From the Farmer's Market This Week

Blueberries

Campfire

One of my favorite summer activities is camping.  The days of tent camping are over for me, but I do enjoy a nice cabin, preferably beside of a river.  We found such a place a few years ago, and look forward to visiting every year, just after Independence Day.  What are you looking forward to this summer?

Comeback Bloggers for Friday, June 17, 2016

ARE YOU READY TO WRITE? Here's the post for June 17: Music Hath Such Power—almost everyone likes music. Every culture and civilization has its music. What particular experience do you have with music—one song? One piece? One performance? One event?

Miles Davis circa 1959

My musical talent extends only as a far as my ability to listen to a piece and determine whether or not I will listen to it again at some point.  A CD I frequently return to is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.  It is regarded as a masterpiece of improvisation in the jazz world, with very little direction provided by Miles to the rest of the band.  There is some speculation now that the entire album was not recorded in one take, as previously thought.  In fact, only the track Flamenco Sketches was supposedly improvised in just one take.  While I never had the chance to see Miles perform, I did have the fortune of hearing Chris Botti perform  several of the tracks from Kind of Blue a number of years ago. 

Stormy Weather

Stormy Weather

Recently, we have had some very stormy weather, very typical for this time of year in the Southeast.  One particularly bad storm drove those of us who were still on campus into one of the audiology booths, one of the safest places that you can be.  Happy Friday everyone, and be safe!

Hospital House

In the town where I work, there is a house, built in the 1800s, that is rumored to be very, very haunted.  This picture was taken in January 2016 while 18++ inches of snow accumulated on the ground.  The house was converted to apartments a number of years ago.  The landlord told me that he has never been able to keep the basement apartment occupied for one full academic year, because of strange noises and apparitions.  Do you believe in ghosts?

Ernest Hemingway is One of My Favourite Authors

My favorite summer time read and one that I re-read every summer is A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.  It is about Hemingway's time in Paris with his first wife, Hadley.  Of the many memorable passages in this book, my most favorite is the following:

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

With this passage, Hemingway makes me want to eat oysters.  And I don't even like oysters.  

Beauty in an Unlikely Place

Flowers can be so very hearty at times.  I found this one, on a morning walk, blooming between the sidewalk and an old apartment building.  Such unexpected color in an unlikely place on a hot, muggy morning.  What was your unexpected "find" this week?

@ The Blue Ridge Mountains

Mountains in the SE

As many of you know, summers in the Southeastern U.S.A. can become sticky and unbearable.  The mountains, however, almost always offer cool weather, at least at varying times during the long days and nights.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are one of my favorite day-escapes from The City.  Where do you go when the weather becomes very hot?

Old Gravestones

I work in a small town.  It is a pleasant place, a place where everyone knows everyone else.  The area is replete with a number of cemeteries, some of which are very old, with gravestones dating back to the early 1700s.  Some are well-maintained, while others are hidden in the woods or buried behind grocery stores, restaurants, and the like.  I like walking through old graveyards, wondering what life was like for these folks.  

It Had To Be You....

Meet Broadway Joe

He is a rescue who refused to get out of the car.  I call that a smart cat.  He is about 3 months old, perhaps a bit small for his age, according to the vet.  Here, he is resposed on the couch.  We have two homes - one where the job is, and one where life is.  Joe, or Joe-Joe, has become an excellent traveling companion who simply sleeps in his carrier until we arrive @ our destination.