Horse going for the record as the Worlds biggest living horse...he is mighty big

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=367291&shu=1

My garden so far...

Down in the veggie garden...I was playing with bumble bees...this handsome fellow didn't mind my being there, he loves my chives!


This is the veggie garden...so far...there's some lettuce up that had reseeded from last year (yay!) The little buckets here and there are being filled with whatever stones I find to add to my path (yes, all those stones came from this little patch of ground! I didn't have to have them delivered.)


This is the flower garden by my house...it's filling in nicely...columbine and iris (and more chive) are currently in bloom...and there are a few weeds to be pulled, I'll get to them...eventually...but this weekend, I constructed my annual morning glory twig trellis (or a in this case, a tepee)...this one is made from pieces of the Granny lilac tree that had died off and I had cut away last spring...I was amazed how sturdy the branches still are...by August, it will be covered with heavenly blue! (Those stones are the delivered kind, that's our drainage, not a garden path.)

The Iris after rain...

There are patches of wild flowers here and there...I really love phlox...


This hydrangea is an old bush, she's way over my head...some of her was broken by a heavy early snow last fall, my Fred had to cut her, but she's still loaded with blooms again this year, just like last year...and there are plenty of new shoots to replace what she lost...oh, she's so pretty!

Well, that's what's in my garden so far...

Here's one more picture of my bumble bee friend...what a cutie pie...tho' I wouldn't want to piss him off...but at the moment, he was happy as can be(e)!

On Flowers in the garden and "Gritty Realism"

This is the "Granny" of lilacs...she's a big ole girl and lives happily in my yard, she's so tall, I can look out my bedroom window and see these gorgeous blooms when I open my eyes in the morning...the season for lilacs does not last long enough! They're beginning to fade...usually, since we're cooler here in the 'upper elevations', my lady outlasts the lilacs in the city below, but this year has been so peculiar, they bloomed earlier...usually I would have her lingering into June...on her shady side, I found a few blooms that have not yet started to turn brown, they break my heart they're so beautiful!


But now, just in time for Memorial Day, the spirea has started to bloom by my porch (don't they look like a shower of fireworks?), this one on the corner has overwhelmed my variegated hosta below! I'll trim it back after she finishes blooming so the hosta can breathe!

Next week the Irises will be in bloom...the stalks with the buds have come up these last few warm days, and there are little yellow points at the top...soon, very soon!

The little chipmunk mommy has been visiting for 'eats' at the hand pump in the morning, I got lucky with the camera and snapped a quick shot of her before she ran off...

I've been on vacation, and spending much of my time in the garden, I have made some new artwork (I will post later at Follow Your Bliss), and made progress with some of my writing...weeding always helps with working out the plot knots in the brain...unfortunately, my back hasn't been too pleased with my being in the garden, I take frequent breaks, rest, read, write, make art, then go back, do a little more...and repeat the process...Max has been loving the time outside...
He often finds a shady and weedy place just like this one and "vanishes" from sight, which often sends me searching for him, calling his name (becoming frantic) and I'll finally catch site of those ears perking above the tall grass...and then the wagging tail ("I'm right here, can't you see me wagging my tail?")...eventually, he tips over and shows me his "stuff"...but you don't need to see his stuff...and I think he'd be very embarrassed if I photographed his exposed belly (he is very camera shy) and then posted it on my blog for the world to see!

I've been spending lots of porch time with the laptop doing edits on my novel The Fractured Hues of White Light, which I'm hoping to have published this summer...I was tweaking a paragraph in Chapter 7 today and then something hit me and I started writing fresh new lines...this paragraph I have dismembered and put back together several times over the course of two weeks, and now this! Oh I was joyfully writing, and then after I was done I couldn't believe I did this! What the hell am I doing? This book is done, why am I adding new work? But no, it isn't new, Samantha and Guthrie are still walking on the beach, they're still having the same discussion...the memory from a long time ago is there, only left unsaid between them, and I reminded them of it, and it just came together beautifully. (Deep sigh) I love when that happens! This work that I do...writing...I'm still trying to get a handle on it...even ten years after I started really doing it...it's still a mystery to me, the "how come" of it. (I can still hear that voice in my head saying "Why can't you write something nice?", it's usually said in my mother's voice...you know the one, that nagging vicious critic.)

Last night, while reading The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973-1982, I found a passage from 1975 that she wrote about her writing process...I have read dozens of her books, have admired her work since I was a teenager when I first read Wonderland, and now I'm finally reading the things that I've needed to "hear" as a writer...this is a small part that I read last night...

