Egon Schiele was a protégé of Gustav Klimt.
I like Klimt's works.
I like this painting by Herr Schiele:
Four Trees
Sunday, October 07, 2012
Friday, October 05, 2012
Friday: Outdoor Day
The weather folk are forecasting 31º tonight, and 25º tomorrow night. Yikes! I mean, Yippee! This means summer is over. Officially, no more uncomfortable sweat, dried up gardens, grasshoppers the size of a giant chili pepper, and such. It was a pretty miserable summer.
So what does the forecast mean? Well, to our farming neighbors, it means harvest is at hand: soybeans. To our ranching neighbors, it means calves are being birthed. To our North Dakota friends, it means harvesting sugar beets to the beat of the falling snow. REALLY?! To me, it means cover up the geraniums and bring the in bananas and bromeliads. And the orchids. Ok, ok, haul in the passion fruit, the bougainvillaeas, the amaryllis, and the peace lilies. Oh! I discovered four hyacynth which are shooting up shoots again. What's that about? I thought "forced" bulbs were tantamount to duds the following year. But here they are...sprouting as if it were March all over again. Stay tuned a few months on this story...
I took old sheets out to the Darwinian Garden this evening. Darwinism would say that the tomato season is over. But, I contend, there are still hundreds of pretty good-sized tomatoes out there, and yes, I have a dandy green tomato recipe, but if I could eek out just a few more days or a week's worth of sunshine, we could still be hauling in the red things.
I covered my second round of pumpkins: yes! I planted pumpkin seeds in August, and the blooms are there: if they don't freeze, we may STILL have pumpkin pie for T'giving instead of pumpkin ice cream in July. (After all: these ARE New England Pie Pumpkins!)
Gillian & I had a delicious and garden-fresh lunch this afternoon:
Salad of you-name-it greens out of the garden, not ten minutes beforehand: lettuce, collard, kale, horseradish, and nasturtiums. And a nice butternut squash ravioli. And kalamata olive bread.
That Spouse o' Mine is out of town. Tonight I cautioned him that our household will be in disarray upon his return. (but...when is it not?) Gillian is gainfully employed at a museum, having completed her Masters and scooted off to China for the summer, and now she has been back home (to our house) briefly, and BAM! She has a job, and an apartment, and all things Gillian are now front and center in the household, awaiting the week of moving, just a few days from now.
Exciting time for her. I remember those days in my own youth!
So what does the forecast mean? Well, to our farming neighbors, it means harvest is at hand: soybeans. To our ranching neighbors, it means calves are being birthed. To our North Dakota friends, it means harvesting sugar beets to the beat of the falling snow. REALLY?! To me, it means cover up the geraniums and bring the in bananas and bromeliads. And the orchids. Ok, ok, haul in the passion fruit, the bougainvillaeas, the amaryllis, and the peace lilies. Oh! I discovered four hyacynth which are shooting up shoots again. What's that about? I thought "forced" bulbs were tantamount to duds the following year. But here they are...sprouting as if it were March all over again. Stay tuned a few months on this story...
I took old sheets out to the Darwinian Garden this evening. Darwinism would say that the tomato season is over. But, I contend, there are still hundreds of pretty good-sized tomatoes out there, and yes, I have a dandy green tomato recipe, but if I could eek out just a few more days or a week's worth of sunshine, we could still be hauling in the red things.
I covered my second round of pumpkins: yes! I planted pumpkin seeds in August, and the blooms are there: if they don't freeze, we may STILL have pumpkin pie for T'giving instead of pumpkin ice cream in July. (After all: these ARE New England Pie Pumpkins!)
Gillian & I had a delicious and garden-fresh lunch this afternoon:
Salad of you-name-it greens out of the garden, not ten minutes beforehand: lettuce, collard, kale, horseradish, and nasturtiums. And a nice butternut squash ravioli. And kalamata olive bread.
Exciting time for her. I remember those days in my own youth!
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Graham
I got a phone call from the College Boy yesterday.
IT MADE MY DAY!!
I miss his reflections on all things political, athletic, religious, and fun.
This summer we (he & I ) would discuss news and politics and sports and arts and books and nature and environment and...and...and...
I miss my son.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
News of the Day
Last week I heard that there would be a significant shortage of bacon in the coming year. I find it fascinating that there are people out there who are gauging the supply and demand of bacon.
This morning, I listened to a piece on NPR about apple harvest in the Pacific Northwest. This is interesting to me, because we know people in the apple business out in Washington. This year is slated to be a banner year in apple production in Washington. Not in other "apple" regions of our nation. Michigan's fruit growers took a major hit this year in all things fruit, because there was a very mild winter in Michigan last year. It was so mild that the apple trees and cherry trees blossomed early. And after the blossoming, came as many as 27 frosts and freezes, which effectively froze the fragile blossoms. If you recall your high school biology, the blossoms are where the fruit develops: No blossoms, no fruit.
