After the Frost

The tomato plants crumpled into brown papery bits after a couple of hard frosts. And thus, this afternoon, I cold look out the kitchen window and catch the sunglow on these nightshade berries .
I ran right out with my trusty Lumix. In this shot you can clearly see the tripartite leaves of this non-native, but quite pretty plant. Here it grows as a vine.

Just a peek at Zion National Park

My brother took me here after the reunion.
We spent all day and I loved every minute!

Lavender Scent in Summer Air

My brother and I spent the late afternoon with our excellent second cousin, Randy, discussing our relatives and the upcoming Redd reunion in New Harmony, Utah. It was a lovely, wide-ranging conversation over families, Mormon history, art and other topics. We looked at many of his scanned photos of our ancestors and collateral relatives. On the way home, my brother thought to visit a Salt Lake City park on the site of the First Encampment the emigrants under Brigham Young made after they entered Salt Lake Valley. Our great-great-grandfather was a member of this group. We found that the names of these people were carved on stones through the First Encampment Park (link). Lavender was blooming near the plaque which explained this, and filled the air with heavy scent when we pushed it aside. It was a beautiful summer evening which had just turned dark. My brother decided to look for the name of  Solomon Chamberlain; (link) I didn't see how we could find it in the dark, but we had only located a handful of engraved rocks before we found his. So here it is, a flash picture of a rock. I was very happy to see it.

Albrecht Durer pencils the lower tier of colors

This is the lower tier of the 60 color set I blogged about yesterday. I am particularly pleased by the selection of greens and off-greens.

Perfect afternoon in the shade

This afternoon on the shady terrace was perfect for making color charts with a new set of 60 Albrecht Durer Watercolour Pencils
I got from Amazon. It was interesting to see how tricky it was to make matching squares to fill with each color, pressing hard and stroking the paper softly with each color. This is the top of the set--I'll put up the lower tier tomorrow. I was delighted with the strength of the colored leads and also the soft buttery feel of the application of colors. Only one color and the black was a little crumbly. I suppose these slight differences in handling are due to the pigments. I haven't tried wetting them yet, but I have seen lots of demonstrations of their use by Cathy/Kate Johnson who is a big fan. Today I read a book about doing something creative every day for a year. To judge by my neglect of my blog, might not be for me. But tempting, nonetheless.

The Mouse Bride

I call this the Mouse Bride and I think it is quite wonderfully weird! It is in the first lap of scanning a couple of boxes of family slides from the 1950s that have been in storage. Almost everybody is passing through rooms telling me that this search through the past isn't worth it. Still, I think this is a find. I had already left home, and my little sister is dressing for Halloween, I imagine. Isn't she sweet?

ADDENDUM: November 2015. I am reliably informed that Marjoty
was playing the lead as a Frog Princess. It still looks like a mouse costume to me.  jhh

By the time I got to Phoenix . . . .

my short visit was almosst over. Left to right, myself, my brother Dave, my cousin Susan. my cousin "little" Marita, my cousin's wife, Neva and my cousin Dwayne. Here we are (it is 110 degrees outside) eating delicious Chicago style pizza. Dave, Susan and I came to Phoenix to visit my Aunt Louise after she broke her hip. It was Susan's idea to celebrate her retirement after 22 years of teaching. We were housed and royally entertained by our Mesa cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen for 30-50 years! You should have seen Aunt Louise's face light up when we came into the room! We had a lovely visit and many memories were shared.