leaves and seeds I've seen

post #360
       FIRST, information about the upcoming annual Appalachian Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair, at Morehead State University, on Saturday, December 2, 2017, 9 a.m until 4 p.m.! It's sponsored by the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead but located in the Laughlin Health Building at the east end of the MSU campus. I wasn't able to take part the last two years, but now I'm up and running again, so I hope the weather is good and a lot of people can turn out.  Later that day the annual Hometown Holiday takes place along Morehead's Main Street, starting at 5 pm. I heard that the Barbershop singing group is pulling together for a return to the Barbershop that evening! It may be more than a quartet, i.e. featuring four or more happy-to-be-singing-again guys.

        AND NOW, today's weekly post, this time using many of the photos I seem to be making lately of leaves and seeds -- pretty basic stuff. However, even I don't recognize as many leaves as I'd like to. Consider these photos a celebration, a reminder about how life renews itself despite human efforts sometimes to pretend that's not what's needed to keep our one world functioning, healthy and spinning.

APPLES IN MY MOTHER'S CEMETERY, IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, MID OCTOBER

WINESAP APPLES, NEAR MY HOME,  LATE SEPTEMBER

HERITAGE APPLES, IN A MASSACHUSETTS FOOD COOP, MID OCTOBER

 As we all probably know, apple seeds are inside all these picked fruit! However, not all "seed pods" are as delicious as single juicy apple....

AND CERTAINLY NOT THESE BEAN PODS

THESE HEIRLOOM TOMATOES HAVE DELICIOUS SEEDS.

 I took both these milkweed seed photos in New England -- but they do the same thing down here in eastern Kentucky.  To catch the seeds with their spectacular "wings", the trick is to find them between "ready to fly off" and "dry weather that is not yet too windy".

MILKWEED

Now some leaves, starting with these two photos of YELLOW-POPLAR leaves:

IN THE POND

IN GEORGE ELLA AND STEVE'S YARD

 

MY DRIVEWAY WONDER

DOGWOOD

ON NEWLY PAVED "SIDEWAY ROAD"

TRYING OUT MY NEW 50mm LENS!

FOR THE RECORD - IS THIS AN INVASIVE TREE OF HEAVEN? IF NOT, WHAT IS IT?

FUTURE SOIL, A FEW YEARS FROM NOW

 

SOME CAME FROM THESE EMPTY LIMBS.

OTHER LEAVES END UP ON THE POND.

MOSTLY BEECH

This is enough for today.  I now "leaves" you until next week.

P.S. A repeat. This is what the web says about the FAIR:
KFAC’s annual Appalachian Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair will be held at the Laughlin Health Building on December 2, 2016, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. The Appalachian Arts and Crafts Fair offers visitors a wide and varied selection of regional arts and crafts, ranging from the traditional to the cutting edge, and it includes holiday decorations. More than 100 vendors participate.

barn moments, part 2 of the second visit

post #340
         I have returned from Indiana -- home today after a whole week away -- and now I get to share the rest of the photos from that overcast afternoon in Jonathan's barn.  They are partly a record, partly intriguing, and partly just visually interesting to me. 
         At the same time, I'm eager to see what progress has been made while I've been gone. 

refiguring the posts, one by one

homemade plow handles

lumber to be reused

the new side to replace the weathered side

And nearby is Annie and Jean's root cellar, with over 50 years of use.

   Two final photos for tonight, 1) a view of where some neighbors live, and 2) my granddaughter -- unsolicited -- making like a Minnie Adkins rooster outside the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead, Kentucky.

        Note: When I can, I have decided to add a grandchild photo to every post, as a kind of acknowledgement of the next generation -- for whom we should be making the world better, every day.

returns, to the folk art, to our place, and to the milkweed

post #235
     Yesterday I finally returned to the KY Folk Art Center to redo some photos I made a week ago, this time using my good camera instead of my iPhone.  I am much happier with the results, though who knows if the difference is noticeable on this blog.  But since I do these posts mostly for my own happiness, it has been worth the extra effort.  So, as a follow-up to  last week's post, here, now, are two more photos of that intriguing laundry scene by Robbie Mueller:

       Back home, until the neighbors come over to mow our fields, I asked for a temporary single path to the barn!  It turns out to be a wonderful thing to try to make a photo of.  These are three of my tries, the last one being with my 70-300 lens, the first two with the 124-105 lens.

 


       I share the next two photos as a way to think about how to hold the camera. You can see the two same bugs on the flowers in each photo, so it is clearly the same bunch of daisies, but I think the photos look quite different, which fascinates me.  You may or may not agree, but I'm just saying.

       Then late in last night's evening light, I drove the car up to the milkweed plants at the end of our driveway that I had photographed for a year beginning in June 2013.  Last year they were pitiful, but this year they once again seem to be flourishing.  Maybe they have loved all the rain we had in April. Or something like that. I took the car so I could sit in the driver's seat, with the window down, and use my trusty bean bag on that window ledge as a way to hold the camera steady in that low light. The wind has mostly stopped blowing by then; all is quiet and full of wonder.

       There remain two photos, of quirky visitors to our place.  Though all are welcome, some, like the deer, are pretty hard to live with sometimes, especially when it comes to sharing the garden.

a visitor on our cow bell doorbell

a visitor on our steps

          THANKS FOR BEING A VISITOR -- perhaps quirky, perhaps not -- TO THIS BLOG!

Kentucky Folk Art's A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

post #234
       Yesterday was overcast and therefore not too warm -- a great day for a Folk Art Fair outdoors and for the annual gathering of renowned folk artists in the Morehead Conference Center.  The new exhibit at the Kentucky Folk Art Center nearby, called "Come We to the Summer," is wonderful.  I took just a few photos at the exhibit and inside the Conf. Center and on the street between them, photos meant just to share the experience; they are not meant to be art works in themselves! (NOTE on 6/14: redid both these photos with my better camera yesterday.)

 two of my favorite pieces, by Lonnie and Twyla Money, in the exhibit

butterflies in a bottle!

       For some reason, this last piece I am showing from the exhibit really caught my fancy. I didn't have my good camera with me at the time, so I have not done the work justice.  I was lucky enough to be able to talk to the artist himself later when I was next in the Conference Center where the folk artists each had a display area.  We talked some about the emotions connected to hanging out laundry. I too love to take photos of laundry in the sun, and he had an additional laundry work of art at his "booth".  NOTE: will redo this laundry photo on next week's blog.  Please take a look!

         Of course I asked for permission to take his photo, with a Lincoln sculpture he had sold that day.  Thank you, Robbie Mueller (www.folkartkentucky.com)!
      

       Outside I visited the booth of an Elliott County artist, Linda Johnson, who is fearless with a needle and thread.  I love her granny doll, based on her own grandmother, which is not for sale.  She needed to bring her to a family reunion happening today and tomorrow. The doll's hair is in a bun in the back, and her slip is designed to show below the dress, just like for real.

        And I ask you, what is the fun of a folk art fair without some singing and strumming!  Here are two photos of Thomas Albert, who brings so much energy to his playing -- and whom I have known since he was a youngster.  I caught him with his "wry look", and then while he was performing with a friend.  I missed a good photo of an earlier group featuring Jesse Wells from Morehead State University's Kentucky Center for Traditional Music.

      All in all, a very good day.  I will share more next week, but I am off soon to Berea, Kentucky, for the memorial celebration for Jean Ritchie, one of Kentucky's musical treasures, who died last week at age 92.  Such a generous spirit.  Her Appalachian dulcimer playing, her songs, her beautiful voice, and her kindness will long resonate in these parts.