Indian pipe

Indian pipe
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

These come up in the spring. This is deep autumn. And this is the last day of October and we are in Glendive, Montana in Room 111 of the Super 8 Motel. On TV now Jerry Seinfeld is talking about Bee Movie, his very silly idea which has now come to sweet fruition, And I have written something (anything?) on this blog EVERY day this month. Sleep tight.

Apricot color after rain

Apricot color after rain
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

We are packing up at the Budget Host motel. Since this is the last day of the month, I'm posting now, so I will be sure to complete the project. A POST EVERY DAY!
This motel is very clean, but quite old--we are trying to figure out when it was built. S thinks maybe "before the War" (WWII). The bathroom is very tiny, with a very low toilet and an extremely low showerhead. I had to duck my head over to rinse off the shampoo!
Yesterday we listened to I Puritani all three discs. Recorded in 1972 with Sutherland and Pavarotti. I got the CD set used and it was still expensive. As we rode, I read about Bellini's life and early death. Just after the great success of this opera, he got a dysentery. He seemed to recover several times and was being cared for by friends at their estate outside Paris. They had some fear of cholera, and kept his friends away, by means of their officious gateman. On the day of the composer's death, a friend was turned away by this gateman earlier in the day. He came back later and the gateman was not there, so he went into the house and up to Bellini's bedroom, where his friend was in the bed. At first he thought Bellini was sleeping, then realized he was cold. This account left unanswered questions: Where was the gateman? Where were the hosts? Where? Why? A lonely death from the past. He was only 32 years old!

Geranium

Geranium, simplified
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Another day on the road. Nice weather, and--since we are working our way toward HIghway 95 for the majority of our trip--a route notable for taking us through many small towns in various stages of decay. The small houses of the Northeastern past ranged along the highway. The old brick storefronts, some crumbling, some boarded up, some transmogrified into antique shops or art galleries. Newer strip malls, also decayed, or decaying, A very occasional J.C. Penney's or Walmart.
It seems to me that the best part of America is being lost and we won't know that it is irretrievable until it is completely gone, leaving behind some videotapes that nobody has the equipment to play any more. The place you grew up and learned how to be a useful adult. The place you had to leave to find a good job and rarely go back to.

And now you have to lock your house and your car. You've lost track of the neighbors and schoolmates you knew all your life. No older guys are around who like to show kids like you were how to do things. A mechanic won't let you use his shop because of insurance restrictions. The dentist makes you give him your Visa card number before you get in the chair. Nobody knows your aunts and uncles. Or your grandmother. You've no place to grow anything and nothing to ride that doesn't use gasoline. And certainly no creek or woods for your kids to investigate, unless you are very lucky.

There are so many of these towns, Driving across the country is a way to see how many. Some names today: Oink Joint Road, Otter Tail River, Crow Wing County. And a town named Pillager. We are in Detroit Lakes in room 111 of a budget motel, yellow sections set in a grove of trees. So far, a train has gone by about every 15 minutes. Close and loud. I love it: another touch of the past.

Mackinac Bridge

Mackinac Bridge
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This bridge is more beautiful than most works of art! If you visit the best birding locations around the Straits, you can also spy excellent views of the Bridge from all the points and bogs. Driving across, as we did today, it is clear that this is a no-pedestrian bridge--only sort of catwalks are there, not sidewalks as on the Golden Gate. Unlike the red-lead color of the GG, the ivory color of the suspension towers blends with, and is enhanced by, nature.
All along Highway 28, Highway 77 and Highway 2, the tamaracks (or larches) are turning yellow. Toward the end of the day, when there were hills and higher ground, there were some beautiful bright reddish ochre aspens. In the middle of the day, a large healthy-looking coyote crossed the road ahead of us. He was alert and focused, but not really in a hurry. He pricked up his signature ears and went through the roadside grass into the woods.

Brilliant sun all day, and room 231 at Days Inn in Hurley, WI, has wireless internet!!

