not want it as a tattoo, though.

It represents pure imagination, endless choices, illusion, and dreamwork.

Divination-wise, it tells you to embrace your wild dreams and fantasies, but also warns of “wishful thinking” and the danger of being overwhelmed by too many options. (I often suffer from analysis paralysis)

Spring has been working quietly behind the scenes here in the hills, and this week it finally tipped its hand.

Driving through Roanoke the other morning, I started noticing the first splashes of pink-purple peeking out from the gray woods. The redbuds are coming in.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just… steadily.

One day the trees are bare sticks against the sky, and the next day there is color dusted along the branches like someone went through with a watercolor brush and tapped a little life onto everything. The redbuds always arrive before the leaves really show up, so the blossoms sit right there on the bare limbs where you can see them clearly. No hiding. Just color.

Around here that usually means the season is turning for real.

You see them along the parkway, tucked beside older oaks, scattered through neighborhoods where they have been quietly doing this same routine for decades. Little flashes of magenta standing out against the still-muted woods. It is the sort of thing that makes you slow down a bit on the road, if only for a moment.

The redbuds are not the loudest flowers of spring. They are not big like magnolias or flashy like tulips. They just show up early and do their job, adding a little brightness when winter has not quite packed its bags yet.

And somehow that feels just about right for this place.

Around Blue Ridge Mountains country, spring does not crash in all at once. It leaks in. First a few warmer afternoons. Then the daffodils. Then the redbuds, glowing along the roadsides like quiet little lanterns.

It is a good reminder that things keep moving forward, even when the woods still look half-asleep, or the seasons can’t decide to be warm or cool just yet.

Those blooms are easy to miss if you are not looking for them, but once you spot the first redbud, you start seeing them everywhere.

And just like that, the color is back.

#doodle #digitalmarkers #redbuds

September 7, 1960 : A Morning That Quietly Changed Roanoke

There are mornings that feel ordinary until you look back and realize they were anything but. This morning, the sun spilled soft gold over the Blue Ridge hills, and the streets of Roanoke were humming with school buses and the smell of fresh asphalt. But in the minds of a handful of families, this was no ordinary day.

It was the day their children would walk into history.

For years, the promise of Brown v. Board of Education had hung over Virginia like a ghost, something everyone knew was there but nobody really acted on. Segregated schools were still the rule, and local authorities were slow, cautious, and often resistant. And yet here were these parents, rising early, brushing breakfast crumbs off the table, tightening shoelaces, steadying small hands, and saying quietly, today is the day.

At Melrose Elementary, two sisters, Nadine and Cassandra Wilkinson, held their mother’s hand tightly as they climbed the broad steps. Their father, Reverend R. R. Wilkinson, was away that morning on NAACP business, but his fight was in every stride they took. The air smelled of schoolbooks, waxed floors, and something heavier too, courage, hope, and just a touch of fear.

Inside the classroom, whispers followed them like shadows. Some kids stared. Some adults watched from the corners. Some neighbors peeked through windows. Outside, eggs had been thrown at another family’s car on the way to a different school, a reminder that not everyone welcomed this change.

But the children kept walking. Hands raised, eyes forward, hearts beating a rhythm older than the city itself. They did what ordinary kids do, answered questions, turned pages, learned. And yet every word, every action, was quietly defiant.

Across town, at Monroe Junior High, a young girl named Cecelia Long remembered the same mixture of nerves and determination. She said later that the fear of whispers and unkind comments was heavy, but she felt the weight of something stronger, the knowledge that she was doing the right thing.

By the end of that first school year, more and more students crossed the lines that had been drawn in law and habit. It would not be quick. It would not be painless. Integration in Roanoke, like in much of the South, would take years, meetings, protests, petitions, and relentless moral pressure. But that morning, September 7, 1960, was the hinge on which the door began to open.

