Asakiyume mita

lavender shortbread, berries

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:15:03 GMT

It is July now. The lavender is coming into bloom, so it's time to make lavender shortbread. The recipe I have uses both fresh lavender and fresh mint...

Here it is, all done...

It is July, and we can pretend that we can live off nothing but snow peas and berries. This morning I picked two colors of wild berries: red and black (raspberries) and one color of tame berries: red (currants):

It is July, so the graceful and poisonous hemlock is blooming next to the graceful and sweet-smelling Queen Anne's lace, and, like every year, I revel in knowing some killer plants as well as some friendly ones.

It is July the fifth, which means this grass looks to me like fireworks:

roadside magic, parking lot song

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:31:51 GMT

I walked along the sidewalk to the supermarket this morning, and overhead the birds were flying back and forth in the trees, and the sunlight was shining through their wing feathers and their tail feathers, and those wings and tails were looking like sunlit fans.

No sooner did I think that than at my feet, a feather with a golden shaft (photographed here not in situ but back at home).

So pretty.

At the supermarket, I walked alongside the canal-like ditch that runs beside the parking lot. There were frogs singing there, sounding like plucked rubber bands. (Also one bullfrog, whose song sounds like very, very deep bagpipe notes.)

Then, home through some long grass. Walking through long grass that's thick with dew is like wading in a stream--it was as fresh and cool and, in the end, got me as wet as walking up a stream.

There are levels of thickness of water, I think:

Water in still lakes and becalmed oceans is the thickest of all.

Water in fast rivers and streams, or on stormy seas, is somewhat thinner. The speed at which it's moving thins it. Also, it's not just water; it's water + tumult.

Next is dew on long grass: the water and grass and wildflowers together make waterlace, waternets.

And then last is water in clouds--the thinest water of all.

also: boots

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:29:57 GMT

at the edge of a driveway, two pairs of rain boots, left out. Small ones, with handles to help the wearers pull them on. But now they've got water at the bottom. Frogs may hop inside these boots next, or herons may fish in them.

lightning arrow, rain

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:26:15 GMT

Some of the sky was blue, but some was dark gray--there were billowing clouds of white and gray, and blowing in front of them, fragments of clouds of darker gray. I was walking along, and from a patch of deep gray cloud, across a patch of white cloud, I saw a sharp flash.

I thought, it's like a shooting star, but it's bright daytime, so it can't be that. But it's too fast and disappeary for an airplane.

And then there was a thunderclap, and I knew I'd seen a lightning arrow--a sharp, straight dart of lightning that flashed not from earth to sky or sky to earth, but straight from cloud to cloud.

I took a picture, after the fact, of the origin cloud:

Then there was the sound of rain before the sight or feel of rain, and then down it came, and for a few seconds I could walk between the raindrops, but then there were too many of them. Then there was a torrential downpour, and now, it's stopped, and in a minute it will be sunny again. It's an exciting day for weather. The power's gone out twice as I try to write this.

The rain makes me think of this lovely part in Cloud & Ashes, which I just read:

She stooped and flicked a pebble up the stream. It skipped and started, skipped and sank. And at each leap--O wonderful, beyond all hooping--worlds began. As in her glass, enhaloing and interlaced. A skein of stories.

She was happy; and in shadow.

And yet more worlds, unbidden, came. There. And there. Outspreading. How--? Ah, rain. She heard the pattering on leaves. The river dimpled with the dint of rain.

Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2009), 169.

I read, first, "beyond all hoping"--heart soars as worlds are created. But "hooping" is right, too.

small things

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:16:44 GMT

These tiny flowers, smaller than a child's pinky fingernail, which have chosen to grow and bloom in my garden, are scarlet pimpernel

Harboring this cluster of flowers makes me feel like an accomplice of the dashing undercover aristocrat, who gets props for derring-do even if he was hopelessly right wing.

Smaller than the scarlet pimpernel flower are the flowers of foxtail grass, in bloom now:

Come the autumnal equinox, this grass will be foxy colored. Not yet. Now is a green time.

Up on Bare Mountain, yesterday, teenybuffalo, the healing angel, and I saw ravens. They were not small at all. They were huge, and looked capable of giving small children a ride on their backs. We also saw a milk snake (I think that's what it was) that had recently swallowed something about twice its normal girth.

up the stairs

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:12:34 GMT

Here is the balcony and exterior staircase I was shy to photograph before...

