Saturday, July 11, 2009

In the midst of Summer...

The mornings are cool and refreshing.

I rise just after five and if Caspar is awake he comes out with me for a brisk little morning constitutional before the very best part of the day begins, - an hour or so in the garden while the sun is just casting long shadows on the tops of the mountains, and the valley is dew-kissed, cool and fragrant.



We warm up quickly here in this semi desert, and by eleven o'clock I am urging Charles inside, out of the heat and the bright sun.

So what do we do with the rest of the day, before the coolness of the evening descends again?

I am lazy, - I read the summer books that are light and entertaining. We nap a little, and lately my interest and imagination have been captured by the magic of digital editing.

Look, look what wonders you can create with just a click of the mouse!!!

At the risk of becoming boring, (because I have talked about this before) let me tell you more!!

A picture from the garden, which is magic in itself, can be transformed into any number of fascinating images.

A rose



gathers depth and contrasting shadows and light, and becomes a painting.....



A glorious stem of lilies is subdued and textured



and then is magically morphed into a lovely water colour...



The afternoon passes. Sometimes I think about the heat of the valley when we were younger and there were apricots and cherries and fuzzy, sticky peaches to pick, and we only had fans and a sprinkler running on the flat roof of the house, falling intermittently as it circled around and around, giving the illusion of cool rain.

Could I choose, what would be my druthers? Or would I just be grateful to have had the best of all worlds.....

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Sky Watch Friday

Wonderful sky-shows in the Similkameen this week....

On Monday, the moon illuminating a cloudy sky...



and on Tuesday, as it rose within a wisp of clouds....



Gentle pastel skies at sunset...



And today, the most impressive thunderclouds throughout the Similkameen and the Okanagan. So far just a beautiful threatening show of strength, - all great boiling, tumbling, fierce clouds along the hill tops, reaching far into the sky - no substance........





Click here
to see other beautiful sky pictures from around the world.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Learning how to Edit

What a fascinating evening I've been having, - starting from scratch and experimenting with all the software facets that instantly change a photo to a picture. I am endlessly intrigued....

This is one of the advantages of being ancient, - you have had the childhood wonder of discovery, and now you have the senior moments of amazement.

Here is a little bit of garden, as seen through the artistic eye of the camera.



The hollyhocks, watercoloured and crosshatched...



Some lilies, backed up by the great greenery of the barn flower.



A rosebud, enhanced...



And sometimes you get lucky and the loveliness of the 'picture' comes straight out of the Camera...



So much to learn and enjoy, - if time were only endless!

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

ABC Wednesday

Y is for YODELING

Wikipedia tells us a little of the technique of yodeling, but here is a wonderful example sung by the famous Canadian Balladeer, Wilf Carter, claimed with equal ardour in his birthplace in Nova Scotia and in the Canadian West where he put the cowboy culture to music.



"Yodeling involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register (or "chest voice") to the falsetto/head register; making a high-low-high-low sound. This vocal technique is used in many cultures throughout the world.

In Alpine folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss Alps as a method of communication between mountain peaks, later becoming part of the region's traditional music. In Persian and Azeri classical music, singers frequently use tahrir, a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbor tones. In Georgian traditional music, yodelling takes the form of krimanchuli technique, and is used as a top part in three/four part polyphony. In Central Africa, Pygmy singers use yodels within their elaborate polyphonic singing......" from Wikipedia

If you think you might have this talent for yodeling, the best place to practice are in spots with an echo - the shower, around a lake, the outdoors, down a long hallway, out riding in the mountains, out hiking, - not sure about walking the dog, - depends where you are and who's around. Some people without soul may react to yodeling in the same way they react to bagpipes....

We had a dear friend who sang and yodeled at parties, and now he is gone we miss his wonderful renditions of many of Wilf Carter's songs.

Y is not an easy Letter, but do go to ABC Wednesday and explore the other postings that feature Y.

Monday, July 06, 2009



Potpourri

We woke this morning to a soft rain, falling silently, - to the lovely smell of damp earth and the gentle sighs of thirsty plants.

In a little while the rain stopped, but the clouds and the sweet drops of water on leaf and petal lingered.