This beautiful land

IMG_6316simp
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Leaving in the morning. So far this is my best month keeping up with this blog--every day without fail! But there are two more days to go. We shall see, Wireless internet access in motels: RULES.

I turned down a chance to see some WW II slides tonight. No time. It's a little sad, though. So long ago, and I was there, although not yet taking slides.
It is hard to leave behind the art books I got this summer, but they are WAY too bulky to take. I did remember to get my swimsuit and my warm coat, thus covering all my bases, weatherwise.

The heavy and the light

The heavy and the light
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

It looks like I have started a series of portraits of rocks. In this case, I love the delicacy of the weeds against the bulk of the rocks. Today I found a blog by someone who is doing what she calls her Diary Project. She draws on, and mails, an envelope to herself every day. Inside each envelope are secrets. She would like to exhibit the completed work at a gallery and then envelopes would be opened by those who attend, as part of the whole project. The drawings on the envelopes have a delicate beauty, like the weeds in this photograph.

http://diary-project.blogspot.com/

Her blog is here, but I still don't know how to link,

Sunlit grasses along the Straits

Sunlit grasses
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

These little tricks of light will catch your eye. Today I poured all the water out of the hose and put it in the basement for the winter. And put away the shovel, the rake and the trowels. These things make the coming winter more real and more final. Even so, the gorgeous autumn light seems like it will last forever. Yet each day the trees are more sparsely leafed, and the tracery of limbs more visible. Our gray squirrel has eaten so much sunflower seed that he actually has a belly! Even the chickadees seem fat, and they have glossy fresh plumage as they carry away seed after seed to hide them in the woods.

A brush with autumn

A brush with autumn
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Across Round Lake, I think. We went so many places it was hard to keep track. This was on the other side. Tha lake is quite shallow and gunky. It is possible to get your canoe stuck in the almost-quicksand. We were here to look for shorebirds, and we saw Yellowlegs, and a Wilson's Phalarope. But it was hard to take my eyes off these trees. Tonight, packing up the garbage, I discovered a leak under the sink. Wouldn't you know, with all the loose ends to tie up before we leave. Yesterday, S. had a flat tire. The stem was defective. Resolving it took him more than half a day. But I am grateful that maintenance is available and we can afford to pay for it. I think constantly of the struggle so many people are having with the cost of medical bills, housing, car repair and dentistry.

Birding the Straits

IMG_6331
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

My last birdwalk of the Michigan season. Today. My daughter took off work to come with me, which was very nice, since she has not been a birder, It seemed as if it might rain, but it only sprinkled while we were in the deli having sandwiches on artisan bread with hot cider and grandmother's homemade soup. The rest of the day got more and more beautiful as you can see from this. Clouds, sunlight, lake waves, deep water,, islands and sky. And more than 50 species of bird thanks to Birder Expert Steve!

The copper version

The copper version
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

It's hard to resist playing all day with even ordinary photographs. How my mom would have loved doing this. She got a great deal of pleasure from multiple copies of xerox images and all sorts of collagey things. I should find and post some of her collage accretions that I photographed before she left her home in Ohio. She would start with one image, usually one of her children and, over time, add similar or related images to it. Going up the stairwell, there were lots of dance images including Matisse's Dance, Isadora Duncan, an arched Marilyn Monroe stretched out on red satin and one of those many-armed god statues from India. It was quite astonishing. Good night, Mom, sleep well, under your bronze plate that reads, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." And Shakepeare, too, keeps on sleeping. . .

Vanishing autumn

Vanishing autumn
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I want to take the Walter Isaacson biography of Einstein back to the library soon. I am trying very hard to undestand the science, but I don't have the background for it. The explantions are very good and seem simple enough, but they are hard to get your mind around. Of course the Europe of the time (all the famous scientists earning Nobel prizes!) is fascinating, as are the bizarre personal lives of the great savants.
We leave in a week and I have a millon little ends I was planning to tie up. These little plans "gang aft agley." Good night.