"Gritty realism" and that sort of thing. "Uncompromising." "Lifts the lid off." Etc. One does want that - but more, far more. ... The challenge is to wed the naturalistic and the symbolic, the realistic and the abstract, the utterly convincing story and the parable...that is, to bring together the psychological and the mythic in one character at all moments...and to wed time and eternity in a seamless whole. So it is rather like walking a tightrope. One does want surface realism, but one wants just as much an allegorical or mythic universality, relating not to surfaces but to the inner experience, the life of the soul itself. Those who do not believe in the "soul" will hate this kind of writing, not knowing what it attempts; those who do not believe in the "world" (because they are very religious, or politically conservative, or neurotic) will detest the naturalism, the feel of "gritty reality" even when it isn't gritty but is rather attractive. Only those readers who are, somehow, in the center...as I am...who share my vision, however unclear it is...necessarily unclear...will be able to respond to my work without distorting or misreading or rejecting it. This is a risk I take gladly. Though perhaps I have no choice. (Joyce Carol Oates, January 12, 1975)

I couldn't have said it better myself! She wrote this when I was just beginning to think of this stuff (12 going on 13) , I knew then that I wanted to write books, and there were stories inside my head, but I didn't have the words yet...and my penmanship was crappy. Now the words have arrived (thank goodness for laptops), and are in print. (Some of them.) I know what it is that I'm trying to do with my books...and just reading this section of her journal last night made me feel 'right' about what I've done with Dusty Waters and the others...these prickly little novels of mine...they are mine, I take ownership of them, the words, and I love my characters to pieces...I'm just so happy to have finally made them, to commit my time and energy toward the effort of making them...

I have no choice. This is what comes. It hasn't been easy writing them, the immersion is so complete while writing...making a drawing or a painting feels so fantastic, it's more immediate, I get my hands dirty, and then I'm done...writing is a whole different beast...more demanding...time consuming, all consuming...exhausting...terrible and beautiful. I love it. I'm addicted to it...it's like waking from a dream, a sleep with no rest...

Very strange. It is very strange indeed.

A collection of stuff I've seen the last 24 hours...

Help, I'm too fat...I can't get up! Fatty Woo just had a belly rub, that's why he looks so ruffled! I can't resist that softness...must bury my face into that purring blubber!

The lilacs are gorgeous this year...the acre smells very very sweet!
but the winds have been a little rough on them...
I picked up these pieces and put them in this jadite bowl...the color combination is so pretty!

With spring comes romance...

...even the buzzards are enjoying mating season...well, its something you don't see every day...


And my Max...enjoying the day in the shade...although I see this nearly every day...he's a special good boy! He looks good with yellow...

Speaking of yellow...there's a filly named Rachael Alexandra wearing the Black-eyed Susan's in Baltimore...(you go, girl!)

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

The Pot o' Gold in full bloom

Today is my birthday, turning 47, no big deal. Sunshine and windy, downpours and thunder...it wouldn't be my birthday without a thunderstorm, I was born during a storm that knocked out the power in the town of Lyons, and the nurse had to hold the flashlight during the delivery...always a funny story...my dad remembers it well, and always tells how he came home after it was all over with and looking out the back door at the flowers, gold alyssum glowing in the saturated evening light...this flower always blooms on (or around) my day...and we have always called it "Pot o' Gold"...it's also rainbow season too, goes along with the storms...

This was a photo taken last year...it's nice living up here so close to the sky!

I've had a lovely day, I got a new sketch box easel from my Fred, a panini pan (from my Fred too, but I ordered it online after he searched the city for this specific panini pan and couldn't find it or one like it that was within our budget...). My Fred took me out to dinner to our favorite Little Thai place, I had my most favorite dish, chicken with green curry paste (it's like eating spicy candy) our son has baked brownies and there's panda paws ice cream for later...mmmmmmm....brownies and panda paws...

I spent time in the garden, I've spent time working on my other novel, The Fractured Hues of White Light, and I've done this that and the other...it's stormy outside now, dark clouds and blustery, no rain just yet, I may be able to sneak in a walk with Max before we set down to watch a movie...I still haven't decided what movie to watch...

The book signing was a week ago today, and I'm in that "place" in which I have to wonder if it really happened or not...pinch me. It was a success overall, we sold a few, and had a good time overall, no lingering regrets or anything like that. We've been invited to come back in July for another go. I've heard one report that one fellow's girlfriend read my book and said she liked it. (Really? I squeaked. You mean she didn't throw it down, stomp on it, call it a blasphemy, and then burn it in the backyard? Wow, cool...so maybe it isn't as bad as I thought, or maybe she's just open minded.) Well, I never know how people are going to react to such things...