The person in the apartment under the roof comes down the stairs and spends time with the couple with all the plants and the wind chimes. He brings his guitar; they fix supper. They grow tomatoes and herbs on their balcony, and they cook with them. He daydreams about fishing and bringing them his catch. But reality is that he brings just the guitar, and sometimes snacks and beer.

For good measure, here is another exterior stair, for the building across the parking lot. This building houses the laundromat.

There is a couple living at the top of these stairs, too, only this couple has a baby. The wife works in the office of a paving company in the town to the south, the husband works for buildings and grounds at the university in the town to the west. When the wife is home in the evening in the summer, she puts the door open so the baby can hear the guitar from across the way.

Sometimes, she comes to stand in the doorway to listen. The guitar player has an unusual repertoire; he often plays classical pieces. Sometimes he summons a matching sky.

around the corner, elsewhere

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:27:20 GMT

The sky was many different colors of blue and gray and white this morning, and the air smelled like a tapestry of wet fragrances hung out to dry. Even the road smelled like hot, wet road, though it wasn't wet.

There is still catalpa scent in the air, and just today, also linden scent, and by the chestnut grove there's chestnut blossom scent in the air. Also clover--white and purple ground clover, but also the tall sweet clovers, white sweet clover and yellow sweet clover. Also who knows what. Sweet things that I don't know.

Men were drilling the road at one place. An old wiry guy with a ZZ Top beard was putting the pieces of asphalt into the scoop of the bulldozer by hand, and a young, hefty guy was doing the drilling. Around the corner from them, cattails core_opsis and I didn't visit are showing their bright yellow pollen, and I was feeling greedy, but had no bag, so couldn't satisfy my greed.

King Midas whispered his secret, that he had the ears of an ass, into a hole in the ground, and then the reeds and rushes grew up and told his secret. Was that the same King Midas who had the gold touch? Because the cattails make that connection--they are turned to gold up top, and they tell secrets when the wind comes.

We were definitely over the border and elsewhere, and one proof was an indigo bunting. Bluebirds are soft, flower blue, petal blue, but this indigo bunting was sharp, bright, gem blue. Bluebirds concede that life is a mixed thing--they are sky blue, yes, but they also have white stomachs and orange chests. Indigo buntings make no concessions; they are a blue singularity. I love both birds; they have different stories to tell.

I thought that another proof that we were elsewhere was that the little recording device on which I was going to read a poem was not working. When I got home and checked the instructions, though, I found that what was proven is only that I can't remember where the on switch of things is. So, I'll make my recording here, not there.

volunteer music, gold dust

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:26:34 GMT

An old friend visited over the weekend (core_opsis on LJ), with her sweetheart, and they were joined by two young musicians in their Scandinavian fiddle group.

As a consequence, there was live, wild music in these four walls. Music played live! They made it happen. They moved their arms and hands, and out came wonderful tunes, crazy harmonies. Dancing music.

It is a marvelous thing if you go outside and discover, growing in your own patch of ground, a plant--like black raspberries, for instance, or wild strawberries--that you've always yearned for. You've longed for it, and here it is! It has just come of its own accord.

That's what it was like with the music: it came here of its own accord.

On Saturday, I took core_opsis and her sweetheart (whom I'll call Quixote, because it's not his name) to gather cattail pollen for pancakes.

We collected this much golden pollen:

core_opsis made the pancakes. They were delicious. We're golden inside now.

There was an orchestra of frogs near the cattails, and Quixote caught one. (In other news--if cucumberseed should happen to read this--wakanomori saw a monstrously huge toad, surely a relation of Bufo rex. It was bigger than his fist.)

There were also masses of marsh forget-me-nots, which have a sweet, sweet scent, in among the cattails.

Also?
The garlic is twirling...

...and I found a heart, discarded but unbroken.

land without shadows

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:22:28 GMT

Yesterday the sun came out, and today, for a few minutes, it shone, but now we've gone back to the dim land without shadows. It's a land without shadows because it, itself, is a shadow. The sky is a shadow, the earth is overcast.

I think of sovay's shadowless scholar, Justin Saint-Etain. He would be comfortable right now--no bright light to make him self-conscious about his lack.

Some questions:

Where do angels fear to tread?
By the grace of God, where go you?

Man on Wire

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:14:58 GMT

If I die, what a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion
--Philippe Petit

I got to see Man on Wire tonight. It’s the story of Philippe Petit’s planning and executing a walk between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974. He spent 45 minutes in the air above New York City and made eight crossings back and forth between the towers.