The Good Mother

The Good Mother
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This duck is known for taking good care of her ducklings. The flock is a mixed flock originating from three of four different kinds of duck that participate in unsupervised cross-breeding.
In the dusk, the ducklings jump into the air to catch bugs. It is very cute, but hard to see because it is almost dark. Watch the little guy at the far left of the screen.

Birthday guitar

Birthday guitar
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Looks like this was a successful nineteenth birthday present. I was surprised he could play it as well as he could--he's been learning on an old one. Note the Garfield book on the table. It almosst wouldn't be a birthday without a Garfield book! We had a lovely party with his favorite cheesecake. I suppose I should give the recipe, but I don't have it yet. Plus, there are probably enough recipes on the Web.. (But never enough pictures, or course,
The National Geographic that came today has a cover article on Memory and how we remember what we do. I haven't read it yet, but am very interested in the topic.

Glow of autumn

Glow of autumn
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Right now I am listening to Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss in the recording of Elizabeth Schwartzkopf. It is transcendently beautiful: lyrical, flowing and harmonious. I am thinking this is a recording I would like to have. (Now, S. reminds me that ES was a member of the Nazi Party.)
I remember when I listened to Kiri Te Kanawa sing these Strauss songs on a CD I borrowed from the library. (In my memory, her version is a little more shrill.) I wasn't really struck by them then, although I liked them well enough to listen several times.
Now I look in Wikipedia for information on the Four Last Songs, and there is a full and interesting article. (Wikipedia is getting better and better; we almost never have an unanswered question if the laptop is on. I also like to sometimes correct the spelling and punctuation.)

The Last Songs really were the last music Strauss wrote, (in 1948; he was 84) and he did not live to see them performed for the first time in 1950 by Kirsten Flagstad. They are settings of one poem called At Sunrise (Im Abendrot), and three poems by Hesse. All of the poems have a calm air of acceptance of death. Here is the translation of Hesse's September from Wikipedia:

September

The garden is in mourning;
the cool rain seeps into the flowers.
Summertime shudders,
quietly awaiting her end.


Golden leaf after leaf falls
down from the tall acacia tree.
Summer smiles, astonished and feeble,
in her dying dream of a garden.


For a while beside the roses
she remains, yearning for repose.
Slowly she closes
her ever more weary eyes.

This is a poem about the coming of autumn, and is very consonant with what I see out the window now. The picture was taken in the back of our MIchigan place earlier today.

Turning grass clumps, and shaking them!

Turning grass clumps, and shaking them!
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Had another grackle visitation in some mowed weeds. They turned and shook the clumps furiously and S. thought he saw one pull out a worm.
Then it started to rain and it has been raining off and on ever since. Tomight we are having a spectacular lightning show, but it is quite a bit to the east so far.

Dawn in the mirror

Dawn in the mirror
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

In a domestic reversion, I baked banana bread (made with sour cream) yesterday. It has been quite popular. I thought you might like the recipe, the first one in this blog: Stick with me, we'll get back to reading!

SOUR CREAM BANANA BREAD

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3)
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup sour cream

Cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients, mix.
Add the mashed bananas and sour cream. Stir in nuts.
Baked in greased or Pam-sprayed loaf pan
at 350 degrees for one hour.

It was plenty sweet; I would try using a little less sugar.
I added a few tablespoons of sour cream
because I had some extra. It wasn't too much, resulting
in a nice moist cake. I had to bake more than one hour,
but I am quite sure the oven here is not correct.

I'd give credit for this recipe, but I have no idea whose it is.
My husband had it in his notebook of recipes.

Today I read Happy Land by MacKinlay Kantor, the novelette
that was published together with Tacey Cromwell in 1943.
It was like fiction made from looking at Norman Rockwell covers, very sweet, very innocent and very small-town. It was sad, yet hopeful at the same time. The details were perfect! I liked it very much. MacKinlay Kantor was a well-known author in my childhood, but seems not to be read much now. Sleep well, read something sweet and not post-modern this week.