Max is giving me his 'I gotta go potty' face, we should take a turn around the acre before it rains...he really doesn't like looking at the camera...

Silly boy!

National Free Comic Book Day...and my book signing at Fat Cats

Here I am at the book signing for local authors at Fat Cats in Johnson City NY...


Me and my Fred...and of course...I had my pencils and sketchbook on hand to keep my busy hands and mind busy while sitting still...


And to top off the day...the Kentucky Derby, Mine That Bird and Calvin Borel at 50-1
What an awesome bit of riding on a muddy track!


(photo by Robb Carr/AP)

A Poe-em

My lilacs...the buds...but the buds have gotten bigger since I took this photo on Friday...I'm glad the weather cooled down...things were popping too fast, too soon...my daffodils that JUST bloomed on Friday were ruined by Monday when it hit 90 degrees in the shade here on my acre...oy vey!

Anyway...spring has sprung, it's the last day of April...

I thought I put up a little poe-em...just because...why not? Ahem...

Full moon rising, the end of summer
A picnic feast, I see the endless blue horizon
and the haze—
Oh, I love the haze! What I would give for lack luster days—
Days bored out of my gourd with nothing to do.
Do and do over, everything—
Yes, everything—wait, but not all of everything,
there are many things,
Things worth keeping as they are.
The way things are, we smile and we laugh.
I stab my potato salad with my fork and gaze up,
up at the benign twilight sky—
The sky is fraught with the barn swallow air show—
Show offs! They swoop and dive, soaring,
soaring little masters of flight—
I’ll take flight! Thinking I could step out,
out into that cornfield, to disappear forever lost—
Lost and tormented by coyotes,
The coyotes persistent yapping,
Yapping and snapping so very nearly,
nearly driving me mad—Mad,
madness, ah, but I’ve got shit to do, so I better not—
It’s not worth the trouble.
The trouble is the moon—
the moon rising orange in the haze, big and full—
Full. I stare at my empty plate, I ate too much—
Much too much, I give my mind over to others,
others, not myself, for eight hours a day—
day after day, five days a week,
the week ends, the week begins,
begins again, it’s the cycle of my life—
Life. I get up and run into the cornfield—
The cornfield! I love its scent—
The sweet scent of things growing tall,
tall green stalks, husks and silk,
I am hidden from the world—
The world revolves, I walk following the moon—
The moon, pale orange, hazy indigo sky will guide me home again—
Again, I will find myself this time.

Well, that's it...yup, it's one of mine, I wrote it back in June 2000, and just recently revisited and revised...it just seems right for now...this poem is the early tremors for my new novel Layers of Illusion...it's simmering on the back burner while I work on other things...

One of the Daffodils before the heat killed it. Dang, they were so pretty too!

July in April

Coltsfoot in bloom...

What a little clamoring hoard!

I scrambled to get the pictures today, this hot weather has come too soon and I feared that these little fellows were going to go to seed before I took their portrait! I love this little thing...such an odd plant...it has made its home on the northern edge of our acre where I haven't really done too much to "develop" the garden...it's still half wild over there and littered with dead leaves and tangled with black berry briars...



...are you ready for your close-up?





To think that only a few days ago...Wednesday I think...there was snow in the air...now it's in the 80's and like summer...someone even fired up their lawnmower...we need some April Showers...

Spring's progress...

Pussy willows are beginning to flower, the Siberian Squill is becoming a blue carpet in one corner of my yard...and these tiny white violets are just overpowering with their sweet fragrance! Other things are beginning to bloom...watching, waiting, preparing...I'm enjoying the sunshine...puttering in the garden...

Spring ponderings...

Crocus and a honey bee...


and then more snow...

Pussy Willows...this bush was once a twig that my father rooted for me from the pussy willow bush at my childhood home...they're like kitty toes...

Speaking of kitty...

A handsome little pussy cat...Charlie...the good little naughty boy...we were napping together today...he made me mad early this morning because he got into my bag of seeds and ate the plastic bag that contained the brussel sprout seeds that my friend had given to me (of course he got sick and left a "present" on the floor to go along with the scatter of seeds all over the floor)...but how can anyone stay mad at that sweet little face...why are the little devils so angelic while they sleep?


The World of Pooh...a comfort book that has soothed me to sleep these last couple of weeks because of my back pain...


A hard cover full of Inspiration...a different kind of comfort...

A journal as an experiment in consciousness. An attempt to record not just the external world, and not just the vagrant, fugitive, ephemeral "thoughts" that brush against us like gnats, but the refractory and inviolable authenticity of daily life: daily-ness, day-ness, day-lightness, the day's eye of experience. -- Joyce Carol Oates, January 1, 1973

Comfort for the mind...