The mountains of North Carolina

 

It's not my photo...but I'm pretty sure I've been there!

Hooker Falls

 

Linnville Falls, upper falls

 

Sunday with rest

 

Sleeping Ute Mountain, Cortez, CO 2019

My son's new home also offers a view of this mountain, to the west of Cortez!  

And if you have time on your hands, here's a wonderful recording of Dr. Martin Shaw. I'm about halfway through listening to him!

A short Saturday day-trip.

 

THis Saturday arts market left quite a bit to be desired. However, the people who offered their wares were sincerely smiling at us.

My friend who takes day trips with me, was interested in the shitake mushroom powder...though it was $10 a bottle.

And we did enjoy having some live music to listen to...but there weren't any chairs. We kind of hummed along with Blue Moon!

Actually these interesting patterns were the table where we had our vegetarian lunches.

We never did find another cafe' that was supposed to be vegetarian...but we knew the City Lights Cafe' was. And we planned to spend some time after lunch at the City Lights used and new bookstore upstairs, We both came home with some reading materials!

The problem with that title for this old Apple monitor is, the book of that name didn't come out untirl 2012...and we have to believe this monitor is quite a bit older than that~!

Did you ever use the monitor on the left, complete with a floppy disc drive? I did!

I'm afraid I got hit by a bug yesterday, and haven't got much energy, except to read books. I may miss a few days while I'm recuperating!

Hodge podge old and newer

Wonderful pioneer mountain women doing the carding, spinning and maybe knitting of the wool. 
 

Myself (lowest) and my granddaughter (l.) and her mother. Granddaughter just graduated from college! She is my oldest son's daughter. We visited with masks, except to eat...it was so nice to see their smiles!

A hug between my middle son and his mother-in-law. I have long wished there were a good term for a couple of mothers of married couples...rather than mothers-in-law in common! I feel very lucky that my son's mothers-in-laws are such wonderful women.

There used to be a train that went up to Mt. Michell...the highest peak east of the Mississippi. Now you can drive almost to the top, park your car and then walk an incline the last couple hundred feet.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday, of course. Can't let these old photos go by without sharing them there!

Today's quote:

Think for yourself and question authority. -Timothy Leary, psychologist and writer (22 Oct 1920-1996)

Yucca flower

 

Some yucca blooms by the parking lot caught my eye,

And if I were a professional photographer, I'd enlarge just the blooms!

At least the flower is still in focus. But it's pretty dull. However, it's in an industrial area, so should be commended for just making it this far.

Today's quote:

The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are — until the poem — nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.

Within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive… We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those dreams are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare. If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core — the fountain — of our power… the future of our worlds. 

For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt — of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead — while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strengths.

 Audre Lourde

Near Lake Tomahawk

 

Queen Ann's Lace?

Oak Leaf Hydrangias

We knew the day lilies, but what might the pink pom poms be?

Milkweed I think, with lots of bees on it.

Today's quote:

Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen. —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Night blooming Evening Primrose...and ducks

 

Mr. Mallard woke up when I came down the hill to get closer photos of the flowers, which were still a-bloom at 10 am!

I think I knew this one, oak leaved Hydrangia!

The night blooming (Primroses) yellow flowers were near where the ducks like to sleep after breakfast.

I was going to get down really close, but then I realized I was disturbing duck naps.

Today's quote:

From time to time I feel the moment for travel has come.

Farewell as you go beyond the veil. 

On the day of leaving, cast a veil
of humble sunset-glaze.
Let the time to leave
be quiet, still. Let no pompous memorials
build the hypnosis of grieving.
Let the lines of trees by the departure door
bestow the tranquil chanting of earth
on quiet heaps of leaves.
Let night’s soundless blessing slowly descend,
iridescent offerings of the seven stars. 

Tagore

Early walk around my favorite lake

 

We counted 7 very small baby ducks with their mother on the hill.

We wondered what these plants were...very close looking to oak leaf hydrangias...just leaves look more like maples.

I think one of these should be my new header photo...done!

Today's quote:

We can celebrate the change of season and shift our own energy by setting some time aside to make the same changes we see in nature.

Summer Solstice

also known as Changes in Habits! 

And Happy Father's Day to all the Dads!

It happens tonight here at 11;32 pm EDT. That's practically June 21.

So for the shortest night of the year...in the northern hemisphere at least, on our pretty blue ball, the earth somehow shuffles its tilt to begin going the other direction.

Midsummer Night's Eve exactly!

Seen through the screen this morning, I'm afraid there wasn't much to nibble on for this squirrel.

I loved the morning sun shining around the petunia leaves, as well as the greener tomato leaves below the marigolds on the left.

Later on I enjoyed this delicious repast, without a thought for the squirrel. However I did thank both the dear salmon who gave his body to help mine...as well as the delightful corn stalk for the juicy corn, and not at all the delicious avocado, tomatoes or various lettuces. I tried something different, namely eating my big meal at lunch rather than dinner. Mmm, just having yogurt and fruit and nuts left me unsatisfied at dinner time. This may not work.