At the Waldron Fen

At the Waldron Fen
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I always want to write a fairy tale and illustrate it with this kind of photo. I love many of the picture books that came out while I was a librarian from 1962-1999. I am particularly fond of the work of Nancy Ekholm Burkert, who did such elegant and beautiful art.
Doesn't this look like the type of faery pond where dwells the magic frog with golden eyes? I love the beautiful repeated verticals of the aspens on the other side of the pond. And the variant greens as the leaves begin to turn.
I did read the book by Conrad Richter, It is called Tacey Cromwell and I liked it very much. The title character is very strong and sort of relentless. There is much about the society of that day, and about Bisbee and mining towns in general. I think this edition was published in 1942 (terrible yellowing paper) but the book was perhaps written earlier, although just checking now, I guess not.
It seems to have been a bestseller. In the 1950's movie Natalie Wood played the young girl Tacey befriends/adopts, Seely or Celia. The book was republished in large type in 1990. It's an excellent choice for large type and would be enjoyed by many older people.

Shapes and shadow; Ancient Rome

Shapes and shadow
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Today I drove into town for milk and cranberry juice. I took the cardboard to the recycle bins; then I saw I was across the street from the library, which was open. I got a bunch of 25-cent paperbacks from the sale rack. I have just started on Livy: The Early History of Rome. According to the translator's forward, Livy came right at the end of the great Roman literary period. When he was fifteen, Julius Caesar was killed.

This book is much more interesting than I though it might be; I actually bought it just to save "culture" from the dump, and because I never did any study of the Ancient World as part of my formal education and I feel an empty space where that learning should be.The following quote is from page 18 of this Penguin edition.

"I invite the reader's attention to the much more serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived, of who were the men, and what the means both in politics and war by which Rome's power was first acquired and subsequently expanded; I would have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them. The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warning: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.

I hope my passion for Rome's past has not impaired my judgement; for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds; none has been free for so many generations from the vices of avarice and luxury; nowhere have thrift and plain living been for so long held in such esteem. Indeed, poverty with us went hand in hand with contentment. Of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought is, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective.

But bitter comments of this sort are not likely to find favour, even when they have to be made. Let us have no more of them, at least at the beginning of our great story. On the contrary, I should prefer to borrow from the poets and begin with good omens and with prayers to all the host of heaven to grant a successful issue to the work which lies before me." [The writing of this history.]

Livy, The Early History of Rome;
Books I-V of The History of Rome from its Foundation.
Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, Penguin Books, 1960, 1969.

This is related to the prison population explosion that I talked about yesterday. We can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them. The increasing manifestations of greed and overdoing everything, from the space in houses, to the many gas-powered toys (for just two examples) that I have seen just in my lifetime are almost impossible to get the mind around, or to explain to a younger person. The certainty that we are headed, almost irrevocably in the wrong directions, is difficult to avoid. Good night . . .

Browse

Browse
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This is a pack goat with a light demo load. I've used the buZZ filter on this in Photoshop to simplify it. I still would like to have been a painter, but it would take away too much time from reading.
Today I read Crossing the Yard; thirty years as a prison volunteer. This is more of my Richard Shelton project--he's been teaching poetry workshops in various Arizona prisons since 1971 or so.
I thought the book was very good and gave an overview of the increase in the prison populations, as well as all the problems of housing so many prisoners. It is a very hard thing to think about--obvious how many problems there are with what we are doing and how things are getting worse all the time. With no realistic or probable solutions in sight, it seems to me.

