Welcome! I hope I bring a spot of calm and happiness into these uncertain times. I blog about my photography adventures, flowers, gardening, the importance of chocolate in a well lived life, or anything else on my mind.
It's so hard to believe that it's almost June. Spring has finally come but so many of us have experienced rainy weekends, week after week.
We've been in a rainy stretch of weather where I live in the Southern Tier of New York.
Sunday, rain was again in the forecast.
The temperatures have milded up,and so far this week we haven't been under threat of severe weather.
Later that day, after sundown, I looked outside my window and saw this beautiful blue hour sky. I decided to take a picture. The tree is lit up by a streetlight but I love the shades of blue it captured.
The past and present exist side by side on this site.
I took a picture of this historical marker in 2023, shortly after it was erected. For many years a minor league baseball team (mainly affiliated with the New York Yankees) played here. The stadium was demolished in 1968 and a senior center (sign on the right of the marker) was built on the site.
If any of my readers are interested in baseball history,here is a list of players who later made it big in the major leagues or in broadcasting, including Whitey Ford and Ken Harrelson.
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)
Every
other week we have a theme. This week's theme is "Your choice". I'm going to be jumping around a lot in this week's post.
I can't believe it is (in the United States) almost the end of May. In the United States it is also Memorial Day, the day we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we at home could live free. Although Memorial Day is designed to honor those who made that sacrifice, I am casting my net (so to speak) a little broader.
Before I get into the cost of war, here is Dolly Parton with "Color Me America"
I was born, and spent my childhood in, New York City. I grew up among first and second generation Americans, many of whom had fled from one war or another. It is humbling to think of those who served in armies fighting against evil and how many young lives were lost so others could flourish. Some boys I grew up with ended up going to Vietnam, although, as far as I know, they all came back home.
Billy Joel's family was touched by the Holocaust. In turn, Billy has sang about the horrors of war. Here is Billy Joel and Goodnight Saigon, written from the point of view of a soldier serving in the Vietnam War.
Two songs from the country genre:
From last year, 21 Guns from Jamey Johnson.
George Jones and 50,000 Names, from 2001.
For too many people, war has touched their lives in ways they will never forget. Here is a classic song about war: 1970's War Pigs, from Black Sabbath.
I will end this post with an anti-war song from Simon and Garfunkel from 1966: 7 o'clock News/Silent Night.
I dedicate this post to all who have felt the horror of war.
And that's a sad wrap.
Join me again next week for a (hopefully) happier Music Moves Me.
Today, some early evening (around 7:20 pm) pictures of flowers currently blooming in my front yard.
Itoh peony. The first one we bought died (we thought) and we bought another one. But the following year, we realized it had come back. Now we have three of them, all the same color (leaving me wondering how we ended up with a third one, because we had only bought two). Here's one of them.
I've had these bearded irises for years and the variety is unknown. They have a nice grape-like scent.
We've been in a rainy pattern this past week so I am going back a week to May 16.
Taken about 4:35 pm that afternoon, before the wavy clouds.
Just after sunset, I went outside and captured this view with wavy clouds.
From this direction you can really see the waves. This picture isn't blurred; it really looked like this. I am no weather expert but I wonder if high altitude winds caused this effect.
We are fortunate (so far) no flooding and no severe weather. I hope it stays that way.
I hope you are having a week free from severe weather.
This year (long story) we haven't put up bird feeders. So today I wanted to share a memory from last April 18 (2024) when...
...a brown thrasher, a bird we've only seen this one time during now five years of birding, visited our yard. And, my spouse was actually able to get a picture of it.
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)
Every
other week we have a theme. This week's theme is "International Artists/Songs".
Since we have bloggers from several countries participating in this weekly meme, this should be interesting. As for me, I'm going to somewhat stick to the familiar: international artists whose songs have charted in the United States (although the song I choose may not be one of their hit songs). Bonus points if the song is in a language other than English.
This song is a bit outside the genres I usually listen to. Here's Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, better known as Lorde, who holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship. She's perhaps best known for her hit song "Royals" but I chose a song "Te Ao Mārama" ("World of Light"), which has had some controversy surrounding it, but here it is.
The Swedish group ABBA has recorded several of their hit songs in their native Swedish language. Here is "Waterloo".
And, since the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest concluded this past Saturday, why not also feature the 1974 Eurovision performance of Waterloo by Abba which helped to launch their career?
As a matter of fact, a number of Eurovision Song Contest winning songs have charted in the United States. Although he was not the artist who won with this song, French musician Paul Mauriat & His Orchestra charted in 1968 with an instrumental version of Love is Blue (L'amour est bleu).
