Musings

Yeah, pure Michigan. Like the idea, but I haven’t yet been willing to put this stuff in my gullet. Not likely to change that opinion, either.

Moving on, yeah, the fish-flies are still here, and this one wanted to be my best friend. Pooooooooof, I exhaled, and it was gone, off to find another sponsor in this hard, hard world.

Droney captured a lovely, still-sunny moment. Lordy, lordy, the lupine are lovely. We are enjoying them to the n-th degree!

And, we reunited with our good friends (sigh; love them!) who have looked after our place through the winter doldrums and captured-and-eliminated many rodents who sought to reside in Our House (aka cottage), against Our Wishes, through the winter quiet. We reoccupied The Cottage without much competition from Rodents or Bats, in great part thanks to the efforts of ukelele-playing Puppet-Woman, whom today we recognized as Saint UPPW….

Posted at 10:08 PM | Comments Off on Moving right along

One of the things I loved about buying veg/fruits at the markets in Mexico was that if you wanted avocados, the market lady (almost always a lady) would ask when you intended to use it. You could be very specific, like seven this evening or three this afternoon, and the avocado she offered in response would, invariably in my experience, be perfect at that time. Yay!

Now I see that today WholePaycheck had two piles of four-to-a-bag avocados, one with this sign and one with a 3–4 day sign.

I bought a single from the regular pile, and it was perfect in our salad. Didn’t need four avocados, so I don’t know if their system is as good as the market ladies of southern Mexico.

Posted at 6:59 PM | Comments Off on Ripening science

At the moment, I’m calling this a pork stack. It’s a composed meal with a rice mixture (that I won’t buy again) on the bottom, then a mixed veg layer (mostly greens—bok choy and spinach, plus green onions), then sautéed pork loin medallions on top. Soy, no ginger or garlic (forgotten) for the main sauce-y flavorings. And, on the very top, a scatter of the green parts of the green onions for visual interest and flavor.

Just whipped it up, and that’s why I forgot several bits I would have added if I had taken longer. I’m really proud that I managed to make it in one pan (rice) and one skillet (the other two, veg first, then meat).

This isn’t particularly original, as it’s essentially a stir-fry. Tasty, however!

Posted at 6:37 PM | 1 Comment »

I find lily-peace a great counterpoint to the tensions that “Westworld” generates in my psyche. And the thunder that came in last night…whew…that added to my stress. Tonight, I found “Westworld” easier to emerge myself in…no thunder.

TMI? Here’s a simple, uncomplicated hosta bloom-shoot. Tah-dah!

Posted at 7:30 PM | Comments Off on Simply blooms

Is there such a thing as a cheer-up weekend? I’m looking for one.

Really, I’m okay.

Got out of my head in the late afternoon to create a poached chicken dish…boneless/skinless thighs in white wine, but sauté bacon and onion first, throw in some garlic, then the chicken, white wine…and let it simmer. Add in some carrot coins and later some mini-zucchini chunks…then throw some parmesan shavings and fresh julienned basil on each portion. Enjoy with a big salad.

A Friday-night recovery feast. I’m on my way.

Posted at 10:11 PM | Comments Off on Turning the ship around

A wee bit of Goo-ing indicates that the fiddlehead is a stage of development, and not a particular species of fern (contrary to my youthful understanding…kids with access to the web live in such a different world than I grew up in*). This one is a lean specimen of fiddly-ness.

* This must be about the one-millionth™️[😎] time I’ve thought this.

Posted at 5:13 PM | 1 Comment »

Love the tendrils and extra fillips of green on the buds and bud-stems of this red-red-rose.

As usual with my plant photos, I’m trying to focus the way I want, and miss the insects, unless they’re front/center bees or similar. Not delicate spider at 5:30 just off center….

Possibly, you may recall that Goo-Fiber came to our neighborhood last year, and we got powered up in mid-summer. Now, I see the AT&T folks/contractors are playing catchup on the same streets. This is the hookup stage, when people are working in trailers and the back of trucks with the doors open, that delicate work of splicing, I think. In the meantime, there are extra bits hanging here and there. This one has a temporary tether; excess flopping does seem dangerous.

Posted at 7:13 PM | Comments Off on Flowers and power

Eastbound for long miles means your body clock gets confused when you cross time zones…and maybe, despite the odds that you’ll run late, it’s easier to get up with the sun. That was this morning for me…and the east-facing window meant I had a good view of the sunrise. Thank me for not offering progressive (aka repetitive) shots of the sunrise…a wee bit higher and a wee bit higher…you get the idea.

And, down at breakfast, a yogurt dispenser? Don’t recall seeing this before. No info about what kind of yogurt was dispensed…plain? with tons of additives? Greek? So suspicious, I am.