There is something so　魅力的 –-miryokuteki—appealing, attractive, compelling, intriguing, magnetic—about Philippe Petit and his way of living and his singleminded pursuit of his dream. He says of himself, “My story is a fairy tale.” He conceived his goal when he was seventeen years old and read an article about the proposed but not-yet-built World Trade Center. He recalls thinking, “The object of my dream doesn’t exist yet.”

He worked up to that breathtaking walk. He crossed between the towers of Notre Dame while an ordination was happening inside, and he crossed between two pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge. And he planned the walk between the Twin Towers for six years. He practiced in a field, marking out the 400 meters between the two towers and having his friends shake the cable to duplicate the sway that he’d feel, due to the towers’ swaying. He practiced walking on the wire with his eyes closed.

When Philippe practiced, one friend said, “His face became an ageless mask of concentration. He became a sphinx.”

And yet, on the day itself, up on the wire—he danced. His feet left the wire. He went down on one knee; he lay down on the wire at one point. When the Port Authority police came to fetch him, he smiled and ran further onto the wire.

Wow. What else can I say?

I’m afraid of heights, but have always been intrigued by tightrope walking. “Death is very close,” Philippe said. Maybe that’s part of it—the joy of challenging death, of really seizing life from the jaws of death—but it’s not just that. It’s also the creation of something magical.

Once in police custody, he was of course asked why he did it, but he found the question frustrating. “I did something magnificent and mysterious and I get this ‘why? why?’ There is no ‘why,’” he said.

Eventually, he was given a complimentary visitor’s pass to the towers, good for his lifetime. Who could have predicted that he would outlive the towers? He still walks on wire today, though, and has said he’ll walk between their successors, when the day comes.

the squirrel and the fox, by littlemetaldrop

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:15:56 GMT

"Once upon a time, there was a squirrel. This squirrel was happy because he had a pretty tail."

To see and read the story at its home site on Deviant Art, click here. (littlemetaldrop is TinSil on Deviant Art.) Or, just keep reading!

"But one day, while walking in the woods, he saw a fox. The fox's tail was bright, long, and beautiful. The squirrel was sad that he was not the prettiest animal."

" --Ah, I wish I had a tail like the fox's! said the squirrel.
The fox heard his words.
--Oh, is that Mr. Squirrel? You say you don't like your tail?
--Yes, that's so..."

"--I see. Well, at my house, I have many pretty tails. Shall we go get you one?"
--Oh, yes!"

"Of course, the fox only had one tail. Really, he wanted to eat the squirrel."

What's going to happen next? How will it end? Click here, and follow the links to the end of the story.

the door is open: you must enter

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:01:41 GMT

In some place I once wandered (it may have been a place I only dreamed, or else some place alongside this one), they have a custom that at certain hours on certain days, you must enter every open door you come across. The hour and the day vary from person to person, but if, on a summer evening, you have your door ajar to let the breeze in, and someone you don't know enters, it is no doubt because the hour and day are right.

The hour and day were right, but I just stood on the threshold. The roof is cascading down in slow time; for swallows and other birds, the hour and day are always right, and a hole in the roof is a door. (I apologize for the blurry photo)

ferns for wings

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:02:58 GMT

There are giant ferns at the edge of the swamp behind the wanderer's hut. You can't tell from this photo how giant they are.

How giant? Up to my waist or higher, and longer than my arm.

When I was four, I picked ones like these--they were bigger on me then--two for each hand, and tried to fly with them.

.....

It has rained a lot, and after one rain, the ground was sparkling, like this...

After an assignation, a Heian courtier creeps away through the long grass and clover, and when he gets back to his own apartments, he sends his love a note about how his sleeves are soaked through with dew (... or leftover raindrops), and attaches a sprig of clover or grass to his note.

A fairy lover, on the other hand, will sit you down on this plank over the stream, and get you drunk on the roses' fragrance.

... and may share lawn strawberries with you. My own lawn strawberries are ripe now.

(To see them before they were ripe, click here)

reading The Four Quartets

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:58:41 GMT

Prompted by sovay, I'm rereading--or perhaps reading for the first time--through T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Please feel free to skip this entry. It is long and more for myself than anything else. It contains no analysis and almost no reflection on the text--it's just a collection of sections I especially liked.