When we talk about standing up to tyranny, we often think of battles and riots. But sometimes tyranny is quiet, patient, woven into everyday life. And sometimes, standing up to it looks like walking into a classroom where people don’t want you, holding your mother’s hand, and learning anyway.

That day, Roanoke’s children did that. And that is courage. That is history. And, somehow, that is Roanoke.

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There was a time when Roanoke did not exist.

In the early 1800s, the valley held only a small crossroads village known as Big Lick. The name came from a natural salt deposit nearby where animals gathered, and where travelers eventually stopped as well. A few homes stood along dusty roads. A tavern. A store or two. Little more.

If you had passed through then, you would not have guessed a city was coming.

Everything changed in 1882.

That year the Norfolk and Western Railway chose Big Lick as the location for its major rail shops and division headquarters. It was a practical decision – the valley provided a good route through the mountains and a natural junction point for expanding rail lines.

But the effect was immediate and dramatic.

Workers arrived by the hundreds. Boarding houses appeared almost overnight. Streets filled with construction. Where fields had been, brick buildings rose. The quiet crossroads was suddenly a railroad boomtown.

Within a year, the name Big Lick was abandoned. The growing town adopted a new name: Roanoke.

Much of that early boomtown has vanished or changed, but traces remain if you know where to look – old rail corridors, brick warehouses, and the industrial footprint that shaped the city’s early growth.

The Roanoke we know today began with that single decision by a railroad company in 1882.

Before the skyline.
Before the Star.
Before the city.

There was only Big Lick.

So you finally picked up a Baofeng and you are cruising the frequencies in the Roanoke Valley, looking for something a bit more… mysterious than the local fire dispatch or the Poor Mountain weather bot. You want the spooky stuff. You want the numbers.
First, the bad news: your little UV-5R is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Numbers stations live in the Shortwave (HF) world, and the Baofeng is a VHF/UHF beast. You won’t hear Moscow on a rubber duck antenna in the middle of Salem. But don’t throw your radio in the Roanoke River just yet.
The 2026 Spy Log
If you want to hear the actual ghosts in the machine, you have to go digital. Using a WebSDR (Software Defined Radio) lets you borrow a massive antenna in Europe or the Caribbean to hear what’s happening on the HF bands right now. Here is your current target list for March 2026:

How to Listen from the Star City

• Step 1: Head over to the University of Twente WebSDR. It is located in the Netherlands and has a massive “Mini-Whip” antenna that picks up Russian signals like they are next door.
• Step 2: Under the frequency box, type in 4625 and select USB.
• Step 3: Watch the “waterfall” (the scrolling blue/yellow display). Look for the solid vertical lines. That’s where the secrets are hiding.

While you are waiting for the next transmission, keep that Baofeng on 146.985 to hear the local Roanoke ham scene. They might not be spies, but they usually know where the best burgers in Vinton are.
Stay tuned, stay cryptic.

I asked for a list of the lies our president has told in the last 24 hours.

Only 5, but they are a big 5.

The reply:

In the last 24 hours (ending mid-afternoon on March 12, 2026), President Trump has made at least five documented false or misleading claims during press interactions and social media posts.
While the exact “count” can vary depending on which fact-checking organization you follow, here is a breakdown of the specific claims identified by reporters and analysts since yesterday:

Ukraine’s War Origin: Falsely claimed Ukrainian leaders started the conflict, which began with the Russian invasion of their sovereign territory.

Foreign Aid Comparisons: Inaccurately stated the U.S. has provided three times more aid to Ukraine than all of Europe combined; current data shows European collective aid exceeds U.S. totals.

Iran Military Strength: Claimed Iran’s armed forces are at the end of their line, which contradicts current Pentagon assessments of their active maneuvers.

Gas Prices: Stated that gas is below $2.30 in most states, while the national average remains closer to $2.92 with no state average currently that low.

Voter Fraud: Repeated claims of massive numbers of noncitizens voting, despite election officials and studies confirming such instances are extremely rare.