So fond of young trees

Fantasy II
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

And soft colors at twilight.
Tonight I tried to explain to my daughter and grandson what Marie Curie actually did and why she was my childhood hero. Wikipedia imforms me that some recent forensics demonstrated that Marie probably got her excess radiation from running the World War I X-ray ambulances she set up with her daughter. Before the end of the war the two had trained 150 women to run the equipment and do the math to show where the bullet or shrapnel fragment was. The conclusion was that she was a careful scientist with the radium. Her clothes and notebooks will still set off Geiger counters after almost 100 years. She certainly had drive and focus.
I learned quite a bit by clicking on links and trying to explain to the others. My science education was a long time ago and not very thorough. At the same time we were trying to help my grandson study for his Beowulf test, when he had forgotten his text. Wikipedia is surprisingly good on kennings, too! It was a very pleasant family evening.

Poplars

PICT0009 nik ir
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

This is a nice effect, I think. Nik Infrared filter for Photoshop. Tonight there is a big wind and the golden leaves that were on this tree two days ago have flown. The chickadees are very busy carrying away the black sunflower seeds, and two pairs of woodpeckers have really eaten a lot of suet. The poplars remind me of the row of trees that Monet painted, and that he eventually had to buy to keep them from being cut down for firewood. His, of course, were one of those straight rows that line old French roads, canals and allees. But the shape of the trees and the habit of the leaves and branches are very similar. And some of the paintings have the gold against a blue sky that these had just yesterday. I love trees, the shapes, the twigs, the bark, the leaves. That rustling sound the leaves make. Good night.

The South Meadow and Pickerel Lake Clouds

Late autumn view
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Autumn won't linger much longer. I am still playing with the fisheye lens.
Today I entered more than 100 books in Librarything. I keep finding things I want to read and re-read. But now I am reading the books on Lorca. That overblown Spanish rhetoric sometimes is embarassing, but he really has a gift for image and metaphor. So I will have to look at the poetry some more, particularly the Cante Jondo and the Gypsy Ballads.
It continues wet, chilly and largely overcast. We will only be able to stay three weeks or less. I am sad. The woodpecker was back today at the suet. This one was, I think, a female Hairy Woodpecker, and most nimble.

The teacher's horse

The teacher's horse
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

More from the riding lesson. Today I spent trying to use my new Wacom tablet so I can get control over making collages and such and combining photographs digitally. Alas, it will take me a while to get used to it and I will need to shut down to switch to my regular mouse. I have a very small mouse, so the Wacom mouse seems too heavy and clunky.
K. brought over some chicken and dumplings tonight; it was very good. The weather continues very overcast and I haven't had much luck with photographs. I discovered a list site tonight: listsof bests.com -- it could be another excellent timewaster. I have already started to work on the book lists. It is extrememly interesting how the site works. Once you check off a book you have read on one list, it is automatically checked on another list you may look at. There are movie lists and lots of other stuff, too.

Autumn snowfall

Autumn snowfall
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

This is the same clump of birch as in Fog in the Morning, below. The difference a few days will make! By tonight the snow is mostly melted. It is raining--on and off, then on again.
A dog is asleep in front of the fire, and it is very quiet tonight. Chamber music is playing on the radio.
When the rain lets up, I want to mount the bird nesting boxes I got at our historic hardware store. I got one for bluebirds and one for chickadees. The bluebird one has a copper sheathed roof. Pretty swell.

Autumn is ending

Autumn is ending
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Coming back inside from photographing trees in the snow, I saw this wet leaf on the wet porch. I like the warm colors and the way the line of the stem follows the grain of the wood, as well as the waterdrops. The leaf itself is attractively battered, yet still graphic.
It is also possible to see how deep Contractor D drove the deck screws in. It makes it almost impossible to remove them if you need to replace a board.
In this photo, as in so many others, there are layers of history and memory triggers. Goodnight.

The red maple in snow

The red maple in snow
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

People have been talking about the projected snow all week. The promise came true overnight. Tonight it is still snowing. Precipitation is predicted for the next nine days, but mostly in the form of rain. All day today, the winter wonderland changed every few minutes. Overcast, patches of blue and lavendar sky, returning overcast. Wet snow which clung to the trees and then fell off in clumps, or melted, or blew away. Overcast again. Melted snow dripping from the eaves and from the trees. Sometimes there was wind, sometimes stillness. Sometimes it snowed a little, sometimes quite a bit, but the tree were never as heavily laden as they were in the early morning. Autumn leaf-fall is only about half completed, so there is stiil a lot of color set off by snow.
The wet snow reminded me of the last time I shoveled snow with my father. He had just turned 80. "Wet snow is heavy, sticks to the blade," he told me. He liked shoveling the dry powdery snow of that mid-January in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He wore an orange zippered hooded sweatshirt, which I still have. I took his photograph, but don't yet have it in digital form. He died suddenly that April.