...from "Burnt Norton":

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present...

To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

...from "East Coker"

Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn...

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere.

Especially that last line... I am here--or there--or elsewhere

Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns...

We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.

(Do I believe that? Must think...)

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

(That I most assuredly believe)

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

(hmm hmmm hmmm, yes, wild thyme; yes, wild strawberry; yes, laughter; no, echos, yes, ecstasy; yes, loss, but not lost, not requiring, not pointing... but yes, death, yes birth.)

...From "The Dry Salvages"

And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was...

You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus...

... evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omens
By sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards...

...lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.

...From "Little Gidding"

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat....

If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same...

There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand...

(Sovay, can I read my poem in around here, maybe?)

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied...

I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting....

the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains....

The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
He left me, with a kind of valediction,
And faded on the blowing of the horn....

.... the ground of our beseeching...

Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

awesome

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—

.......

......

Reading these really is like listening to music. Different tempos, different moods, different styles and voices of verse. Amazing.

(playing with words and thorns)

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:08:41 GMT

A Tree of Nails

I am a tree of nails
My tips a-bristle with needles and pins
Each pin a butterfly impales
The needles sew up shrouds and veils
And trace designs on blank-slate skins
But oh my nails, my hard, sharp nails
They seal the coffin while death grins
They know the hammer strike prevails
And what the tempering fire entails
They bore the sacrifice for sins
And ask themselves if faith avails

A Heian mystery

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:32:12 GMT

I don't read nearly as much of anything as I would like to or as I should, but I have to say that every time I've visited Beneath Ceaseless Skies, I've been treated to a wonderful tale or two.

Today, for instance, there is a great mystery and ghost story, set in Heian Japan (win!), by Richard Parks. It features a minor noble, Lord Yamada, who deals with the supernatural and handles Heian era detective work. "The Mansion of Bones" features a cursed mansion, ghosts, a bandit village, enchantments, trickery, devotion, and justice. And it's very entertainingly written:

“Lord Yamada, you’re a moody sort in the best of times, and I know you don’t like ghosts,” Kenji the scruffy priest said. “I’ll exorcise them if you wish, but you’ll have to hold the lantern.”

I sighed. “First, no one asked you to do so. Second, you charge exorbitant rates for such services. Third...tell me again why you’ve insisted on accompanying me? I didn’t believe your story about wanting to see the countryside, you know.”

Kenji smiled a rueful smile. “If you must know, matters are a bit unsettled for me in the Capital at this time. Therefore I felt it prudent to make this journey with you.”

“You could contain the abundance of my surprise in the husk of one grain of rice, with room to spare. Who was she?”

Kenji looked at the moon. “The wife of a minor palace official. You wouldn’t know her.”

“Neither should you.”

This entry started out longer. I started writing about a couple of other stories I'd read recently, but then I realized that there was no end to it--I'd be here all day, writing about stories--there is so much good, clever, interesting, funny, moving, scary, weird, exciting, thought-provoking, spine-tingling, poignant, marvelous stuff out there. One could devote a blog to it all ^_^

photos from Sunday's adventure

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:07:10 GMT

Courtesy of wakanomori.

Comments off just because I'm tired today--enjoy the scenery :-) (don't forget to check the rollover text)

Where we started:

A raft of grass:

wakanomori's shot of my path (I went ahead as I had boots!)

Juniper berries on the high ground

Where we finished

Adventure

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:33:48 GMT

wakanomori took me on adventure this evening, out in the wilderness beside and underneath the high-tension wires. We could hear them buzzing overhead. It was a wilderness that alternated heath and marshland. Up high it was heath; down low it was marsh.

It was so beautiful! It was like finding a dream place you've always longed to find, ever since you dreamed it.

There were secret under-shrubs places, places you'd think would be unpassable thickets, but in fact underneath they're little rooms with leaves for walls. In the heathy places there was bracken, blueberries and huckleberries and juniper berries ripening, and blackberries still in flower, and pink mountain laurel in flower, and spreading dogbane in flower, and maiden pinks (or possibly slender marsh pinks), and also sweetfern growing everywhere.

In the marshy places were whorled loosestrife and golden ragwort, and for trees there were elders and what seemed to be hazels--and things I don't know. We could hear water rushing nearby but not see it, and then when we ducked under and pushed through, there was the water. A frog squeaked and jumped in. There was stream grass trailing in the water.

