Kim at the Kemp

       Artist Kim Ward now exhibits at the Kemp Center. Pop in soon to admire the exquisite art work.

A beautiful tree hangs several feet down from the ceiling. 

Ward placed a 3D dragonfly on a painting.

"A Monet Morning in Valspar" measures about fifteen feet long.

Nice rump shot. "When the Frost is on the Pumpkin," acrylic, shows her devotion and sensitivity to nature. 

"Spanish Gold" has a clever title. The Spaniards brought horses to America; gold implies that indeed, the horses are a treasure. 

"Sweet Potato Sky." Note the delicate brushstrokes to form the curtains in the foreground and the clouds in the background. Ward's hand has command of her brush. 

"Tough Shot." A view of this kind would distract me from my game!

Fall Bird Feeding is Fun

        Delighted by the visitors at my bird feeders: Carolina wrens, Black-capped chickadees, Spotted towhees, Inca doves, White-winged doves, bluejays, robins, cardinals, juncos, White-crowned sparrows, English sparrows, House finches, Red-winged blackbirds . . . and several comical squirrels. In the trees, Cooper's hawk and a Barred Owl, eyeing the little songbirds with recipes and wine-pairings rushing through their minds: Roasted or sautéed? Which wine will I pair with my bluejay tonight?

A Bluejay struggles at a feeder. This picture shows the color of his plumage.

Red-winged Blackbird. 

Inca Dove.

Adolescent female squirrel, queen of the feeders at such an early age.

Barred Owl.

Poetry: Golfer Gnome Looking for a Green

Golfer Gnome Looking for a Green

At Garden Club last month I learned
Plant your rose bushes on Good Friday
and I with brown thumbs wait
while the upright thorny green stalks
with a scant few leaves sit by the window
waiting with me for Good Friday

I walk outside my front door
to get my mail and I see a gnome
standing at my front porch
looking up at me. I blink and ask

Are you here to live among my roses?
but looking closely at him --
rather, her, I see she wears a skirt
and underneath her beard a necklace
from which dangles flamingos
and in her hands she holds a golfball.

To confirm her gender she calls
herself Juliette, and she hands me a note
Please take on this mission. Please
take on this mission. Take me to a
golfer's home and leave me on her porch.

Will you return by Good Friday?
but I thought better about asking her
to live among my pink hybrid roses
her skirt being tangerine, her gnome hat red --
What would Garden Club think about that?

Thanksgiving Day Barred Owl

          A most remarkable visitor stood on a branch outside my window, looking at me. I looked up in admiration. On this day of Thanksgiving, among my many, many, blessings and privileges, the love of my friends and family, I thank, too, the Barred Owl for the visit.

Visiting Sully

      Sully, Avian Ambassador to Wild Bird Rescue, received visitors. Here he is, and here they are looking into his mew. The visitors brought supplies needed by the sanctuary for everyday operations, such as paper towels and dish washing soap. Please consider a donation. Sully, for instance, is calling for sponsors at one hundred dollars per year to buy food -- yes, mice and worms, yum!

Quite Sunny and Yellow or Red

       Leaves look quite yellow here after a summer of drought . . .

      Or they look quite red . . .

       And surrounded by the season of yellow or red, still stands Buster Brown's mother's house.  After the murder of her son by the mayor, Frank Collier, the townsfolk so loved the boy that they gave Mrs. Brown the house.

Marker in Scurry

        Native American marker trees can seem mysterious, magical, and fascinating in other ways. MyMrMallory and I headed to Holliday to photograph the marker tree there. Visit Ken Fibbe's article about the marker tree pictured here. And the fellow about whom he writes, Steve Houser, published an article in two parts about marker trees in the North Texas region. Steve Houser's article Part One, and
Steve Houser's article Part Two.

        And upon our return, some magic did envelope us; some sort of liquid stuff fell on us, and heavily, too. It took us a while to remember to engage the . . . um . . . that stick that runs across our windshield? Oh, yes, the windshield wipers. They still function on the truck. Seriously, the rain pounded us, and we delighted in it though it hurt our ears and we could not hear one another speak; not that we wanted to speak, for we felt in awe of the rain.

