MY STUDIO
Saturday, August 27, 2011
My House
ONLY ONE THING COULD INDUCE ME TO SELL THIS:
The following are a few pictures of my home.
Front yard.
Back yard (with Duke in it).
Side street yard, fence, garage.
Front porch.
Living room from staircase.
Living room from front door.
Dining room into ktichen.
Living room from dining room.
Staircase.
Front bedroom, one of the walk-in closet doors.
Front bedroom, the other walk-in closet door.
Doorway from kitchen into dining room.
Showing woodwork between dining room and living room.
The brasswork matches throughout the house, as does the woodwork.
I may well have more photos to add to this collection, but for now this will do.
So, what one thing could induce me to sell this place?
SEE NEXT POST.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Gold Standard
It was that misty gold when you just happen to catch a ray of sunrise coming through the ground fog, or in this case more likely through residual harvest haze as the grain harvest is in progress east of us. This morning I woke and opened my eyes into it, gazed for a moment, smiled, and went back to sleep. It's gone now, of course, as the sun is well up, but that moment of softly glowing gold is mine always.
One time, driving east into the most powerful sunrise I can remember, the road dipped down into a little foggy valley just as the sun hit it. Suddenly I couldn't see beyond the interior of my vehicle, but I was not looking at anything inside right then. It was the golden glow surrounding me that had all of my attention. As though the rest of the world had disappeared, all I could see was the softly glowing gold mist. I wanted to stop right there and stay forever.
I don't know how or why it happens, the diffusion of sunrise through fog or haze that creates the phenomenon, but it's downright beautiful.
Heh. I've been accused of being lost in a fog at times. I tell you: if I ever DO have to be lost in a fog I surely hope it's one like that. It's MUCH nicer than the ones that turn the world around you a cold impenetrable white just when you're trying to get somewhere in a hurry.
They say, and I believe it, that some of us in our older years go back. If it should happen to me I hope I go back into that golden gift, and stay there.
One time, driving east into the most powerful sunrise I can remember, the road dipped down into a little foggy valley just as the sun hit it. Suddenly I couldn't see beyond the interior of my vehicle, but I was not looking at anything inside right then. It was the golden glow surrounding me that had all of my attention. As though the rest of the world had disappeared, all I could see was the softly glowing gold mist. I wanted to stop right there and stay forever.
I don't know how or why it happens, the diffusion of sunrise through fog or haze that creates the phenomenon, but it's downright beautiful.
Heh. I've been accused of being lost in a fog at times. I tell you: if I ever DO have to be lost in a fog I surely hope it's one like that. It's MUCH nicer than the ones that turn the world around you a cold impenetrable white just when you're trying to get somewhere in a hurry.
They say, and I believe it, that some of us in our older years go back. If it should happen to me I hope I go back into that golden gift, and stay there.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Side Track
This is a side track I haven't explored.
It's located off the main trail of Phantom Canyon in Colorado.
Side tracks ... they can be some of the most beautiful places in the world.
One of these days I'll follow this one to see where it goes.
An Interesting Phenomenon
On a truly lovely day in August my drive home to central Dakota from the Cities (Mpls/St. Paul, MN) was relaxing. It was an easy drive for once, no blizzards to contend with.
I was just puttering along at the speed limit watching the scenery and the cars passing me. When we lived in Colorado my daughters and I often checked out the license plates of the cars passing us, so I'm kind of in the habit.
The variety is wonderful, I have to mention that. North Dakota has only a couple of different ones, but Minnesota has quite a few, and most of them have birds or flowers or canoes, very pretty.
Anyway, on this drive I was casually glancing at them as they went by. At one point I realized that of the last twenty or so state plates I'd seen, only two had been either North Dakota or Minnesota.
That area is one that I drive through on a fairly regular basis. I habitually notice the car plates. This was the first time I'd noticed a preponderence of out of state vehicles in an area where normally the ratio is predictably predominantly ND/MN.
So that's the phenomenon. There were East Coast plates, West Coast plates, Deep South plates, plates from all over the place.
I found myself wondering what on earth so many out-siders were doing in our neck of the woods, where they were heading, and what they were going to do when they got there.
It's not hunting season, which is a time when outside plates are more common. They could have been college students heading for NDSU or UND, except that most of the vehicles carried people in their middle or later years. That also kind of discounts the possibility that they were headed for the oil fields in western ND.
Whoever they were, wherever they were going, I hope they had sense enough to be looking around as they drove through. The beautiful day was a perfect backdrop for MN trees, green pastures, and the blue of their water. If the people were paying attention they would have noticed that the grain crops are starting to come off the fields, leaving expanses of stubble as a symbol of bread and pasta to come! The corn is tall and the beans are just beginning to glow with maturation.
It was indeed a lovely drive, and the variety of state license plates from all over gave me a puzzle to think about as I went along. By the time I hit the border things were back to normal, but for a while there I had to remind myself by looking at the scenery that I wasn't back in CO doing a tourist tally with my daughters!
I was just puttering along at the speed limit watching the scenery and the cars passing me. When we lived in Colorado my daughters and I often checked out the license plates of the cars passing us, so I'm kind of in the habit.
The variety is wonderful, I have to mention that. North Dakota has only a couple of different ones, but Minnesota has quite a few, and most of them have birds or flowers or canoes, very pretty.