Pack Goat Demonstration

The pack goat doesn't like to wait outside the store
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This little lady has been on many trips carrying sleeping bags and equipment with pack goats which like to follow right along with you along the trail, or over rocks and boulders. But this guy had been waiting a long time to give his demo and when he had to wait for someone to pick up a snack, he lost his patience. He did better on the trail. First he had to ride to Wolverine in his goat trailer; then he was tied to a railing outside the meeting hall where we saw an excellent pack goat slide presentation, And he still didn't get to hit the trail. I felt lucky to learn so much about this endeavor and was glad to have been invited to the goat club meeting this afternoon. A day well spent.

Strangers Pass

strangers pass
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

From my watercolor postcard period. Still one of my favorite periods. Unlike a real artist, I usually like everything I make. I notice that more talented people are always on their way to something better. I gave this haiga to a wonderful tall artist and musician in Japan.

At the feeder today. the swamp sparrow and a junco. The junco here are not helmeted like the ones in California, which my sister named "henchmen". I was happy to have new birds this late in the season.

Thinking about America

The white koi whisker 2
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Every day I think of more things I want to read. I just ordered an old novel of Conrad Richter's that Richard Shelton mentioned in Going Back to Bisbee. I just read that poet Alice Notley (who just got the Leonore Marshall prize for the best poetry book of the year) was born in Bisbee.

I always feel that I have the "Arizona connection" because my parents grew up there and I went to college there my freshman year. I don't suppose that poring over University of Arizona yearbooks to look at the photos of my Dad, captain of the polo team, and my Mom, Theta cutie, really qualifies me as an authentic Westerner. Nor the fact that I practically wore out all the Arizona Highways (bright color photos!) that my grandmother gifted us with a subscription for every Christmas. But it must make me at least an honorary Westerner.
I think the project here is to try to feel my way back into some sort of mythic American past. It involves fiction, of course, and non-fiction like the book about the Southern Highlanders (also mentioned by Richard Shelton) that I have just begun. And the larger project is thinking about the world and the way it works (or lately, doesn't seem to work at all.) And the Richard Shelton is a gift from Scott R. who had two copies. So these tangents, like so much of this summer's are accidental.
Today I read my teacher, Robert Hass's new book of poems, Time and Materials. He's involved in a similar project, but one more suffused with sex. Every bit as discouraged though.

San Diego Birds

San Diego Birds
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

In a blog about memory,sometims you have to go backwards. This is from a long-ago trip to San Diego's Wild Animal Park. It's a view from the train. I love all the bird shapes and even the funky blue color, caused I suppose, by the film and the shadowed light. Or by cheap developing from a slide, I seem to remember. I thought it was a great photo at the time, but now I have gotten better. I particularly loved the egret shapes in this, but the other birds are great, too. It was a long time ago, and with my special friend, Diane.

I found an amazing blog today that makes me embarrassed to be doing this one. The author is a poet and reviews operas, books and other things from Washinton, D.C. Another blog is a cooperative effort by several people and the things they put up are really substantial and interesting. When I learn how to make links, I want to link to blogs like these. Good night!

Diving in

Diving in
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This was taken this spring after rain. The rose is not in great shape, but everything isn't, is it? Molly the mule was put down this morning. The weather report says there is 100% chance of rain both tonight and tomorrow night here in Northern MIchigan. I don't remember such high percents in the forecasts before, seems somwhat like weatherman hubris, Very small yellow sunflowers are blooming in the yard. I think they might have sprouted from the black sunflower seeds we are feeding the chickadees.

the vulture tips
this way, that way
gathering clouds

Molly the white mule

Molly the white mule
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Here she is in happier days. The vet cannot figure out what it is other than old age, so some sort of cancer that nothing can be done about. So sad.

