My aunt Marjory

I never got to know her very well; she died in 1950 when she was only 40 years old. I was fifteen then and she lived in Arizona, while I was in Schenectady growing up. She was always my ideal for female beauty and elegance. I think this was her dog, but I don't know the name. She was also a horsewoman and looked great in jodhpurs.

A picnic I cannot remember

That's me at the far right. I'm paying close attention to the food item in my hands. Since I would not have been there without her, I assume my mother is taking the photo. This picnic must have taken place during my mother's visit to Arizona to show her oldest child to her family in April, 1937. This is very much how I looked (center part, two little bows) in the newspaper photo accompanying the report of our visit. I suppose we came on the train. The boy in the front near me is clearly my cousin, Rae Brimhall, and the boy at the left end is almost certainly his older brother, Dwayne Brimhall. That means the baby is probably their sister, Marilyn Brimhall. Much, much later, she married John Hales and became the mother of many children whose names all start with the letter K. I do not recognize their parents in the adults in the picture. The woman in the dark dress and hat at the far left is my maternal grandmother, Susie Butler, who grew up in Colonia Juarez, in the Mormon Mexican colonies. She and her husband and the two oldest children left Mexico during the civil unrest at the time of the revolution. She was pregnant with my mother at the time. My Aunt Louise Butler [Rickel] is in the center looking at the camera and wearing a dark sweater. I am going to ask her to identify the other adults; she is probably the only person living who could do so. I found this picture in the boxes that had been in storage since my mother died; I don't remember seeing it before. Where were YOU in 1937; I was here.

Far snowcaps

Just one more--it is quiet in the Bozeman Holiday Inn and the snowy bed linens are very inviting. Good night.

Montana in black and white

And here is another one.

Montana

Spent the day driving from Miles City to Bozeman. This is one of the fromthecars of the drive. I'm having trouble with the other (and newest) camera today. It looks like I might be glad I got the warranty. I love the natural gardens formed in the great west by erosion. This is one of them. And I think beautiful.

Driving to Fargo

P1020334bw up
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

We made Fargo on the second day out! The drive was through miles and miles of autumn woods. The tops of the poplars and the tamaracks were outstanding, as were the revealed twiggy structures. I was playing with the black and white function on my newest camera and reading the manual--I am still having trouble finding the functions. This doesn't show the color, but does show the complicated and yet repeated-verticals structures that I was admiring.
We are in the Kelly Inn, which is one of my favorite motels, since I could walk over to a Barnes and Noble! I got a book by Jamaica Kincaid about her trip to Nepal. And I'm going to get in bed right now and start reading. I'm sorry, Jamaica, that your book was remaindered as part of the wierd world of publishing today. But happy that I found it there. . . I also got a blank book made with handmade lokta paper, as part of the weird world of the global marketplace. Had tp pay the regular price with only my B & N discount.

Welcome, little girl goat!

Here she is in the back of Tanner's truck, getting ready to be introduced to her new companions in my daughter's barn. She's 1/4 Nubian, which gives her that pretty coloring, and the other 3/4 Alpine, which is also a good milk goat. Isn't it the kind that Heidi had? It looks like the ones in the book.
This is Picasa's last chance to upload a picture. Miserable failures in two previous posts. I like the bigger size, even though the Flickr clickthrough is very nice. If Flickr uploads a picture, it is too small. (See previous post.)
Yesterday, I read through the whole blog of Tei Matsushita Scott, each of whose paintings are inspired by a feeling in a poem. Her blog is very much the blog I wanted to have written; I keep tending toward the mundane.
We leave in exactly one week. . . Sigh.

Departing Autumn

Aspenwood, front yard P1010981
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

In morning light, this picture was taken from the porch two days ago, the day after I got back from the haiku retreat at Asilomar. Three hours ago, we left for Bill's Farm Market to pick up five half bushels of #2 tomatoes and one half-bushel of peppers, plus four bags of onions, and bunches of oregano and basil for my daughter's canning. It was getting cold and I went back to the house for a coat I had not worn all year. Before we even reached the farm market, the weather had changed. A glacial wind raked the market hill. I put up the hood and tied its drawstring. I got the gloves out of the pocket and put them on.
I looked for my wool scarf, but I had taken it out of these pockets to go on the boat ride when Tanner was here.
A family was loading into Bill's wagon for a hay ride. They all had the hoods on their sweatshirts up and tied tight. They were laughing and we were all laughing at them, because it was a lovely day, I am sure, when they started out to go on a hayride. And now?? They did look young enough to survive. . .
As we drove home, red and yellow leaves were blown across the road in the fierce, gusting wind. When we got home, we lit the first hearthfire of the season. For several minutes, there were actual flakes of SNOW! falling, and blown by the fierce wind, making diagonals against the trees. Now it is quiet, but still very cold. The golden flames are beautiful in the firebox.

Nope, nothing on the roof

Our friends in the other rooms said it sounded louder than Santa Claus. Tromp, tromp, tromp.

I'm at the Haiku Retreat at Asilomar and sound asleep. The smoke alarm goes off and then stops and then goes off again, We can smell something acrid, like burning wiring, and when we go outside and look back into the room, we can see a little smokiness gathering under the peaked roof. There are no phones in the room, but we call the front desk and the Fire Department is summoned. Three engines lit the paarking lot almost as bright as day and finally discovered that the wall heater, which comes on at 50 degrees (we hadn't bothered to turn it on) had finally tired of trying to force heated air out into the bed and bedspread which had been pushed against it for a long time. There were no flames or actual ignition, but it is trying to move rooms in the middle of the night, with only token help from the one staff member on duty. I didn't think the pictures would come out and I didn't start soon enough, but the pictures turned out better than I thought they would. This one best demonstrates the feeling of the brightly lit parking lot.