At some point, we came to a stand of phragmites (giant tall reeds which have a long tassel up top, later in the season). We decided to push through, and soon we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by them. They towered over us--they must have been eight or ten feet tall. We couldn't see more than a foot or so ahead. We pressed on and on and began wishing for a machete, but at last made it to a place where we could climb out onto higher ground again. We looked down and could see our thin path through them.

We found about ten ticks on us (not yet biting, thankfully), afterward, but it was worth it. The lateday light was beautiful and everything smelled wonderful--spicy with sweetfern, sweet, and later aromatic and pungent, and then wet and earthy.

by clover navigate the stars and other small thoughts

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:10:26 GMT

I let the lawn be wild for many reasons, and here is one: so that by clover I can navigate the stars, though earthbound. The clover seems to bloom in constellations, and if I knew more than three or four constellations, I'm sure I'd recognize them as I looked across the lawn. I'm sure I'd see Aquila, Lyra, Draco, Bootes, and the astrological ones--Cancer, Leo, and Virgo. Instead I look at this clover flower or that one and think: around the corresponding star, are there planets? and on those planets, is there clover?

And here is another reason: lawn strawberries (not yet ripe)

If a squirrel and its tail part company, will the squirrel grow a new tail? Will the tail grow a new squirrel?

Here is a window Elsewhere

And here is a path

But the roses demand a toll to let you pass--from the healing angel they tried to claim a hat

photos from atomicat

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:45:04 GMT

atomicat lives out in the wilds of Manitoba, somewhere close to one of Manitoba's many lakes.

In the winter, he takes glorious photos of ice... in the summer, he takes photos of grass and birds and light on water. The photos are always breathtaking. I sent him a little money and asked him to surprise me with one, and he sent me this glorious shot:

But not only that, he included extra photos! glossy 8 x 6 inch shots of...

a flash of the sun amid hoarfrost flowers,

eyelash-thin stalks of grass in a world of ice,

a creamy plume of grass against a pale blue sky,

and others that aren't up in his gallery, but that are wonderful, like one of a pelican flying through the mist, and another of smooth smooth rocks, bathed in water frozen clear.

More and more photos came spilling out of the package--as shikuchi said, it was like a magic present. Not like; simply was.

Like all artists, he can always do with patronage, so take a look at his gallery, if you get a chance. It's here, at http://atomicat.com.

ETA And--a little something extra, from the man himself:

I'd like to add a couple of things and the first is always hard, hard to mention that I'm on disability without it sounding like a pity plea or anything like that. It's not of course, I live very well but this is my only extra source of income so it's much more than a hobby to me. Also I am trying to set up an artists collective here, kind of free-form drop-in center for people who just want to live and create without the pressures of the "real world" so any sales go to a good cause (paying back me mum!) and help meeting others who might be interested in something like this would be more than greatly appreciated. Hell, I'll sculpt you in bronze! Well, probably ice as we don't get much bronze up here.

So, keep atomicat in mind, for if you have a need for a cool present for someone.

the strength of green things

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:19:46 GMT

The wisteria vine cannot be stopped. It will HAVE anything that stands too still, too long. This bicycle, for instance:

It climbs up underneath the seat:

And curls lovingly round the brake cable (thanks to shikuchi for this shot):

When left to itself, it forms cables of its own:

And, in this shot from wakanomori (which he titled "wisteriascope UP!"), it peeks up from below decks:

It really seems unstoppable ... which reminds me of stories Japanese friends told about bamboo shoots. Bamboo can grow a meter a day and is very, very strong. wakanomori had one friend in Japan who wife's family had an old house out in a bamboo grove. Every spring, they had to go gather the bamboo shoots from underneath the house--otherwise, the shoots were so powerful, they'd splinter the floor, grow right up into the house--or so Waka's friend's wife claimed. Which brings us, of course, to the tales of people tortured by being tied down over bamboo shoots, which would grow through them if they didn't talk.

Some bamboo shoots, courtesy of Google:

Putting aside their possibilities as a torture device, bamboo shoots are very fun to gather (though you must get them when they're shorter than the ones above--they should only be about as high as your hand). I went into a bamboo grove when we lived in Japan, got some, and cooked them up. Here's a sketch I did--wow, 16 years ago--of the grove (click to enlarge). The little lump in the lower left corner is a bamboo shoot of the right size to harvest for eating; the shoot on the right is about the size of the ones in the photos above, but still covered with its hairy outer sheath:

roses, curly dock, and strawberries

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:31:59 GMT

The world is a garden right now. Beautiful, dangerous rosa multiflora is coming into bloom, so the roadside is rose scented now.

