Posts Tagged ‘sky’

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Earth, sky and water: the theme is earth


2010
10.03

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Leah gave us Creative Every Day folks a broad theme for October, because what is not of or connected to the earth?  To start, I’ve added some photos to my web page.  The first three in the Nature Gallery are from Colorado.  It’s funny how I found out about Colorado.  My son-in-law had breathing problems in Bakersfield.  We are only #1 in the country in one of the types of pollution – and he wanted out.  He searched the web for the place with the most clean air days and came up with various cities in Colorado.  So he took Karen and the kids and moved to Paonia, the town without a stop light.

We went to check it out.  I knew generally that Colorado was beautiful but I would bet I’d never have made it there if I didn’t have kids to visit.  There are so many places to see and we always tend to look farther than our own backyards.  Many of us that live in the United States look out of the United States, even though our country has some of the best to offer.  But off we were to Colorado, even ahead of the kids, and now I’ve been three times a year for many years.  Everything is beautiful in that state.  Paonia is on the Western Slope, and the skies are always – ALWAYS – amazing.  The first new photos in the gallery are Colorado skies, and then a quick dusting of snow and frost across the street from Karen’s house.

Last year I did a post – Anatomy of a Small Town Football Game – and if you go back to it and scroll down to the very last photo, you’ll see what I’m talking about.  This is a picture of Hotchkiss High, where the game took place – can you find it?  That’s the view around the high school.  Hard to even conceive of for us Californians.

The other new photos in the Nature Gallery are West Palm Beach in Florida, the sky right here in Kern County, Isabella Lake right here in Kern County, and Pismo Beach.  I’ll put one in here as a teaser.  The ocean in Florida – the colors, the clouds – speechless.

Earth, sky, and water.  The theme is earth.

Take a look at the gallery for yourself.  It’s a good feeling to get stuff going again – even if it is blog posts and new photos on the web.  There should be some amazing photos coming by the end of the month – with any luck – because we will soon be in Maui for a couple of weeks.  So stay tuned.

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A victory for justice along with some miscellany


2010
08.04

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Justice, for now

Today, in California, we celebrated a victory.  Federal Judge Vaughn Walker struck down Prop 8, the ban on gay and lesbian marriage.  For now though, there is a stay on gay marriage, but if I understand correctly that could change in a few days.  Regardless, it is rather fantastic that we even worry about this.   Opponents of gay marriage must feel desperately threatened, although that is baseless.  Just because it is legal for gays to marry doesn’t mean scores of straights will rush out to become gay or lesbian and marry a same-gender partner.  Nor does banning gay marriage insure that gays and lesbians will become straight.

We make many decisions in life – to go to college or not, to get married or not, to bear children or not, to go out to eat or not and so on.  But when do we make the decision on being gay?  When do we sit down, as we would if we were choosing a college, and say “It’s time to decide.  Will I be gay or straight?” Do you remember doing that?  Of course not.

It comes down to one thing really.  In the United States, where all men (and women) are created equal, at one time some were more equal than others.  We’ve overcome that, at least on paper, but now our California Prop 8 supporters are trying to say that really, truly, some people are more equal than others.  Sorry, folks, but that isn’t what America is about.

Miscellany

Cats: Decided Tiger and Lily are becoming inside cats.  Tiger won’t mind.  Lily will.  But I cannot deal with dead birds and frogs in my bedroom and closet more often than not.  Sorry cats.  I’ll get you new toys tomorrow so you will be intellectually stimulated. My niece-in-law, who is a vet, said I can buy a toy at WalMart that makes a noise like a bird, and I can hide it and the cats will find it.  She says it is about $15 and lasts forever.  So tomorrow I will make one of my rare excursions to WalMart.  I’ll get a couple, but I am not going to spend all day playing hide and seek with cats.

Renting the cabin: Getting ready to rent our cabin.  It’s a lot of work! But there is a great co-op web site in Alta Sierra that we can get onto fairly easily.  Time for some more income.  It’s really a wonderful place and the kitchen is better equipped than most kitchens at home!