Amazing View from the Cockpit

       The smooth air and comfortable temperatures, and great view of the clouds at sunset gave us a remarkable view as we returned home after a practice flight. More photos at the WAJA.

            And from the front seat of our truck, MyMrMallory and I watched an experimental as if flew over the road on final into the airport. 

Artist From WWII's Foxholes

       

         Carolyn Gilbert hosted a remarkable fellow (a remarkable lady herself, she knows how to do that). On Veteran's Day, William A. Foley, Jr., (at left) gave a lecture on his experience working on his book, Visions from a Foxhole: A Rifleman in Patton's Ghost Corps. ISBN 978-0-89141-850-4. In her column in the Times Record News, Gilbert explains how she met Foley.

         Foley served in the 94th Infantry Division under General George S. Patton. During that time, he sketched some of the scenes he witnessed as an infantryman. Below he shows the unbridled joy the infrantrymen felt when the P-47s arrived to assist them in battle.

       

        Highly descriptive with his words, one cannot help but feel the experiences he had as he related them during his lecture. In regard to his ability to write, he mentioned that not until later in his life he learned that he could tell his story, and he does very well, I say.

         

          Foley sketched himself and his own personal experiences in addition to the men around him. Above he shows himself lunging away from a truck before it is hit by a mortar.

          Click on the images to visit his website and to view more artwork.

Migration's In

       Spotted outside my window this morning all at once, an Eastern Towhee, several juncos, an Inca Dove, a Chickadee, Starlings, one White-winged Dove, and several Bluejays. Thanks to Nila at Wichita Valley Landscaping for compiling a list of bird-attracting plants (it must help to have Saint Frances in the garden, too).

Seeing Storms, Eyeball and Radar: A Comparison

Garden Friends, All Beautiful

Beautiful Turns of Phrase in Two Languages

Ysabel de la Rosa: Take a Bilingual Ride on the Red River / Un viaje poético por el Río rojo

With Fall Drop Pumpkins

   
    On occasion of summer going away and fall arriving, and -- any excuse to fly -- aviators will fire up their birds, load up a co-pilot and a few pumpkins, and toss them out the cockpit as they fly at one hundred feet above ground level to test their skill at hitting a target on the field. My first video, here I show footage of a Stearman taking off, approaching the target, and his or her bombardier clever at judging speed and distance, coming close to hitting the target with one of the pumpkins. The end of the video shows the Stearman landing, followed by Dave's Piper Cub.
     In the distance I spotted large flocks of Sandhill Cranes, the sight of which brought to mind a link David sent to us. For a visual treat, see the video by Sophie Windsor Clive, see her video at Vimeo of a remarkable flock of starlings. Thanks, David!

Roadrunner

City Support

       The City of Wichita Falls is one of Wild Bird Rescue's biggest supporters. Recently, workers from the city placed logs around the grassy area that gives access to visitors to Lake Wichita, and added gravel for the parking space, making the area look landscaped. In addition to looking neater, the grassy area has now become a haven for the Killdeer that nest there every year.

Flute Past Sunset

The Crews played the keyboard and the flute past sunset. Venus appears over Mrs. Woods' home.

Image taken with a Nikon Coolpix S80.

1886 House: First View

       "Go over there and ask him. I know he'll say yes," Julie said, encouraging me to speak to the owner of a house built in 1886. She was right: I was allowed on the property to document a house built in 1886 and the results are below. Indeed, Matthew was warm and welcoming as he allowed MyMrMallory and me to tag along this evening to take pictures of what we believe has become the oldest house in Wichita County.  The thing is that the house is ruined by mold, so the current owners feel obligated to bulldoze it to the ground. My voluntary mission: Document the house with photographs. Later we will research the history of the house. I hope to document it here as we go along.

A cold front blew in at an estimated fifty-miles per hour as we drove toward the old house.