Decorator cornstalks, notebooks and poems

Decorator cornstalks
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

These cornstalks looked quite sweet waiting for Halloween here in the barn. They seemed immune to concerns about what a silly idea, really, decoator cornstalks are, things being what they are.
It looks like Molly, the white mule, is dying. The vet will come on Tuesday, if she lasts that long. It's quite sad. She was pretty old when she came to live at my daughter's place. But we don't really think our pets, or our friends, will really die. Or ourselves, although that is about as clear as anything can be.
I have fallen in love with blank notebooks all over again. The ones I like are hand-stitched, lie flat when opened and have lovely creamy paper. And gorgeous cover designs. Once you can force yourself to write the first few words on their limitless clean possibilites, and maybe have glued in a feather, or something weird from the newspaper--like the list of the Michigan businesses that will now be taxed as part of the new budget compromise: baby-shoe bronzing, phrenology, balloonograms, and many other minor enterprises you never thought of as enterprising, but as bids for certain failure of an interesting kind--you can move into different colored pens and/or WRITE IN ALL CAPS. Always travel with a glue stick in case something irrestible turns up in the gutter. Best not to think of which rubbish heap these filled pages might end up in when you are no longer here to protect them. Once, I bought a notebook from the 1920's in a used bookshop; I still treasure it. In it a man who made his living going around to collect insurance premiums had recorded his Chicago days. Just the facts: what he had for lunch and its cost, how much time he got to spend in the library reading after he had made his rounds, whether it was a day for a cigar, and how much that cigar cost. If he found a nickel, dime or penny, he recorded that as Found Money. I know who he was because of a penny postcard addressed to him that was in the book. I wish I could show it to his grandchild, if he had one.

I found a friend's old poetry blog last night; It was too much to read on the screen, so I printed it out and read all 41 pages of it. She's no longer posting, but it made me remember that I have always planned to put more poems here. I have been somewhat restrained because there is so much fussing about copyrights now and my own poems always need improvement, or maybe I can get them published . . .(not unless I send some out)!
But here are some recent finds that reminded me of old favorites and altogether made me very happy. although I cannot say that they are happy poems.

Once

We returned in the evening to where we’d been cutting
reaching the bay in a small boat.

With the seaweed lifting, softening
in the incoming tide, we began to gather it.

The salt water was lukewarm. We hauled
a whole bundle of seaweed together,

tying it tight with our rope. It wasn’t big,
but thick and dense, enough to grow our potatoes in.

We set off with the bale fastened to a thwart;
—it stayed put, didn’t catch or tear.

By the time we reached home it was cold,
like a red wound healing in the west,

and a pale moon floating gently up,
petticoats of cloud at her feet.

That was another night, once, in a different year.
The tide was full then, and at peace.

Ian MacDonald, translated from the Gaelic by Kathleen Jamie

Which reminded me of one of my absolute all-time favorites,
you can see why.

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago.Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Czeslaw Milosz in the English translation from Bells in Winter

And here is the one by Jamie that a reader put on Amazon
that helped me decide to order her book.)

Rhododendrons

It wasn't sand martins
hunting insects in the updraught,
or the sudden scent of bog myrtle

that made me pause, lean
across the parapet,
but a handful of purple baubles

reflected below the water's surface
as comfortable and motionless
as a family in their living room

watching TV. What was it,
I'd have asked, to exist
so bright and fateless

while time coursed
through our every atom
over its bed of stones - ?

But darkness was weighing
the flowers and birds' backs,
and already my friends had moved on.

Kathleen Jamie

Good night. Poetry must be good for something if it can make me feel like these poems do.

Blended Peach

Blended Peach
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I look about at other blogs, the rants, the discontinued, the silly, the depressed, the depraved. There is a very real question whether this is worth the time it takes. I should probably be embarassed and pray that no one reads it. But honestly, I would like people to read it--and if they are going to, I know it should be more carefully and thoughfully constructed, For now, I am keeping it up because I have so little discipline in my life.
Yesterday I read Lucia Perillo's I've Heard the Vultures Singing; field notes on poetry, illness and nature. It's a book of personal essays that is just about perfect. I say this not because she is such a good poet and we used to be in a poetry seminar together many years ago, but because it is a blend of rancor, truthfulness, wonder, silliness, intelligence, birds, culture and American life that strikes me as just about as good as such a book could possibly be. Do yourself a favor--it's not very expensive and it's a slender book and thus not a major time commitment.