Anyway, on this drive I was casually glancing at them as they went by. At one point I realized that of the last twenty or so state plates I'd seen, only two had been either North Dakota or Minnesota.
That area is one that I drive through on a fairly regular basis. I habitually notice the car plates. This was the first time I'd noticed a preponderence of out of state vehicles in an area where normally the ratio is predictably predominantly ND/MN.
So that's the phenomenon. There were East Coast plates, West Coast plates, Deep South plates, plates from all over the place.
I found myself wondering what on earth so many out-siders were doing in our neck of the woods, where they were heading, and what they were going to do when they got there.
It's not hunting season, which is a time when outside plates are more common. They could have been college students heading for NDSU or UND, except that most of the vehicles carried people in their middle or later years. That also kind of discounts the possibility that they were headed for the oil fields in western ND.
Whoever they were, wherever they were going, I hope they had sense enough to be looking around as they drove through. The beautiful day was a perfect backdrop for MN trees, green pastures, and the blue of their water. If the people were paying attention they would have noticed that the grain crops are starting to come off the fields, leaving expanses of stubble as a symbol of bread and pasta to come! The corn is tall and the beans are just beginning to glow with maturation.
It was indeed a lovely drive, and the variety of state license plates from all over gave me a puzzle to think about as I went along. By the time I hit the border things were back to normal, but for a while there I had to remind myself by looking at the scenery that I wasn't back in CO doing a tourist tally with my daughters!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Informal Survey of Women over Seventy
The women in my informal survey range in age from seventy to over one hundred.
These are the women who were born between 1910 and 1940. They represent mothers and daughters who are now grown into their later years.
They are children of pioneers, some of them immigrating as younglings with their parents, some of them heading West in covered wagons (where the railroads hadn't reached yet) with their families to homestead in areas still available early in the last century.
They are children of families established in America before there was a United States.
They are daughters of America, mothers of America, grandmothers of America. They are our Elders.
The oldest remember the pioneering treks. They remember WWI. They remember the Roaring Twenties. They remember the Dirty Thirties. They remember WWII. They remember the Fifties. They remember the Tumultous Sixties. They remember the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties.
We know these women, we love these women, we respect these women.
So.
Why am I bringing them up? It's not even close to Mother's Day, what's to be maudlin about?
One of the last things these women are is maudlin.
They are realists who have made it through worse times than any of us are likely to face in our lives.
Oh. The point?
The survey question?
One of my friends, who happens to be over a hundred years old, said something out of the blue quite a while ago. Recently someone else said something similar so I started asking around for the opinions of everyone over seventy that I know.
Men or women in politics, in Washington, in the White House?
Every one (except for one who said she didn't know) of the women I asked said women. Some thought about it for quite a while, others paused, some answered immediately.
These women are not feminists; they are not activists; they are not 'politically inclined'. They're just ordinary little old ladies.
Some of their reasons why: "It's time." "The men have messed things up long enough." "I hate to say this, but I'm afraid the women are going to have to clean things up." "Women are tougher than men."
I ought to have kept track, written it all down, recorded it or something. I didn't because as I say this was just an informal survey, a question spurred by women of that age group bringing up the subject and asked out of curiosity. I guess I asked maybe thirty just in passing over the last three weeks. It's not a big important thing but as the answers continued to add up, it did have an impact on me.
Just sayin'.
These are the women who were born between 1910 and 1940. They represent mothers and daughters who are now grown into their later years.
They are children of pioneers, some of them immigrating as younglings with their parents, some of them heading West in covered wagons (where the railroads hadn't reached yet) with their families to homestead in areas still available early in the last century.
They are children of families established in America before there was a United States.
They are daughters of America, mothers of America, grandmothers of America. They are our Elders.
The oldest remember the pioneering treks. They remember WWI. They remember the Roaring Twenties. They remember the Dirty Thirties. They remember WWII. They remember the Fifties. They remember the Tumultous Sixties. They remember the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties.
We know these women, we love these women, we respect these women.
So.
Why am I bringing them up? It's not even close to Mother's Day, what's to be maudlin about?
One of the last things these women are is maudlin.
They are realists who have made it through worse times than any of us are likely to face in our lives.
Oh. The point?
The survey question?
One of my friends, who happens to be over a hundred years old, said something out of the blue quite a while ago. Recently someone else said something similar so I started asking around for the opinions of everyone over seventy that I know.
Men or women in politics, in Washington, in the White House?
Every one (except for one who said she didn't know) of the women I asked said women. Some thought about it for quite a while, others paused, some answered immediately.
These women are not feminists; they are not activists; they are not 'politically inclined'. They're just ordinary little old ladies.
Some of their reasons why: "It's time." "The men have messed things up long enough." "I hate to say this, but I'm afraid the women are going to have to clean things up." "Women are tougher than men."
I ought to have kept track, written it all down, recorded it or something. I didn't because as I say this was just an informal survey, a question spurred by women of that age group bringing up the subject and asked out of curiosity. I guess I asked maybe thirty just in passing over the last three weeks. It's not a big important thing but as the answers continued to add up, it did have an impact on me.
Just sayin'.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Faith, Hope, and Love
I pledge allegience to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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