I opened my mail this morning and found an e-mail from Barbara Crafton, wherein she told of the July 4th celebration in the city of Florence, in Italy where she is at St. James Episcopal Church. I only meant to mention the last sentence in this post, where she tells of the singing of the American National Anthem, and the custom of placing one's hand over one's heart during the singing, - a gesture I find to be meaningful and expressive, no matter how casually it is done. And I wish it was the custom in Canada where sometimes the singing of O Canada is blatantly ignored.

But the whole posting from Barbara Crafton was so great I decided to post it in its entirety.

"We had a table at the annual Tuscan-American Association's Fourth of July party, so we brought out our stash of St James refrigerator magnets, pocket crosses and pocket cards of the Lord's Prayer in different languages, St. James aprons and St. James tote bags. We joined forces with Agape Italia's Malawi Project, which is building a school in a remote village there, and the cast of Macbeth, which is opening this Wednesday. Tuscany, Malawi, Shakespeare -- it was a melange of the kind that reminded me yet again why I like the Episcopal Church so much.

Everyone was there: Italian chefs serving up insalata de farro, a land-office business in bagels and cream cheese, nachos con queso with jalapeno peppers. MacDonald's had piles of cheeseburgers there for the taking, and volunteers grilled hundreds of hot dogs, the unmistakable symbol of American-ness here. There was a country music band. The mayor spoke, and the president of the Tuscan-American Association, and the American Consul General. Both the American and the Italian national anthems were played. There were pony rides for children and a few adults, who allowed themselves to be led incongruously around the field. The Macbeth cast gave a fight demonstration. A dancing school presented a very long program of everything from belly dancers to top-hatted showgirls in fishnet stockings, assisted briefly by an enthusiastic drunken man, who was helped gently off the stage by the dancing teacher.

The Medici, though long dead, had kindly loaned us their country estate in Pratolino: it is now a public park. We drove in toward their villa along an elegant avenue of plane trees, past an enormous statue of a giant, hewn in the 16th century out of one mammoth rock. The omnipresent Medici shield still anchors the corner of the building, but that is about the only sign of them. It's for the best: they wouldn't have enjoyed the party. They would have been appalled at sight of hundreds of people they didn't know swarming into their house and over their lawn. Doubtless they would have called out their guards, who would have made short work of us all. But the huge garrison and stable are empty now. And there are no more Medici.

It was time for the big production number at the end: all the dancers, the top-hatted showgirls, the Afghan tamborine dancers, the pink-tutued ballerinas, the blue-jeaned head-banded hippies who had given us their rendition of "Age of Aquarius," trooping around and around on the stage, bearing the Italain and the American flag while the loudspeaker blared "The Stars and Stripes Forever." And it was time to go home.

The winding descent toward Florence from the hills surrounding it was breathtaking: the patchwork of olive groves and vineyards, the dark rows of tall cypress trees, the umbrella-shaped Roman pines on the hilltops, the villas dotting the hillsides. It was a descent through glorious nature, ordered by centuries of human presence. It was the Italy you see when you close your eyes and dream of Italy. The new home of the ones who left their American homes behind -- some for a season, some forever. It is beautiful here. But I had looked around during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Many had stopped what they were doing, had stood still and placed their hands over their hearts. Which is what I did.

+
To read a translation of the Italian national anthem, and hear Luciano Pavarotti sing it, visit http://www.romanlife-romeitaly.com/italian-national-anthem.html"

My third little bit of interest in my bowl of potpourri concerns the use of local food, and what seems to me the immense good sense of taking advantage of everything that is grown in the ground around you, within a reasonable radius.

In this apple growing country I found a display of a dozen different kinds of apples in the local store, and of this dozen only the Golden Delicious were Canadian. The rest were from the U.S.and New Zealand and other far off places....transported thousands of miles to markets in this country. And quite probably, at least in New Zealand and other far off markets (not the U.S.) they are finding the same situation reversed, and all our Canadian apples sitting on their grocer's shelves.

Even as I speak there are cherries from the U.S. threatening the bumper crop in B.C. (which is just being picked) by being dumped here at low prices.

Doesn't it all make you raise your brows, roll your eyes and scratch your head!!!!