Dunes and sky, Asilomar

Dunes and sky, Asilomar
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Yes, it really is this beautiful there on the Monterey Bay. In storied California, land of world-famous goofiness, home of half of my heart.

Tonight, here at the Tip of the MItt, we had one of the best thunderstorms of my entire life! If too short. Lightning flashed on three sides of the house at once, There were tremendous thundercracks and that rumbling sound like very heavy furniture was being dragged across the floor of heaven. That wonderful, electrified freshness to the air, followed by a teensy, insignificant bit of rain. A couple of the dogs hid in a kennel. All during the storm and afterwards, the Bruckner Symphony #8 was playing. It's a fine thunderstorm symphony!

My daughter's mule has stopped eating again. She is very sad. Grandson is off again this weekend for an annual party at a friend's house. He went a day early so he and his brother could go back to the Toledo Zoo, which they enjoyed so much a couple of years ago.

Sunrise

PICT1471fillcrp
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

They played more than an hour of Monteverdi's sacred music tonight. It sounds like what choirs of angels ought to sound like. It would be nice to hear it in the morning when the sun is coming up over the maple topped hills to the east like this and tinting the undersides of clouds peach. There is a lot of violet color in the sunrise here, too. And the pale color against the green is wisps of the morning fog we often have.
My daughter's sick mule ate a little tonight, after having her teeth filed down. I had never heard of this, but I hope the mule will live a little longer now; K is very attached to her. It seems like this might be a mild winter, which would help, I will have to check the Old Farmer's Almanac. I had forgotten about that, but saw some on a display rack at a feed store the other day.

Vision in blues and greens

bluegrn nik w l filter
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Lovely Donizetti arias tonight. It is Wednesday Night at the Opera on public radio. Today we took Pookie to the vet. Turns out she had dislocated a joint on her front leg. It popped back in while positioning it for the x-ray.

Morning Light at Pond Hill

Morning Light at Pond Hill
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Now it is evening; the sun's gone down and another day is almost over. My grandson is doing his English homework on the couch. My husband has a dog and a crossword puzzle on his lap. The windows hold the warm reflections of lighted lamps. I have been reading Santoka's haiku, in John Steven's translations

the moon rises
I'm not waiting for anything

nothing remains
of the house I was born in
fireflies

after all
it's good to be alone--
the wild grasses

These haiku are quiet and often sad, I reccomend them.
Santoka lived from 1882-1940. Times were very different then, but human life had many of the same qualities, dilemmas and problems.

And for some reason, this picture I took a few days ago reminded me of this fragment of verse that is hundreds of years old.

Echo

Up and down the meadow where the sheep graze echo,
fadingly as afterthoughts, the cries of quail.

SATYRUS, 2nd century C.E.
in the translation by Brooks Haxton

May the meadows where you live be evergreen or snow-covered, or filled with wildflowers or lashed with rain, each in their season. And always, alive with birds.

Folding

Folding
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Another leaf; this time of year I bring quite a few home to add to my leaf phone book where they dry flat. But i left this beauty curling there on the path and making such a beautiful shadow.

Grandson TJ just back from a Saturday spent at amusement park at Cedar Point. He described each ride in detail--how many feet high it was and how the drop was constructed. How long (two hours!) they had to wait in line for the best rides. I haven't seen him this happy and excited all summer. I guess I'll have to revise my attitude about amusement parks (I haven't been amused . . .) where I have never wished to stand in line.

My sister told me many years ago, "You were BORN old!" Still makes me grin when I think about it, and it is probably true. I wasn't a very good sister to her, being too interested in reading to pay her any attention. But I do have small amounts of empathy and it was truly lovely to see TJ so excited and happy. Welcome to October.