Musings

I am so not keeping up with my gardening chores.

Posted at 9:13 PM | Comments Off on Must. Tend. Basil.

Here’re some perfectly fine titles I’m not currently making progress reading. I’ve been intending to read “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” (1941) for years…Rebecca West tells of her six weeks in Yugoslavia in 1939. Multiple discriminating writer-readers say it’s among the best travel books ever.

“The Overstory” is Richard Powers’s 2018 novel I’ve started and just stopped like it wasn’t good, yet it’s terrific. And complicated. In the best way.

“Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun” (1997) is Charles Hudson’s most-excellent telling of the cultural clash when Spanish explorers invaded southeastern North America. What a superb scholar and writer he was.

Mr. Salyer’s new-new, thoughtful, timely book…. He’s the reason I don’t call The Guru JC. Mr. Salyer was the JC in my life when I met The Guru, and I couldn’t handle two, although most everyone then knew him as JC.

Yes, another history of the west…pretty much starts with the Lewis/Clark expedition, to discuss the AMERICAN West…there’s plusses and minuses to that; it’s another cultural history, I guess. Picked up HW Brands’s “Dreams of El Dorado” on our way through Austin last year–his hometown, so signed copy.

And all of them essentially collecting dust at the moment. Speaking of which: seems to me there’s extra dust in the house in these Covid times; however, nothing like the nastiness in the air in the western air with those huge wildfires. Yikes!

Posted at 8:15 PM | 1 Comment »

Here’s a distraction…stunning flower. Sorry the insect is out of focus.

This one isn’t! Giant butterfly! (Well, normal sized, just looks large here.) Amazing detail—and that’s an iPhone photo!

Posted at 9:10 PM | Comments Off on Avoiding today’s headlines

I tried some filter fun with some naturally distorted images (through dirty window-glass).

As you can tell, I didn’t spend long at it.

I like parts of both, but neither more than the other, on balance.

Posted at 9:01 PM | Comments Off on Spontaneity

“Where have all the flowers gone?” Girls may have picked, but they missed this one.

Posted at 8:14 PM | Comments Off on Desiccation

We’re seeing summer begin to give way to shorter days. I’ve been grooving on the low-angle light on the porch ceiling. I think this was briefly an outdoor porch, and it was closed in not terribly long after the house was built. My theory, anyway.

Also enjoying: mornings in the (admittedly upper) 60s.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Comments Off on Beadboard

Our current junk fiction series on the TeeVee is “Hamish Macbeth,” set in small-town Scotland. It’s an odd (uncomfortable?) mix of serious and silly. Some of the bridging music is a solo penny whistle, and the closed captioning describes it as melancholy, bright, and sometimes pensive.

Posted at 9:16 PM | 1 Comment »

When I was a pre-literate tot and my dad identified these types of ’shrooms to me I heard “shell fungi.” It made sense to me because the tops looked rather like the Shell gas shells.

I felt let down when I found out they were really shelf fungi. Of course, that name makes sense, too.

Title from star-crossed Juliet who may never have seen such fungi by any name.

Posted at 9:19 PM | Comments Off on What’s in a name?

I avoided being afoot in the neighborhood today (left knee cranky), but The Guru flew high. Photo by him. With gigantic thanks

Posted at 8:27 PM | 1 Comment »

Yeah, look at that hotness. Thank you for your filter, MsTree.

MrSun is arriving later, leaving earlier, yet still bringing high-80s temps. Yet, Summer, we see signs you’re waning.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Light’s changing