The late, great Austrian artist Johann "Hans" Hölzel, better known to us as Falco, charted in 1982 with Der Kommissar. He later reached #1 with his 1986 "Rock Me Amadeus" but tragically died in a car/bus accident in 1998. (Yes, I know the big hit was Rock Me Amadeus but I was in the mood for Der Kommissar.)
Thanks to social media, this arrangement of Barry Manilow's Copacabana by Dutch musician Emma Wieriks went viral several years ago.
Last but not least, although he sings in English, there is Canadian Tom Cochrane, one of many (many, many) musicians who have hit it big in the United States. Today, with his group Red Rider, is the hit "Lunatic Fringe" from 1981. I love the beginning of this song.
And that's a wrap!
Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.
Today, I bring you skies from yesterday, several hours before thunderstorms hit our area of the Southern Tier of New York. What I did was point my camera at each direction and took a picture.
Now I can't remember which direction was which, so let's just let the clouds and sky tell the story. Direction #1
Spring has arrived in my zone 6a garden in the Southern Tier of New York. Or, should I say, it's been shot out of a cannon? That's how it's been: one flower after another, boom boom boom! And many of the flowers haven't lasted long, either, due either to the weather being either too warm or rainy. But other flowers are soaking it up.
Shall we peek outside and see what's blooming today?
Our tree peony flowers are just starting to open.
Euphorbia is in full bloom.
Violets are hanging on.
These are, or were, orange.
White and orange
Then, there are the almost-done-but-hung-on for GBBD flowers, like the last of my late daffodils.
But so many of my spring flowers didn't make it, even my lilacs, although one lilac hung on. My purple lilacs were disappointing this year, and I'm not sure why.
In my sideyard (very shady), cranesbill geranium.
Star of Bethlehem, which I never planted but showed up several years ago, being choked out by vinca.
In the back, another resident wildflower I never planted, yellow Corydalis.
We all dream about May, we in this clime, when the flowers bloom and the weather (maybe) finally becomes springlike.
Joining Carol at May Dreams Gardens for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Why not click on the link and visit other gardeners who, each 15th of the month, show what is blooming inside or outside their abodes?
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)
Every
other week we have a theme. This week's theme is "You Pick"
My last living uncle passed away earlier this month at the age of 100. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend his memorial service via the magic of the Internet (aka Zoom). I mentioned a little bit about him in my blog post yesterday.
My uncle was the lastborn of his six siblings (one of whom died as an infant), born into an immigrant family who had settled in Brooklyn. (Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City). My father's father owned a candy store in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn and all the children were expected to work long hours in the store. They lived in poverty, in an apartment that only had heat in one room (the kitchen).
My uncle excelled as a student, but his mother died when he was only 10 years ago. He was raised by his older siblings (including my father) and, eventually, he earned a PhD in chemistry. Much of his life was spent in the field of organic chemistry. But that only tells a part of his story.
As a college professor, he mentored many of his students. When I first visited him as a teenager, he and his family were hosting an exchange student.
He loved to work with his hands, and loved poetry. He memorized entire (long) poems like the one I posted yesterday. I remember him reciting Oscar Wilde's The Ballard of Reading Gaol on a long drive.
When my spouse was in basic training in the military, I lived with his family for two months in a small town in Iowa called Fairfield. Several years previously, my father and I had flown out to stay with him and his family for a week. What an adventure that was for a New York City born and bred girl.
Here are a couple of my blog posts about my visits to Fairfield, Iowa.
Some of the memories shared at the memorial service brought back happy memories of that time.
I wanted to share a song I remember from that time, and a couple of songs played at the memorial service.
Mason Williams and Classical Gas was released in 1968, when we visited my uncle and his family out in Iowa for the first time.
One of my Iowa cousins introduced me to Larry Fast/Synergy and their cover of Slaughter on 10th Avenue during my 1976 stay with them. You have to love electronic music to listen to this - for me, it was instant love.
And from the memorial service, two of my uncle's favorite songs.
Danny Boy was played by the pianist at the service so I decided on an instrumental.
Finally, John Denver and Take Me Home Country Roads.
My uncle didn't have an easy childhood or, in some ways, an easy adult life, but he impacted everyone (I suspect) he came in contact with. May he forever rest in peace.
And that's a wrap.
Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.
His daughter love lilacs so much that she planned her 1995 wedding for when the lilacs were in bloom.
May 10
Yesterday, I attended a memorial service (via Zoom) for my last living uncle, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 100.
From my yard, May 10
The youngest brother of my father, he was raised by his siblings, including my late father, when his mother died way too young. He was a scientist and a man of many interests, including poetry. I remember him reciting poems - long poems, at that.
Today I will honor my late uncle with a poem he used to recite to his children as they grew up in Texas and Iowa: Some Little Bug by John Leroy Atwell, from 1915.
