Photo Friday: License

Because Amber gave us the license to present whatever pictures we chose and because she wrote of her memories of growing up around the process of making dirt from compost, I began searching through old pictures of just that. 

But alas, sadly, last month my external hard drive crashed and I lost thousands yes thousands of pictures.  I have hardly been able to think about it, much less mention it to many.  Hundreds of hours spent fixing cracked faded BnW family pictures from the 40s and 50s.  Those I can redo eventually.  The ones from the last 20 plus years, many are gone for good. ( I think of Ike and his 'Sad Place' topic..not really comparable - but to this lady getting on in age, those pictures help me remember things I would otherwise forget.   Okay, getting on.  

Compost. And Amber's post.  There may not be an old picture of that same steamy pile but I did run into a few others. 

 I risk not much here as my dau must approve these before the Publish button is selected!

Bath County   Ohio 1975                                                                          Amber and her dad

 dirt

Cousin Tonya and Amber

 my own compost sitting out back waiting to be turned

There  will always be  compost....and memories. 

Photo Friday: SIMPLICITY

The Meaning of Simplicity

I hide behind the simple things so you'll find me

if you don't find me, you'll find the things

you'll touch what my hand has touched,

our hand prints will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen

like a tin-plated pot

(it gets that way because 

of what I'm saying to you)

it lights up the empty house and

the house's kneeling silence-

always the silence remains kneeling.

Every word is a doorway

to a meeting, one often cancelled,

and that's when a word it true:

when it insists on the meeting.

                                     Yannis Ritsos 1909-1990

A simple meal

SWEET SIMPLICITY

Photo Friday: Patterns

I chose to think out of the box today for patterns.  I awoke to freezing temperatures and a frosty world.

As I left the warmth of my covers a few hours ago the first thing I saw outside the kitchen window was the water in the humming bird feeder frozen.  Again.   I said to myself, 'This has become a pattern.'   Aha!  Since I've been so delinquent in Photo Fridays lately I thought since I am a day late and a dollar short of good patterns shots.....

  There has been a PATTERN in my mornings of late.

It was 25 degrees this morning.  Making for a frosty world.

 As the sun came out it made beautiful little prisms on the tips of the blades of grass outside my breakfast window.

 Breaking away from the pattern of rushing through, I remembered recently reading,  'Be aware, look closer, really see things around you, find something new.'  This morning it was the 'small' crags on Mt. Rainier.

In the pattern of each morning, I steeped a hearty cup of tea, this time Teavana's strawberry lemonade (thank you, Heidi).

And sat down to check my email as my husband makes breakfast:  Steel-cut  oats cooked with sliced apples and cinnamon.  I love THIS pattern!

As we sipped our tea, the sun rose to melt the frost on the ground, and the clouds made their own beautiful pattern.  

---------------

As Don chose to read some more in my cousin's book 'The Truth is on the Walls,'  that same cousin called me and asked if I could scan a page out of my mother's journal for the next book she is writing.

Perusing I found the day my dad (Jack) proposed marriage.  Mother wrote atop one page 'Yankees invaded Rome.' June 3 1944.  That's somewhat off the topic of patterns, but most interesting.

 

Photo Friday: LIGHT

Right before Christmas, I had the opportunity to spend some time in Arizona for the first time. 

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum was a highlight, created many years ago from a private residence.

Eucalyptus tree

a home carved out of the side of the mountain, now part of the arboretum

lovely cool rooms in a hot climate

St. Augustine Greek Orthodox Monastery

everything here was wonderful and unusual, as was this shade of bougainvillea

a gourd farm

the warm warm evenings of the south are well missed