The problem the apple growers are experiencing in Washington this month is that they do not have nearly enough apple pickers to harvest their banner crop. There is a brief window of time during which apples can be picked during apple season. It's much like any fruit season - get the fruit picked and sent in to the packing houses before the fruit is over-ripe, before it falls off the trees, while it's still in its "crisp" stage, etc. And apple picking is very difficult manual labor: climbing ladders while balancing and filling an apple sack (which can weigh ~ 40 lbs). Injuries occur every apple and cherry season. For decades, apple picking has been a job which few (if any) Americans are willing to apply for. The job has traditionally (again, for DECADES), gone to our neighbors to the south: the Mexican migrant workers. I have visited apple and cherry orchards during their seasons, and the language spoken out in the trees is Spanish. Not English. This year, the need is for more apple pickers than in past years, and the migrant workers are just not there. So the apple growers are looking at a hardship: any apples which are not harvested in a timely manner go on to become applesauce and apple juice - not as much return in those two.
Anyway, heed my warning: get ready to substitute your bacon craving for...applesauce?
And here is an interesting note about that Spouse o' Mine, that few people outside of my parents know: two decades ago he developed an "instrumented sphere", or IS, which, as the name suggests, is a sphere (read: ball) which can be made the size of an egg, an apple, a kid's brain, or whatever. This IS can be used in such practices as harvest and post-harvest handling of fruit, e.g., apples. This IS would be dropped from an apple tree, such as an apple would be, into the picker's sack, and then poured from the picker's sack into the bushel basket, and from there, the truck, and from there, to the packing line at the packing house (look up Stemilt for a really BIG packing house in Washington). After all this travelling, one could retrieve the IS, which really is a teeny, tiny computer, and plug it in to a larger computer, and it would give the grower all the harvest/post-harvest information regarding where the IS (or apple) received its worst damage. In this way, the orchard growers could/can improve their practices and operations to get a better yield of healthy fruit. His IS has also been used by folks such as Dole (pineapple) and helmet manufacturers. The helmet people used an IS inside a model of a skull to show how/where the greater impact(s) on a brain could be in a cycling accident.
Huh. Some folk think he is just an expert on NIR spectroscopy.
The other news which has caught my attention today is the Presidential debate this evening. The debate will consist of questions for which the candidates have two minutes to reply. Two minutes is not much, and yet what I was reading was saying that the average American will not have the attention span to assimilate the discussions.
Really?
I admit, I will have a difficult time assessing what information the candidates give is REALLY information (none?), and which is, as one reporter termed, "Dodgeball". But the suggestion that the average American will not have the attention span to assimilate the discussions...that got MY ATTENTION!!. Immediately, I thought of Sesame Street, some 30+ years ago, and how they constructed their kiddy show to have only 2-3 minute blurbs, because they felt that it was the amount of time kids have to process material.
So, I ask: now that the Sesame Street generation has come full circle: can we not focus on something more than soundbites? Is this as well as the Sesame Street generation can cope?
By the way: I am not political, in any way, shape or form. I have thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, to be sure. But I hate politics. I will end this by saying that I think the real problem is not our President Obama, but the bi-partisan Congress. If they can't get together for our good, then we should vote each and every one of them OUT.
And that is all the news I have to discuss today.
~ T.
This morning, I listened to a piece on NPR about apple harvest in the Pacific Northwest. This is interesting to me, because we know people in the apple business out in Washington. This year is slated to be a banner year in apple production in Washington. Not in other "apple" regions of our nation. Michigan's fruit growers took a major hit this year in all things fruit, because there was a very mild winter in Michigan last year. It was so mild that the apple trees and cherry trees blossomed early. And after the blossoming, came as many as 27 frosts and freezes, which effectively froze the fragile blossoms. If you recall your high school biology, the blossoms are where the fruit develops: No blossoms, no fruit.
The problem the apple growers are experiencing in Washington this month is that they do not have nearly enough apple pickers to harvest their banner crop. There is a brief window of time during which apples can be picked during apple season. It's much like any fruit season - get the fruit picked and sent in to the packing houses before the fruit is over-ripe, before it falls off the trees, while it's still in its "crisp" stage, etc. And apple picking is very difficult manual labor: climbing ladders while balancing and filling an apple sack (which can weigh ~ 40 lbs). Injuries occur every apple and cherry season. For decades, apple picking has been a job which few (if any) Americans are willing to apply for. The job has traditionally (again, for DECADES), gone to our neighbors to the south: the Mexican migrant workers. I have visited apple and cherry orchards during their seasons, and the language spoken out in the trees is Spanish. Not English. This year, the need is for more apple pickers than in past years, and the migrant workers are just not there. So the apple growers are looking at a hardship: any apples which are not harvested in a timely manner go on to become applesauce and apple juice - not as much return in those two.
Anyway, heed my warning: get ready to substitute your bacon craving for...applesauce?
