Under the Willow P1030431

Under the Willow P1030431
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Having a terrible time uploading! Trying through Flickr now. Testing . . .

Tapestry

We picked up the bird seed in the early afternoon. The feeder had been up about an hour hanging from one of the cottonwood trees above the Little Union Canal behind the new place in Idaho. I had already seen a small bird there. As I was taking this picture, the squirrel obliged by assuming delightful poses. This is my favorite: I like the balance, the pose, the willow branches, the willow leaves and the leaves of the cottonwood suckers. The color, light and the textures remind me of a tapestry. Good night.

Oakleigh Dominator

Honestly, that is the name of this particular epiphyllum, which has eight blooms out this morning. I can hardly bear to leave on this trip. I'm really glad we were prevented from leaving sooner, or I would have missed wpi bloom season. What I need is a traveling greehouse I could tow behind my car. Now, off to Idaho and the iris garden.

My Angel

I'm supposed to be packing the car, and stopped for a moment of play . . .

It's duckling time!

Lovely haiku reading and events at the Teahouse in San Jose's Japanese Friendship Garden. Highlights were the many ducklings, of course, and the guided tour of the koi nursery tanks, where they are growing some koi that that hope to restore to the pond after the new filtration system is installed. It was Penny, a genuine Koi Ranger who took us on a tour.
I was trying out a new camera and it made me quite happy with its 12x zoom. This is the full frame, the ducklings can be seen in all their shaprt cuteness and I like the way the little touches of vegetation are in two corners.
We also had a haiku ginko, or garden walk, and a mighty drum session with two drummers from the group Maiko Drum. They were pretty awesome and made that old teahouse rattle!
More pictures of this great day here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/junehymas/sets/72157623896989809/show/

Music I love; people I love

Tonight on satellite radio, Robert Aubry Davis played Brahms' German Requiem in a recording conducted by Robert Shaw. Robert Aubry Davis (I always call him by his full name since I fell in love with his voice and his brilliant and funny comments on the old Vox channel on XM Radio.) This delightful channel which played all sorts of music for the human voice from Monteverdi to Verdi and all sorts of masses and plainchants, leider and art songs of all descriptions is no more: a victim of the folding together of the two satellite radio companies. The replacement is the Metropolitan Opera channel on Sirius-XM, which plays ONLY music from the Met, so mostly opera, and many dull old recordings of the played-out few popular operas. But (perhaps due to his large and noisy fan base) R.A.D. soldiers on as a host on the Symphony Hall channel and is as wonderful and well-informed as ever. He searches out rare recordings, and the best recordings, and plans programs for the centennials, tri-centennials and all sorts of anniversaries for musicians. He sends out a weekly email newsletter so we can be sure to catch the things we especially want to hear. And he is a person I love.
In the early 1980s, I sang with the Gavilan College Concert Choir under the direction of Ronald Graham. Preparation for our concerts created the most outstanding musical experiences of my life. And Ron is a person I love, who made a great difference in my life through his teaching. Toward the end of this golden era, we sang the Brahms, or at least as much of it as we could credibly prepare in one semester. Once you have learned such music, it stays with you forever.
In his introduction, Robert Aubry Davis talked about the writing of the this work, and its relation to the deaths of Brahms' mother and the death of his friend and mentor, Robert Schumann. There is a little bit about this in Wikipedia.
As the music began to play, I slowed and then stopped my Kindle-reading of They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell, a beloved author. As I listened, the music entered my chest just above my heart and swelled, swelled, swelled and settled there.
So, there they are, three beloved art-guys.
And above, a rose (planted by my husband, another beloved fellow) after rain. This is one of the first dozen taken with my new camera, a 12 megapixel beauty with a fast sharp lens and a 12x zoom. Might turn out to be the perfect camera.

Might turn out to be a perfect life.