Now November begins

Faux graveyard and conifers
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Happy Halloween! No one came down the long dirt drive. Not a single trick-or-treater. The world has changed so much. Now November begins. The winds were fierce today. The larches glow golden in the brief moments when the sun strikes them. Mostly the sun is obscured by heavy layers of cloud.
I have been reading Rumor Verified, a book of Robert Penn Warren's poems from 1980. They are quite strong and quite emotional, almost too much so for my present mood. But the the language, sound, structure and vocablulary are peerless. I have finished getting all the books here into Librarything, and feel quite virtuous, as if it were much of an accomplishment. I enjoy playing with the data. Did I tell you about Listsofbests.com? It is a great site, too, and lets you check off lists of books you have read and make comparisons. I've read a lot of Newberry Medal winners, but by no means all of them. I'm pretty poor on the Pulitzers, though. Better on the classics. I also found a list of great blogs and will look at a couple each day. I want to improve this one, but not with sound, video or things that jiggle. It's a work in progress, and still in search of a purpose.

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.

My balcony

My balcony
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

My balcony for writing haiku and sketching is in the upper left. You can see the dog yard and the propane pig, outstanding features of our visible lifestyle. This is my new fisheye lens; I'm still trying to figure out what kinds of pictures I want to make with it. Of course the balcony isn't very useful during cold rain, which is predicted for all next week.
Right now our grandson is doing his Spanish homework, with tutoring from his grandpa. But is is late, because he went for Bible Study first. Our dogs are ready to go to bed, but they don't get to for a while yet.

Fog in the morning

Fog in the morning
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Many days here begin like this. Since T2 mowed, there is often a deer grazing in the early morning, in the fog. We have heard the turkeys, but they are not as visible as they were last year. It is very quiet. More and more leaves fall every day, yet still some trees are only beginning to show color. Some nights it freezes, some nights it does not. Days are sliding by; we get something fixed and something else needs fixing. It's a lot like life; I feel very fortunate.

Toxic beauty

Toxic beauty WSP
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Today for a leaf-peeking drive to Wilderness State Park on the Tip of the Mitt, Michigan. Some sort of oil spill had made this varicolored sheen on the beach. A woman at the Bakery said she heard there will be snow this weekend. At Good Hart Country Store we overheard a woman complaining about things being so expensive "out here in the middle of nowhere." One of those brief encounters.

His golden eye

His golden eye
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Brewer's blackbirds. It always pleases me to find one on the beach, where they were first described. We have become so used to seeing them on parking lots in town that we forget. I even know someone who calls them Parking Lot Birds. So, yes, he's common, he's vulgar, and I think he is very handsome. Try: to find more time to walk outdoors. Computers are fun, but they aren't everything.

Today to a very nice Mozart concert with my grandson. The Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra. Symphony No. 36 and a concerto for violin and viola. Well performed in the First Presbyterian Church in Harbor Springs. The maestro had rhinstones on the collar and pocket rim of his black coat. It tickled me.

Beginning of autumn

Beginning of autumn
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

The last three nights have been splendid moon nights! This is the view from the porch the day I came back from California. Overcast somewhat, but with shafts of bright sun that made the trees glow. This morning when I got up there was a small deer grazing right about where the light tan streak is in the photograph. Tonight, a young coyote strolled nonchalantly in the very foreground. He looked quite young and healthy. He was pale tan in color. He walked in that sort of tippy-toe way they have, staring ahead, jumping up slightly, starting and stopping. Trey says they are looking for rodents.
We went to the Northwoods for dinner to celebrate his visit and his brother's birthday. And to look at their father's wood sculpture, which is above the windows all around the dining room. He made these in the last year of his life more than fifteen years ago.

waters of autumn--
how quickly the time has gone
since he died so young

Asilomar sunset

Asilomar sunset
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

It was overcast much of the time at Asilomar, but we did have a night of spectacular sunsets. This time I particularly enjoyed the path at the top of the bluff, looking down at the ocean. You get such a splendid view of the dune plants, the rocks and the sea! Looking down at the sea and watching the rolling waves was really wonderful. Some of us also looked at the edge of a midden and marveled at the tiny bits of ancient shells that have just come to the surface of the sand.

autumn farewell--
the path curves through the dunes
and disappears

Suet cake

Suet cake
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

This was the fun thing today. Through the kitchen window. These little beauties love suet cakes! The autumn colors are deepening nicely. I'm back from my trip to the haiku retreat and should post about it tomorrow.