And here is an interesting note about that Spouse o' Mine, that few people outside of my parents know: two decades ago he developed an "instrumented sphere", or IS, which, as the name suggests, is a sphere (read: ball) which can be made the size of an egg, an apple, a kid's brain, or whatever. This IS can be used in such practices as harvest and post-harvest handling of fruit, e.g., apples. This IS would be dropped from an apple tree, such as an apple would be, into the picker's sack, and then poured from the picker's sack into the bushel basket, and from there, the truck, and from there, to the packing line at the packing house (look up Stemilt for a really BIG packing house in Washington). After all this travelling, one could retrieve the IS, which really is a teeny, tiny computer, and plug it in to a larger computer, and it would give the grower all the harvest/post-harvest information regarding where the IS (or apple) received its worst damage. In this way, the orchard growers could/can improve their practices and operations to get a better yield of healthy fruit. His IS has also been used by folks such as Dole (pineapple) and helmet manufacturers. The helmet people used an IS inside a model of a skull to show how/where the greater impact(s) on a brain could be in a cycling accident.
Huh. Some folk think he is just an expert on NIR spectroscopy.
The other news which has caught my attention today is the Presidential debate this evening. The debate will consist of questions for which the candidates have two minutes to reply. Two minutes is not much, and yet what I was reading was saying that the average American will not have the attention span to assimilate the discussions.
Really?
I admit, I will have a difficult time assessing what information the candidates give is REALLY information (none?), and which is, as one reporter termed, "Dodgeball". But the suggestion that the average American will not have the attention span to assimilate the discussions...that got MY ATTENTION!!. Immediately, I thought of Sesame Street, some 30+ years ago, and how they constructed their kiddy show to have only 2-3 minute blurbs, because they felt that it was the amount of time kids have to process material.
So, I ask: now that the Sesame Street generation has come full circle: can we not focus on something more than soundbites? Is this as well as the Sesame Street generation can cope?
By the way: I am not political, in any way, shape or form. I have thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, to be sure. But I hate politics. I will end this by saying that I think the real problem is not our President Obama, but the bi-partisan Congress. If they can't get together for our good, then we should vote each and every one of them OUT.
And that is all the news I have to discuss today.
~ T.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Hu-aaah! (That's What the Soldiers Say)
Today I went to listen to a lecture given by General Martin Dempsey, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: our nation's highest-ranking military officer.
It was an hour well-spent. There were parts of the lecture which I did not understand, military lingo and such, (and this is why I go to these lectures at K-State: I come back home and research that about which I am not well-read or well-versed. This lecture was no different.) I did enjoy listening to him. He has spent ~ 38 years in the military. He is married to his high school sweetheart, who has followed him around the world on his military tours: years living abroad, and I doubt that the Rive Gauche was included in those tours.
After his lecture, he had a Q & A session. I always love listening to these, because I know I am not at all capable of quick-thinking-all-verbal-hands-on-deck. (I am not a Bill Clinton fan, but I was AMAZED at his ability to parry any and all questions thrown at him when he came to K-State a few years ago. That man is intelligent.) General Dempsey was wise and funny. And he was very compassionate when the widow of one young war veteran came forward to ask how the military was addressing the sad fact of post-tramatic stress disorder, and its sometime result of suicide.
There were hundreds of military in our midst this morning, and they received three standing ovations from the audience present to listen to Gen. Dempsey. K-State is smack-dab in-between Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Riley, and we here witness and personally appreciate the good and the difficult of military life. Sometimes the press seems to gloss over what our military's lives are like. Let me introduce a great Facebook link to the 1st Infantry Division: The Big Red One . This link shows the day-to-day activities of Ft. Riley's Big Red One.
Ok. Enough about Kansas' military.
It is autumn. The leaves are changing and falling, and there are fruit flies hovering my wine glass.
It was an hour well-spent. There were parts of the lecture which I did not understand, military lingo and such, (and this is why I go to these lectures at K-State: I come back home and research that about which I am not well-read or well-versed. This lecture was no different.) I did enjoy listening to him. He has spent ~ 38 years in the military. He is married to his high school sweetheart, who has followed him around the world on his military tours: years living abroad, and I doubt that the Rive Gauche was included in those tours.
After his lecture, he had a Q & A session. I always love listening to these, because I know I am not at all capable of quick-thinking-all-verbal-hands-on-deck. (I am not a Bill Clinton fan, but I was AMAZED at his ability to parry any and all questions thrown at him when he came to K-State a few years ago. That man is intelligent.) General Dempsey was wise and funny. And he was very compassionate when the widow of one young war veteran came forward to ask how the military was addressing the sad fact of post-tramatic stress disorder, and its sometime result of suicide.
There were hundreds of military in our midst this morning, and they received three standing ovations from the audience present to listen to Gen. Dempsey. K-State is smack-dab in-between Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Riley, and we here witness and personally appreciate the good and the difficult of military life. Sometimes the press seems to gloss over what our military's lives are like. Let me introduce a great Facebook link to the 1st Infantry Division: The Big Red One . This link shows the day-to-day activities of Ft. Riley's Big Red One.
Ok. Enough about Kansas' military.
It is autumn. The leaves are changing and falling, and there are fruit flies hovering my wine glass.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
