Slight delay, but here's some words and photos, two weeks and a day since the last time...

    I have been out and about -- Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.   I've seen beautiful flowers, and some hillsides covered with kudsu:

      There were mountains to cross, fabulous back roads, people to answer my questions along the way, an outdoors memorial gathering to celebrate a life well lived and loved, in addition to visits with good friends -- in SW Virginia and SE Kentucky, where I am this day. I continue on to Lexington tomorrow and home I HOPE tomorrow night.  This trip required wearing many masks, and giving reduced hugs, if any, and using safe protocols all along.  Still it reaffirmed that conversations are even more valued than ever, and I sure hope no more unnecessary deaths happen when those who can get a vaccine don't bother to do it.  PLEASE DO IT.

    One special geography event happened while driving through Tennesee -- I crossed over the French Broad [River] six times! I wasn't able to take photos, except when I discovered a no longer used "Boat ramp".

    

I will finish this later tonight - I am about to go for a ride on a KAWASAKI MULE through damp and beautiful Kentucky trails through the forest where I am on this wet weather day.    Be safe everyone. 

the morning room in the Inn where several of us stayed in North Carolina -- warmed coffee cups!

WHAT I AM SEEING WHILE WORKING ON THIS POST.... "Don't even think of using this chair! "

September! 2021! The world is being tested! Me, too!

    There has been one thing for sure -- a lot has been going on.  And there are strong feelings about everything.  

    Just for the record, I am distressed about many things, like school starting and there's not yet a vaccine for young children and yet some schools have faculty and staff who are not required to have gotten the vaccine! What are they thinking!  We wouldn't even be here on this earth if we hadn't taken the multitude of vaccines developed over the years. I'm old enough to remember not being allowed to swim in pools in order to avoid polio and an iron lung -- until the vaccine came along.  I was tested for our current virus this week, just to be sure about an incident, and all was well. It took 3 minutes.

    In many countries, many people have helped Americans do the jobs they were sent to do. Now many of them need a safe haven here in the USA. We are about to have our country enriched by what Afghans will contribute to our national life.  It must be wrenching to have to leave one's native land, leaving every familiiar thing behind.

     I don't understand why there is so much angst about a woman making choices about her own body.  Men do it all the time. It's very suspicious that it is mostly men who push for policies that don't apply to them.  Also, speaking broadly, I don't see much action or even concern about providing care for kids once they are born.  

    Then we have been reminded about storms that are increasingly fierce, and vast areas that are confronting drought and fires, all over the world, not just in the USA, while waters are rising from one shining sea and many others.

    Anyone who reads this probably knows every bit of what I have mentioned, but these past weeks many issues seem to have felt more loaded and interconnected.

    Enough of the tricky stuff of great magnitude, for tonight anyway.  I do have a few photos to share.  Doing this blog every other week now gives it a different rhythm, and it is takiing me awhile to adjust, after doing it weekly for the past 11 years. In any case, after this "big picture" stuff, I have a few simple details from daily life.

Cloud of the Week

Wildflowers (weeds) of the Week

Talk about a SPECIAL DELIVERY!

Olive Hill, Kentucky

    Recently, TOM T. HALL, a well know country singer and teller of stories in his songs, died in August. He came from Olive Hill, near where I live. It's not a fancy place, but there still some tributes to him in the downtown area. Our family has had some favorites by him over the years, mine being "Sneaky Snake".  I had made a quick visit to the Post Office and saw this then.  Next I went to the Mexican Restaurant, while I was in the "big city!"

 

    I also saw some cattails in a border planting near by.  Looks more like a hot dog to me than a cat tail, however, but what do I know!!  

    Then, at home, there was the repair project on the steps the previous owner of my house had made. Rumor has it that he loved working with the stones.  My friend Carolyn took on this task, since 1) she is kind, 2) she is very resourceful and grew up on a working ranch in Kansas, and 3) she likes to try new things.  The picture of her shows which step needed to be worked on.

 

 

I actually did this part, but not until the sun had gone way down..... We had 12 hours of rain ahead of us, so it seemed better not to drown the still wet cement on its first night out....


OK, now for a short video, during one of my evening walks on my deserted road at that time of day/night.  As always, I never feel confident it is going to work but it usually does. 

summer sweep up 2021

    Tonight is another attempt to share a sense of things, but there won't be a video segment.  Instead, the reality is that there were many good times this month, but I would also run out of energy.  And it didn't help that the weather stayed warm and there wasn't rain to keep the pond cleaner..  (No hurricane here, such as HENRI, now in New England.  It has taken me back to my childhood which had Long Island Sound as a part of it.)