Also curly dock is in flower, or just past it, now making its seeds, a richness of seeds--anyone who wants to use curly dock seeds as currency can be magnanimous--and curly dock is one of the things growing now that's just about taller than me.

Red things: Radishes, strawberries, wild columbine, and poppies. The first and third are nearly done, the second and fourth are coming into their own. There are more and more strawberries. They are hidden; searching them out is fun. They are perfect heart-shaped gems--we can be monsters who consume hearts (or Aztec gods-handful_ofdust!)

May and Juniper were crouched in the ruins of the garden by the mailboxes. May thrust a buttercup under Juniper's chin and peered up at its faint glow on Juniper's throat.

"You like butter!" she declared. "Now this one." She nearly knocked her half-sister over in her attempt to get the three-year old's chin over the newly opened poppy. "Yup, you like strawberries, too."

Cory laughed. "Every pale-skinned person's gonna like butter--or strawberries--by that test, if the sun's shining," he said, but May just shrugged.

"I do like strawberries," insisted Juniper. "Can we have strawberries? Can you find some?"

Juniper, Cory, and May are half-siblings who live with their other half-siblings, Jack, Daisy, Fox, Velocity, Aadan, and Percy, in a house like the house that's at the corner of two streets near here.

That house has a bank of mailboxes out front and is rented out. Once upon a time, someone planted peonies there, and now, there are peonies tumbling out of the yard and down along a broken stone wall and in among the bittersweet and the virginia creeper, and peonies half overgrown with weeds in the depths of the garden, and still a rank of peonies out front. They are beautiful, and this morning, at 6 am, I helped myself to one--this is a very tiny theft, and I helped myself to one that was growing among the wild plants practically in the sidewalk, so I think it's okay. But still I felt like the father in Beauty in the Beast, but no beast came howling after me.

Here's today's bouquet--with rosa multiflora, buttercups, and daisies (wild), a peony (feral), and sage and some kind of pink (cultivated):

Addicted to the online life... in 1881

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:42:14 GMT

wakanomori is on a mission to read all the unknown works of Thomas Hardy. Currently he is reading A Laodicean (1881), which features a very modern young woman, Paula Power, whose family has come into possession of a 13th-castle... into which she has run a telegraph wire. The narrator of story, a young architect, gets to talking with Paula's friend Miss DeStancy (who, complicatedly enough, is a scion of the family that used to own the castle). Miss DeStancy says this about Paula's installation of the telegraph:

Miss Power had it put up to know the latest news from town. It costs six pounds a mile. She can work it herself, beautifully: and so can I, but not so well. It was a great delight to learn. Miss Power was so interested at first that she was sending messages from morning till night.

Doesn't it sound familiar?

golden morning

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:33:44 GMT

hold cursor over photo for more words--you can also click on them to make them bigger

The bells are ringing in the morning

The sun trails through the grass

And on the hills and in the clouds--a tide of rare colors

The deep places of the earth

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:22:29 GMT

Searched to find how deep the world's deepest mines are, and was intrigued by these facts:

from National Geographic

The ambitious new mining projects [in South Africa] are "ultra-deep" mines with shafts that are deeper than 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) in the ground, where temperatures rise well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit (55 degrees Celsius) and rock shatters like glass.

and from Yefim Cavalier, writing for hypertextbooks.com:

Many problems arise when digging so deep into the Earth. The most obvious is the heat. For example, at 5 km the temperature reaches 70 degrees Celsius and therefore massive cooling equipment is needed to allow workers to survive at such depths. Another problem is the weight of the rock. For example, at 3.5 km the pressure of rocks above you is 9,500 tones per meter squared, or about 920 times normal atmospheric pressure. When rock is removed through mining this pressure triples in the surrounding rock. This effect coupled with the cooling of the rock causes a phenomenon known as rock bursts, which accounts for many of the 250 deaths in South African mines every year.

Whereas in the ocean, you go down a mere 660 feet, and, having entered a realm of semi-darkness, the temperature begins to drop--fall to the bathypelagic zone, which begins at 3,300 feet, and you're at a chilly 4 degree Celsius (as I know jmeadows knows from her research for Unwater.)

Interesting planet we've got here.