Algae: string algae grows so quickly that you can actually see it grow.  Almost. I clean out the pond and literally 15 minutes later more algae is floating around.  I’m having my regular Thursday coffee with Chris McKee tomorrow.  Although she is an artist, her specialty in college was blue-green algae.  I’m going to see what she has to say about this. I know we could just use chlorine, but we don’t want to hurt the frogs.

Frogs:  At night I usually go out in the back yard after dark with a flashlight to check on the frogs.  There seem to be two hopping around the lawn every night.  I don’t believe I will ever know if they are the same two – but as long as I keep seeing them, it’s ok.  I like wildlife and frogs count.

Photos: here are a couple of random photos from the last few weeks.

What a crack up! This was at the San Luis Obispo Thursday Farmer’s Market.  I guess dogs are not allowed, so would you please remove your dog immediately? Right this second? Now?

Again, from the Farmer’s Market. Do you hear that? Leave that cart alone.  If you must do something with it, get the OK from Marty or Dennis, all right? Just so you understand.

Flowers will take the opportunity to grow anywhere.  These brave blooms valiantly guard the dumpster.

For fun, our local restaurant Valentiens celebrates Bastille Day for an entire week.  We went for dinner on a Saturday and the theme was Masquerade. I wish I had dressed up but I’ve never been good at costumes.  That’s Jeramy in the middle, one of the owners.

How about these amazing grape vines on the road home from Pismo? And the wonderful tree.

This is my dear, dear friend Michael.  He’s a sign language interpreter, and he’s gone to India to interpret for a young man who just finished graduate school in the U.S.  The young man’s family has an enormous company, OMmetals, and Vai is making his way into the business.  Michael will be there at least 6 months, maybe three years!  Already, by the end of week one, they have traveled to Hyderabad where Michael interpreted a solar conference.  I’ll miss him.  Thank goodness for Skype.

I’ll leave you with the morning sky from a day in July.  It’s not often I’m up early enough to see a sunrise, but if I had to be awake, this sky was worth it.

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Did you see the MOON? Plus art, cell phones, and phonographs


2010
06.25

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I’m going to save the best for last – the MOON

Cell phone update

The saga of my cell phone has  gotten ridiculous.  Time for husbands New Every Two, which really means Discount Every Two unless you want a toy phone.  I used the New Every Two as my husband has a new phone.  I got the Droid Incredible which I loved to pieces until I found out I could not put my bluetooth in my ear and say “Call ____.”  Sent back.  Credit received. Got the Blackberry Bold. What a clunker! Heavy, hard to navigate the icons – shame on them!  Sent back.  Credit received.  Decided to stick with Blackberry Curve.  Ordered the lavender one.  Started to program it but I couldn’t find the keys.  Ah – the keys were lavender too!  My current phone is a pink Blackberry Curve and the keys are not pink.  They are silver and black and I can see them without my glasses.  But lavender on lavender?  Can’t see with my glasses.  Sending it back Monday.  Down to one choice – the black Blackberry Curve.  I am waiting to order however.  Can’t take anymore of this.  And they better not charge me the $35 restocking fee for the Droid or the lavender Curve.  Now I will take deep breaths and continue this post with

ANTS

I need more deep breaths.  I watered and cleaned up outside today.  There were no ants.  There are now ants swarming all over the patios and lawns and everywhere.  I must have disturbed a nest or something.  I put a call in to pest control having made a command decision to damn the frogs and hire pest control if that’s what it takes.  Seriously, I hope Adam can find a way to not made the pond toxic.  We had such a bad infestation at our old house once that we had ants coming out of switch plates, and once I found my snake Jake covered with ants!  I grabbed that snake and put him under the kitchen faucet hoping he wouldn’t have a heart attack from the sudden change of temperature.  So I’m not waiting to see ants coming out of switch plates.  I hope Adam calls back even though it’s Friday night and we haven’t hired him yet.  Let’s talk about something more pleasant that won’t raise my blood pressure, which would be

Phonographs and Memories

Do you ever wonder if things you remember about your childhood were really like that? I have fondly told the story of how I would wake up every day and put a record on my phonograph first thing – the same record every day.  My parents awoke to “The King of France had 40,000 men; they marched up the hill and then marched down again.” My phonograph was hand-cranked.  I’ve wondered lately if I made that up, however.  I didn’t.  Because in the move I looked through old photos and there I was in my bedroom with the phonograph and you can see the crank!