     I had hoped to have figured out how to transfer photos I use on Instagram to this blog.  I want to share some of the early Instagram photos and the captions I use.  It can be done. It will be done. The only way I learn is to try to do it.  So maybe by two weeks from now, by the next post, I will have figured it out. I share all this "behind the brain" thinking because it's part of what photography brings to my table.

    I hope my family and friends in New England are safe and have electric power tonight, but the odds are against every one of them not losing electricity power.  ( I just hope the Congress doesn't lose its power, while the struggle to guarantee democratic voting continues.  So much is at stake. I also welcome new refugees to our country! In fact, we need them here, just as we needed them in Afghanistan. We are better because we are a nation of immigrants, as has often been said.)   

Photo roaming, from small bits up high and on down, to the floor, with cousins:

laying out your cards

 

the one day we could use the pond:

 then some small moments at the small pond at my house:

            

Be safe, believe in science, wear a mask in school, & Happy Birthday to twins Laura and Leah!,

    

 

happy times, mid August, 2021

           During the last two weeks, there have been happy moments along side the heat and the rising COVID illnesses because of not enough vaccines being given and the tragic damage being done by The Big Lie, along with all the other lies.

        Twice I have been surprised by the evening light.  I love its random showing off appearances. 

        I went to an art exhibit I didn't know existed, in the downtown Lexington Public Library, which I didn't know had reopened to the public.  

        We had a week of kids and cousins, not large in number, but an important summer tradition. The weather gave us some limitations this year, but lemonade was made from the hot lemons.   

        Tonight I am just going to put some photos on this blog, and, once again, I hope, at the end, there will be a short video.   

        

 

    

 

I get such a kick out of this bookworm!!!

 

photo by Rebecca Wright

multiple puzzles completed:

This last photo was made this afternoon in Louisville, for the trip home for the Denver cousins. I drove them there, and since they were unaccompanied minors, I had to wait until the wheels were in the air before I could leave the airport.  This is their plane.... It did leave soon thereafter. I then drove home!  Five hours of driving!! I should be in bed by now instead of postlng all this on my blog, but sometimes I can't help myself.  Here's hoping each of you has had some happy moments this month.

New England, part 2 of 2

        Finally I've mostly caught up with myself after the 12 days away.  I have some more photos to share  -- and memories too.  I'm so grateful for all the support friends and family gave me along the way.

         Many magnificent trees are on the Smith campus.  Hardly anyone was around when I was there, in late July. I had hoped to see inside the new library, but it's not yet open to the public, as I explained last week.

     The broader view of the botanical gardens at Smith, and the back view of my dorm when I was a student.  (See the previous blog for two other photos.)

I spent the night in town with a dear friend, Maureen, who used to live in Kentucky.  The first of the next two photos is a tiny neighborhood library -- or book exchange -- which she oversees.

        It's based on the house where her apartment is, up the hill from the street.
Northampton has many such lovely old large houses.

    Maureen took me to see the Quaker Meeting in downtown Northampton, MA.  I asked her to sit on the bench as we would do for Quaker Meeting.  I love the smile she shared and the simplicity of the room and benches.

   Then it was back to Boothbay Harbour, Maine, for the first night's cousins meal.  My sister, Robin, the night's chef, in the hat, seems to have caused multiple cleaned plates.... totally tasty pesto with her own basil.
   

All is ready for the next night, same view

These are probably Canada geese, but we were hoping for some species of exotic water fowl.

Also in Maine:  I was able to stay a night with my second cousin, Doug, on our mother's side.  He and Holly and 4 of his brothers and families live in Wayne.  Doug and I stopped here while doing some errands "in town".

I liked the comment in the lower right hand of this poster in the store.

!

    To end, I will try as always for one or two short videos, the first along the street friends Judy and Gwen live on in Hamden, CT, near New Haven.  Flowers everywhere in the small yards of most of the homes!

        The other one will have to wait until I get brave again.  Could happen very soon.  In any case, I will be back in two weeks for some more sharing.  PLEASE STAY HEALTHY EVERYONE.  School will be starting very soon, and our kids deserve to go to school safely, and that logically includes everyone wearing a mask for the time being.  Don't get brain washed! Instead use the brain to see the reasons for the need now to be as careful as possible.