In these days of indigestion
It is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone;
For each microbe and bacillus
Has a different way to kill us,
And in time they always claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind
In any food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky
As the so-called deadly whiskey,
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Then he'll send for his bug friends
And all your earthly trouble ends;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
The inviting green cucumber
Gets most everybody's number,
While the green corn has a system of its own;
Though a radish seems nutritious
Its behaviour is quite vicious,
And a doctor will be coming to your home.
Eating lobster cooked or plain
Is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster sometimes has a lot to say,
But the clams we cat in chowder
Make the angels chant the louder,
For they know that we'll be with them right away.
Take a slice of nice fried onion
And you're fit for Dr. Munyon,
Apple dumplings kill you quicker than a train.
Chew a cheesy midnight "rabbit"
And a grave you'll soon inhabit
Ah, to eat at all is such a foolish game.
Eating huckleberry pie
Is a pleasing way to die,
While sauerkraut brings on softening of the brain.
When you eat banana fritters
Every undertaker titters,
And the casket makers nearly go insane.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
With a nervous little quiver
He'll give cirrhosis of the liver;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
When cold storage vaults I visit
I can only say what is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?
Now, for breakfast, prunes are dandy
If a stomach pump is handy
And your doctor can be found quite soon enough.
Eat a plate of fine pigs' knuckles
And the headstone cutter chuckles,
While the grave digger makes a note upon his cuff.
Eat that lovely red bologna
And you'll wear a wooden kimona,
As your relatives start scrappin 'bout your stuff.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Eating juicy sliced pineapple
Makes the sexton dust the chapel;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
All those crazy foods they mix
Will float us 'cross the River Styx,
Or they'll start us climbing up the milky way.
And the meals we eat in courses
Mean a hearse and two black horses
So before a meal some people always pray.
Luscious grapes breed 'pendicitis,
And the juice leads to gastritis,
So there's only death to greet us either way;
And fried liver's nice, but, mind you,
Friends will soon ride slow behind you
And the papers then will have nice things to say.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day
Eat some sauce, they call it chili,
On your breast they'll place a lily;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
More about my uncle (and my connection with him) in my Music Moves Me post tomorrow.
Spring is winning its battle against winter (finally!) where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State.
Trees are leafed out. It's been raining.
Just a different angle from the first picture.
But the invasive plants are on the march. Here, Japanese knotweed. The park (which is located on a flood plain which does flood from time to time) didn't flood from the recent rains, but it came close.
The Morrow's honeysuckle is starting to bloom. Here's more about this (for us) common invasive.
Watching the sky brought me out to enjoy this moment of nature, and I hope you enjoyed it, too.
More spring flowers from my yard, mostly taken late last week.
White Bleeding Heart.
Barrenwort.
Trillium.
Grape Hyacinth.
Yesterday we had a thunderstorm. It poured, with flash flood watches and warnings in various areas near us. May showers will hopefully bring more flowers.
Today
I am joining up with other Music Moves Me bloggers (and you can join us
at the linky above). We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music
each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video,
please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)
Every
other week we have a theme. This week's theme is "Things in a song that make you think of May".
This first song is an oldie but goodie - Julie Andrews Vanessa Redgrave (thank you, readers, for noticing this error) singing The Lusty Month of May from Camelot. Because May...well, thoughts turn into certain directions.
It can also be the month of storms. Here is Billy Joel with Storm Front, from 1989.
This song takes place in July, but just thinking of a day like this makes me think of May. Some years, we have some of our warmest weather in May and you want to go to a park. Here, from 1972, is Chicago and Saturday In The Park.
And, since today is the Cinco de Mayo how about this song from WAR: Cinco De Mayo.
Finally, May means flowers to me. I love this song, and it makes me think of May. Since I had this song on my blog not that long ago, I chose this live performance from 2013. The sound quality isn't the best, but I liked hearing the modern Cowsills. Sadly, several of them, including lead singer Billy Cowsill, have passed away.
And that's a wrap!
Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.
In honor of this May the 4th, which some call Star Wars Day ("May the fourth be with you") here's a photo from last April.
This picture was taken at the Rochester, New York celebration of last year's total eclipse of the sun. Although the sun didn't cooperate (sunny days the day before and day after, thick clouds during eclipse) we had a good time at the Rochester Museum and Science Center's indoor displays.
Spring is gradually winning its battle with winter here in the Southern Tier of New York. Athough we haven't had severe weather like other parts of the country, we've had some grim looking skies.
Photos taken April 26 right before a rainstorm.
If not for the green grass, you'd think this was taken in black and white.
Same sky from a different direction.
After the rain - puddles.
More puddles.
I like how this reflection came out, even if it didn't fit the B&W theme.
May May bring true spring at last. At least today, it has.