And part of it was that with the heat of day, I tried doing my walk at around 6:30 pm, also after the summer-like showers were over. I had to step carefully over a few puddles, but it was at least in the mid 70s rather than 80s. But then I was really hungry afterward! So I had another light sandwich dinner. Oops.

Here's a pretty enjoyable community of talented singers/musicians/dancers, all celebrating in a language I don't understand, but sharing such joy I want to share it with you. (And the tune does seem to stay in my brain!) My cousin identified the language as Lativian, and in honor of the mighty oaks.

Today's quote:

Hold faith, for within the soul is the homing device.

We all can find our way back.

—Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Women who Run with the Wolves

Happy Juneteenth!

Many of my family members still live in Texas, and it was maybe sometime in my adulthood that I first heard of Juneteenth!

I was really interested (beginning about 10 years ago) in learning about the Texas Reconstruction. They had troubles with acknowledging Black people as free men and women. There were many politicians coming up with ways to keep those who had been enslaved from receiving recognition or education or opportunities...known as Jim Crow laws.

There were also some other people who helped by donating land for schools, as well as land for communities to build on and farms that were available for "truck farming" - where usually the Black farmers would get a portion of the crop that they raised. 

But the actual announcement that the Civil War was over was the cause for Juneteenth...not the actual Emancipation Proclamation as is being given out in publicity for the new national holiday.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Sep. 22, 1862, announced, “That on the 1st day of January. A.D. 1863, all person held as slaves within any state…in rebellion against the U.S. shall be then, thenceforward and forever free."

Lincoln freed the slaves on New Years Day of 1863. Of course the Confederate leadership didn't share that information with their slaves, or maybe even to the soldiers who were giving their lives for the cause of slavery. My Texas ancestors weren't at all happy with Lincoln becoming President...and I've got a copy of their hand written letters that said as much.

Lee surrendered his Confederate Army on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House. But there wasn't a way that all the various battlefields received that information right away. It wasn't until May 23 near Brownsville, TX that the last battle occurred...known as the Battle of Palmito Ranch.  The news about the Appomattox surrender had finally arrived and many of the soldiers just went home by May 26 when Lt. Gen. E. Kirby Smith's Army of the Trans-Mississippi surrendered at Galveston TX.

"After the Civil War ended in April 1865 most slaves in Texas were still unaware of their freedom. This began to change when Union troops arrived in Galveston. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, (Union) commanding officer, District of Texas, from his headquarters in the Osterman building (Strand and 22nd St.), read ‘General Order No. 3’ on June 19, 1865. The order stated “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” With this notice, reconstruction era Texas began."

In Texas, Juneteenth was celebrated as the Texas Black's first knowledge of Emancipation Day. Until that announcement, the slave owners probably were keeping it secret from the slaves. 

It was first celebrated publicly, then more privately until the mid twentieth century. In 1979 June 19th became a Texas Sate Holiday.

This marker stands in Galveston TX to commemorate Gen. Granger's proclamation as quoted above. The marker was erected in 2014.

Incidentally, my great great great grandparents were Grangers from New England, I wonder if we were related to Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger.

Today's quote was the sign above in Galveston TX.

A sky to love

 What a sky! Foreground has US 70 and the train track...looking south toward Big Windy Mountain, I think.

Today's quote:

Try not to expect perfection when starting out on a spiritual path or attaining inner peace.

Sharing with Skywatch Friday.

Eating on a patio

 We got take out at Cousin's Cafe', which is Cuban food! Actually we could have eaten inside, but there really wasn't room at the 6-7 tables! So behind the next door shop is a little patio where we were invited to eat. It was hot in the sun, but we found a shady spot.

Cute fake sunflowers cheer up the fence!

This is the doorway that we came through to the patio.

I had one of the only vegetarian meals they served for lunch, garbanzos (chick peas) with rice and a few plantains. It is very good, but $8 for a beans and rice dish seems a bit high to me. But it's downtown, so maybe that rules the price.

They are usually crowded, and only open for lunch I think.

Today's Quote:

You must cherish one another. You must work — we all must work — to make this world worthy of its children.

PABLO CASALS

Peonies have it

 

Or perhaps roses...

These  huge blossoms hung over the sidewalk precariously. I tried to prop them up...but the adult daughter of the woman who lives next to where these flowers grow (not planted by her) decided to "clip them and bring them inside." So everyone else didn't get to see them.

Incidentally the management later sent out a memo which included "don't pick the flowers." I wonder if the daughter read it.

As you can see above, this is a huge bed of peonies.

These beauties below, were near another neighbor's apartment, and they are another kind of rhododendron.

Today's quote:

'

For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt — of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead — while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strengths.

 Audre Lourde