I hoped the clouds would embellish my photographs of the house.

Northeast view of the old house. (HDR image.)

Southwest view. (HDR image.) The distortion has to do with the effect of the lens. 

Southeast view. (Distortion due to the effect of the lens. Okay, I DO need to read now the literature FEK sent to me to tweak the wide-angle lens distortion.)

Awesome views all around as the cold front moved past us. 

One Hundred Year Old Barn

        My friend, Julie, encouraged me to photograph a one hundred year old barn that sits near her house. So this afternoon I traipsed over there and found my way to the barn. Driving my Lariat through a tight winding gravel road I came upon a dilapidated barn that seemed to have a recent and thick coat of red paint.
         Unfurling some wire that held the gate shut, I spooked some horses who noshed on the grass nearby, and in turn, they spooked me with their reaction. Amiable creatures as we were all, we established in this way a friendly relationship.

This is the old barn. Note the beams that attempt to halt its eventual collapse.

A wire held the gate shut.

A tree grew unattended through the fence near the gate.

To my new equine friends who seemed so interested in my lens, I promised to return for a few lessons in photography.

Introduced Hoggard, a Magical Poet

        A couple of months ago the chair of the Speakers and Issues Series, Dr. Montoya, asked me to introduce James Hoggard at his next reading. I thanked her for the honor, and set to work on my words. I felt deeply honored and delighted to give my observations about his work as I introduced him.

       Here are some excerpts from my speech.

       James Hoggard served as Poet Laureate of Texas for the year 2000 and has won numerous awards for his writing, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and recognition for his translations, short stories, and poetry books, and most notable to me, a Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained throughout a Career. He's written very well for a long time.

        Most of the public know about his long list of awards, so rather than list them, I wanted to emphasize his longevity as a poet, one of the grandest things about Hoggard. Also, he has worked as professor at MSU for a couple of decades, and I wished to point out another grand thing about him, and that is the effect he has on his community and students.

        His work, his awards, and his devotion to MSU and the community have raised the quality of education in the city, indeed the world, for students from all around the world attend MSU and return to their countries taking with them everything they've learned from him.

        At first I thought it sounded excessive, until I recognized its truth.

        My late first husband, David, a Harvard grad, mathematician, and professor of linguistics, would read aloud to me Hoggard's work. With few exceptions, David would not read aloud, so I knew that when he read something great emerged from his lips. I've known that . . .  a poet has some influence on his readers. I paraphrase Mr. John Hirschi when he said that Hoggard weaves magic with his words.

         And here I begin to explain my observations about his work, his remarkable work over the years.

        Carefully considered words by Hoggard are the magic through which he expresses his insights into the parts of life that we may not see otherwise. His book Elevator Man, and his latest novel, The Mayor's Daughter, in addition to countless poems, all show these beautifully written ways of expressing things, those things that seem equally as intelligent as his choice of language.

        I added that In Eyesigns he wittily compels the reader with imagery, words, and numbers. This book is difficult to find now, but do try to acquire your own copy because it is a treat to visit every once in a while.

        For The Mayor's Daughter, my intention was to comprehend more the depth of Hoggard's insight, so I spent a few hours at the archives downtown reading the court documents and articles about the tragedy.

        The knowledge I gained about the tragedy shocked me. The culprits and the people who continued to support them made me feel such disdain that I did not feel sure I wanted to read the book at all!

        The story, though, brings redemption to the victims, and to a town, and said that it shows the struggle of a townsfolk experiencing increasing wealth, and then attempting to maintain the commensurate levels of culture rising in their lives. Indeed, Hoggard beautifully righted a wrong.

         My second honor that evening was to present him with a plaque to commemorate his twentieth book. The chair, unable to attend the reading, gave me that wonderful task.

         And so it was another poetic evening in Wichita Falls. This time, though, I had the honor to contribute my part, an honor that I will have present in my mind for a long time.

         See an article about Hoggard's recent awards published a couple of days later in the Times Record News, written by Ted Buss.