A Hundred and Fifty Degree View of Sunday Weather

Just as the snow stopped falling today I noticed sunlight coming through the windows. I grabbed my camera and caught these shots as I turned a hundred and fifty degrees around the deck. One of the dogs was off the investigate also.
As I moved between the trees I caught the image of a rainbow over the lake. Now I don't know if I have ever taken a picture of snow and a rainbow in the same photo shoot.
Turning south the sunlight was just breaking out from the blue and white colors in the sky. This caused the diamond-like drops of water to shimmer on the trellis.
By turning just a bit this shot changed because the sun couldn't hit this part of the hill.
As I turned back I caught another shot of that amazing rainbow.
Inside Kit was resting on the piano, completely oblivious to everything! We find him just about everywhere!

Gonna Be a Bear!

This is dedicated to my sister Silver Valley Girl.

She is fed up with the lingering winter and wants to hibernate until spring comes. The way the weather is going, that could be awhile. Read her sentiments on her blog post from yesterday here.

A few summers ago pasted on the door of a woman's office was the message below. I loved it then and love it now. I just changed a few of the words for this situation.

In this life I'm a woman. If I had my life to live over, I'd like to be a bear. When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too.

When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

If you're mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them, too. I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Yup, gonna be a bear!

-anon.

Sibling Assignment #93: A Perfect Pair

A Little Tricycle by Lauren Hamilton

I gave the sibling assignment this week:
"A Perfect Pair.... find a piece of art and a poem that are a perfect pair. Explain why they are so perfectly matched." Silver Valley Girl is hibernating until spring so we may not hear from her until May. When RP gets out from under his teaching load I will post his.

Recently I have discovered the artwork of Lauren Hamilton. Her paintings depicts simple things such as organic salad, a scooter, and the tricycle above. I love her series with the childlike printing behind the images. Hamilton's painting and the poem are a perfect pair. It is easy to visualize the image of a kindergarten child at the beginning of this poem. As the poem progresses, a theme of what is left behind emerges. I wonder though if she is referring to what is left behind as a child or facing "the big people" as an adult. I also found Anne Sexton reading this poem which is posted below.

The Fury of Overshoes

They sit in a row
outside the kindergarten,
black, red, brown, all
with those brass buckles.
Remember when you couldn't
buckle your own
overshoe
or tie your own
overshoe
or tie your own shoe
or cut your own meat
and the tears
running down like mud
because you fell off your
tricycle?
Remember, big fish,
when you couldn't swim
and simply slipped under
like a stone frog?
The world wasn't
yours.
It belonged to
the big people.
Under your bed
sat the wolf
and he made a shadow
when cars passed by
at night.
They made you give up
your nightlight
and your teddy
and your thumb.
Oh overshoes,
don't you
remember me,
pushing you up and down
in the winter snow?
Oh thumb,
I want a drink,
it is dark,
where are the big people,
when will I get there,
taking giant steps
all day,
each day
and thinking
nothing of it?
-Anne Sexton

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Reading Reflections: A Book Meme from Noni

On Noni's Peacock Blue blog I found this great meme about books. It is fun to reflect on books I have read or want to read. Since it is an open invitation, give it a go yourself. I'd be interested to know your choices so let me know if you participate. . . I am always looking for new book ideas.

Four Childhood Books I've read:

1. The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
2. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
3. White Ruff by Glenn Balch and Dick Priest
4. every Nancy Drew mystery by Carolyn Keene

Four “So-Called Classic” books read and never forgotten.

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
   
3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
   

Four personal modern “Classic Novels”

1. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
2. Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
3. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
   
4. Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
   

Four authors I've read again and again

1. Anna Quindlen
2. Caroline Knapp
3. Jodi Picoult
4. Elizabeth Berg
   

Four authors or books I'll never read again... ever ( for me these were too sad or disturbing)

1. The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
2. Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule
3. Winter Range by Claire Davis
4. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Four books on my “To-be-read-list"

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Shack by William P. Young
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
4. The Courage to Teach by Parker J. Palmer

Three Non-Fiction Books and One Fiction book I’d take to a desert island (instead of 2 each)

1. The Bible
2. The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron
3. Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
4. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
   

Four Book recommendations I have followed (and loved)

1. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
2. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
   
3. In the Wilderness by Kim Barnes
4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
   

The last lines of one of my favorite books:
" Spring is unlatching its heavy doors, rousting old dusty hibernators from their sleep, and beginning a quiet fumbling with buttons, knots, and nubbins, and the bolting ribbons of time, light, and gore. As I walk down to the mailbox, enveloped in mist, birds snitch on twitchy feet in the aspens, morning ghosts between the houses, and the air tastes green at last. " - Cultivating Delight, A Natural History of My Garden by Diane Ackerman

Almost Spring: Another Tree Down

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Last summer we made a decision to rid ourselves of a number of trees around our property. We were concerned after a windstorm that some were in danger of hitting the house, many removed too much moisture from the soil, some provided too much shade, and all of them were messy! You can only mulch so many pine needles.

We left one big pine tree by our front porch. JEJ had cut branches from time to time, but it was in a spot that falling it could cause damage to other trees and plants. He really wanted that tree out of there. Last Sunday we discussed it again and decided we already had some winter damage. If the tree caused more damage the plants would have time to recover. I just asked him not to fall a tree by himself.
Today he called me at the end of the day at school wondering when I was coming home. He was ready to fall that tree and I said I would be right home. With his chainsaw in hand, my camera ready, and all cats and dogs contained in the house and garage away we went.It was a perfect fall. The giant tree fell between the trees in the wedding garden. It didn't knock out the cherry tree on its way down. A shrub or two under the trunk may need some pruning. The arbor wasn't even touched.
Already we have noticed the difference in the light coming through the kitchen and hall windows.
The wedding garden looks a bit different until slash and firewood is removed.

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I think JEJ has found one more talent to add to his resume.