The day was long miles. Some were sunny. Some were rainy. Some were spitty, perfect for the intermittent wiper setting. Some were bright. Later, they became dark. We crossed several state lines, the last bringing us into the ATL time zone. I am posting this as we roll the final miles before we reach the city…the magic of technology, no?

Posted at 11:01 PM | Comments Off on Briefly

Last night’s sunset. This landscape is dominated by light and shadow and shape. No wonder artists flock here. That is the visual dominance; living here you also notice the wind, dust, and temperature. Also sounds of birds (here), perhaps cattle elsewhere.

We cross a dry wash to our casita. In the solar lights along the path, the footprints in the sand looked like a lunar landscape with the treads of sports shoes not those of space suit boots.

Here’s a still life from the counter and wall left of the range in the main house.

This is the handle of the cupboard in the left edge of the photo above. The rest of the knobs are normal.

That’s Green Chili Bread on the left, quite spicy for bread. From the ovens of the restaurant/store we ate at last night. Paired with a normal, simple omelette. Superb breakfast.

After breakfast, I went out to the pool, took my shoes and socks off, and stood in the shallows. The Foot in the wild!

Our main focused activity today was to visit the historic plaza of Santa Fé, eat lunch, then head for the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. Stunning paintings, of course. Loved the photos of her, as a window into the person through her choice of garments, shoes, accessories, etc. This is a crop of O’Keefe’s 1939 painting Bella Donna.

Here are titles from her library. The display included a few sentences from a 1963 letter in which she observed that she’d taken three-and-a-half months to go around the world, then went across the Pacific to Bangkok and back with island stops. She went on to note that twice she’d been to Egypt and the place that stood out to her always was Peru. I assume the mountains….

Of course, there are few Stieglitz photos. And there were soundless moving images of them together, interesting—he seems to be putting up with being filmed while she seems to be somewhat cajoling him to participate (my hypothesis).

These are considered by some the first abstract photos. These two are from 1930 and 1929. Others in the sextet dated back to 1926. They are lovely dark, ghostly smudges, and not the kind of image I think of when I think of AS photos.

Off to cocktail hour chatting and laughing.

The title refers to my viewscape out the picture window in front of me at the casita, and what I noticed as I tried to formulate a title for this post. Very stream of unconsciousness.

Posted at 7:20 PM | Comments Off on Empty birdfeeders

We visited an ancient pueblo (village) atop a mesa today…still without electricity and with perhaps fifteen year-round, permanent residents. This is the view down; I have no good shots of the view up at the plateau-top architecture. This is considered the winter housing, roughly, of the people. In summer, they mostly lived down by their fields on the flats below.

There are no flowing water sources atop the mesa, and this was an open cistern the people used anciently, and empty today. Residents now customarily drive water in barrels and plastic containers up the steep, paved road to their homes. Part of the road is visible in the first photo.

These are among the documented oldest walls/homes in the pueblo. Using a cannon and other means, Spanish thugs destroyed much of the pueblo in 1599, so the many buildings standing in the 16th C were more than decimated.

This is a double ladder to the roof of a kiva that post-dates the Spanish destruction. The Spanish were keen to convert the Acoma to Christianity and get them to abandon their pagan practices. But the Acoma people disguised their previously circular kiva ceremonial rooms by making them rectangular like the house rooms. The second ladder behind the double one descends into the kiva. Except for a few special events, only men entered the kivas. Our guide, the young woman shown, did not say if that is still true, but I’m guessing it is. The Acoma are matriarchal, and the women own the homes, fields, crops, and most other household items.

This humped structure is a baking oven, used for food not pottery. These days, I’m guessing they are mostly only used at special times of the year, and not on a weekly/monthly basis.

That snow-dusted mountain in the far distance is Mount Taylor, a sacred place to the native peoples of this region. The beams supporting the roof of the early 17th-C church atop the mesa were cut on the mountain and brought by the men of Acoma under order and direction of a Spanish priest. The Spanish did not permit four special beams used in the altar to touch the ground during the whole process of carrying them BY HAND (not using animal labor) to the church. What high-handedness.

Okay, switch gears. This is the walkway to the casita the Guru and I are staying in, an independent outbuilding of the main house, where the rest of the party are staying. The whole place is lovely, wonderful, and relaxing. Except maybe this stepped path for The Foot—no, really, it’s good exercise.

Here’s the view from the living room area of our casita. See? Relaxing.

We went to a nearby restaurant for our evening meal…boy, are we lucky; the food is outstanding; I mean, it could not be better. Oh, yum. This is a version of chile relleno I’ve never had, with a splayed roasted chile stuffed with a mixture of corn kernels, mushrooms, and pine nuts, with a bit of cheese on top. Soooooo tasty. I expect we’ll be eating here again, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. We shall see.

Posted at 11:45 PM | 1 Comment »