Exploring new Paths

A few days ago we received a talking head video from No. 2 Son and Highly Favoured Daughter-in-law. We were so pleased, surprised and intrigued. Kept nodding our heads (Husband's head and my head - no two- headed people around here) smiling, and answering back. This was something I had to learn how to do! It opens up lots of possibilities of communicating with friends and relatives in remote places, and is so wonderfully personal.

Sometimes I can hardly fathom the marvelous ways we have of communicating. A little cameo - I am visiting at a family friend's when I was possibly about six, and listening to a radio program while we were having lunch. Did we have a radio at home at that time? Certainly my father had a crystal set in the basement that I remember, and shortly after I was able to catch a little bit of Ma Perkins at noon while I waited for a friend so we could walk to school together.

Now this amazing technology allows us to perch a little webcam on our smooth and skinny monitor and capture the pictures it takes and the sound of our voice as we talk. My webcam is not terribly sophisticated, and it looks like a little alien peeking over the top of the monitor, smiling with its one discerning eye.

I am easily distracted by new things and soon I was making one video, and then another, and another, and another.

Then I discovered that the recipients did not have the software to open these loving billets doux!

So I was off to scan the many programs that reside in my computer, unbeknownst and unused. When I found Window's Movie Maker I was surprised and elated to discover how easy it was to make a video that can by opened by Windows Media Player.

It came upon me that I could make a video of the garden in April, and when that was done I was inspired to make one of my parent's romance from the few pictures I have of that era. It is accompanied by a tune that has tender reminders of them both, - but especially my mother. I have a vague memory of her sweeping the floor, and singing Ramona. (My father's favourite of that period was "Charmaine")

I am restricted to small videos, - e-mail will only accept a movie under 10 mgb. Thus my search for a way to publish on the net, - in a small way. Not YouTube, - much too public for private videos, made for a select and limited audience.

So I am looking for answers.....

How perfect to be entranced and intriqued as we age, and as this wonderful new technology enfolds.

While I wait for answers (or inspiration), here is a picture of the Garden in April.













And the opening picture of Cline and Dolly's romance.


















with the picture it was extracted from.....










Circa 1922....

SPRING AND THE ARTIST

Nothing is so beautiful as spring - when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
Gerard Manley Hopkins - the POET

















Claude Monet - the PAINTER - "Spring"




















Vivaldi - the COMPOSER

What is more beautiful than the Spring Allegro movement of The Four Seasons played on the violin by Nigel Kennedy, the PERFORMER












And then there are the GARDENERS - Artists in their own right!!



















Although most assuredly they rely heavily on the Master Gardener, and the gifts the earth gives so bountifully to we who travel through space on this beautiful planet. What a complexity this growing situation is, - the rest in winter to gather strength for the spectacular greening of the spring, - the years involved in composting the remainders from other seasons that results in the richness of the soil that nurtures the seeds, - the intricate positioning of the planet in respect to the sun to provide for the warming that wakens the seed, and the rain that brings sustenance and moisture to start the whole growing process.

Hairy Potter and the Horticulturist's Apprentice have nothing on the mysterious ways of the CREATOR.

The birds that come to this valley in the spring of the year delight and amaze as they go about their yearly season of procreation.
















The cheery Robins who chatter with excitement at the prospect of WORMS to be found in the wake of the sprinkler on the garden - and the Clarke's Nutcrackers, who call in their crackly voices and eat up last year's walnuts that are left in the new sprung grass.
















The Mourning Dove, whose yearning call reminds me of spring on the farm, where they were so prevalent and nested in the trees which surrounded the farmhouse.



















And the Meadowlark - everyone in the family listens for the first call of the Meadowlark, - a true harbinger of spring. I sometimes muse and wonder if the Meadowlark will sing his song above my grave .



















High above the valley in the springtime a lone Eagle flies, - or sometimes a nesting pair. And the Osprey swoops down river, looking for a good breakfast.















The BIRDS are poetry in motion, and music at its most pure.

Our hearts should burst with gratefulness.......