Nice to know I remembered that correctly.

Watercolor

Watercolor is hard. I did a watercolor up at the cabin and I have no idea what it is.  I was trying to replicate a journal page but it’s not quite the same.  I don’t even want to learn watercolor – phew! My dad got a lifetime achievement award from the National Watercolor Society.  They don’t give that out very much.  I so appreciate his skill as an artist – a lifetime of work.

So here’s what I did.  Miss Know Nothing trying to learn from the website watercolor.com.  However, I don’t even think I held the brush correctly, although I did remember from time to time to try.This is my masterpiece.  It’s colorful, I can say that, and I used water, that much is true.   However, putting the water and color together is amazingly difficult. So, someone tell me what it is so I can explain it to others as if I did it on purpose.

I’m going to take out that yellow and reddish column.  Would it make any sense to all it Windows?

Now for the MOON

Oh my goodness gracious you should have seen Bakersfield’s moon last night.  My husband, who goes to sleep at 9:00, got up to use the restroom at about 11:15 and just happened to look out his window.  He came in my room and startled the heck out of me – I was doing something on the computer.  (Yes, we each have our own rooms.  It’s called snoring.) “Look at the moon,” he said.  Clouds, almost-full moon, I stuck my camera on the tripod and took 81 photos.

I’m only going to show you nine, and I don’t need to comment.  Just look.  Wish you had been here to see it in person with me.  The third one I want to title “The Mothership has Arrived.”

Goodnight, moon.


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Big Skies of Bakersfield


2010
04.11

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What do you think of when you hear big sky? Texas jumps into my mind, which would probably make Texans happy.  Texas is the land of everything big.  But this year, 2010, I call Bakersfield the land of Big Skies.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it – for February, March, and the beginning of April, we’ve had one beautiful sky after another.

Here’s one last photo of the sky from my former backyard.  I just can’t get enough of looking at these clouds.  I exclaim over them all day long, to the point that my granddaughter texted me the other day: Gramser, the sky is beautiful.  She and the others may find it amusing, but I’ll bet they take notice of the sky more often than they might have.

Right now at this very moment, it’s raining.  Our Big Sky season is over, and today we had more typical Bakersfield weather – a rip-roarin’ dust storm.  The wind blasted all day – we kept our power but I know there were power outages throughout the city.  The gale blew over my potted ficus – which is huge – and broke the container.  So tomorrow we’ll be replanting.  It needed a bigger pot anyhow.  But now, after dense dust, we have rain.  It’ll rinse out the sky and leave big blobs of dust-mud on the cars, so ironically we will have to hose everything off after the rain.

For now, however, we can feast our eyes on these whipped-cream skies.  Mashed potato skies.   Marshmallow skies.  Cotton candy skies.

I drove around one day to get the sky just outside of the city.  Over our lush farmland.

You all remember Jim Morrison of the Doors, yes?  Morrison said, “The West is the best.”  I’m sure other people have said that also, but not like Jimbo did.  Looking at these skies brought to mind how I felt when we returned to the West after six years in North Carolina and Virginia.  We loved living in those states, and everything was green, green, green.  Beautiful.  But when we came home to the West, we felt like we could breathe again.  It’s all in what you are used to.  I grew up singing, “Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above, don’t fence me in.” We may not be able to see the stars from Bakersfield, but we have the land.

Soon we’ll have the oppressive, hot, baked days of summer. Those days that seem as if they will never end.  I’m going to try to remember how lucky we were in the Spring this year, with these beautiful skies.

I started with a photo of the sky from our “old” house on the lake.  I’ll end with a couple from our “new” house on the golf course.  We gave up the water, but we got a 180-degree view.

Clouds and blue skies.  Blue skies, smiling on me, nothing but blue skies do I see. That’ll be my motto as we continue the unpacking and arranging from the move. One week today and it’s looking more hopeful.  Life is returning to normal.