Eclipse On A Cloudy Day

It rained all night and well into Saturday morning. I went outside to see whether there was any chance of seeing (I use that term inaccurately as there was no chance of my looking directly into the sun) the eclipse. I did locate the orb's general placement, aimed my camera, and Poof! This is it. Eclipse seen on a rainy day, 2023. 

There is an indication of a bright circle with another, more shadowy segment in its upper left quadrant, so my image looks like the eclipse was at about forty percent. 

However, the first eclipse that comes to mind for me is Eclipse, one of the three foundation sires of the Thoroughbred horse. As a horse-crazy child, this animal's name was a fact that was incised into my brain in about third grade: Matchem, Herod, and Eclipse. I'll forget to buy toilet tissue or perhaps miss my brother's birthday, but I won't forget Eclipse.

 

 

Scuffed

Some days, the best abstract art can be found on the ubiquitous aluminum light pole. There are hints of gray in there, leftovers from the tape used to post notices of lost pets or rumage sales.

 

Autumn Gold and Goose, Er, Geese

 With comparatively few green leaves remaining and increasingly more of its "gold" falling into the Downtown Canal, this picture illustrates the passage of time spoken of by the Robert Frost poem I posted a day or two ago. Soon, all that will be left are the black branches, themselves awaiting the "first green" of spring.

Now It's Autumn

 

I woke up at 5:30 A.M. Saturday and I knew the inevitable had happened: my feet were cold and now it is autumn. Yeah, yeah, the calendar says the Autumn Equinox was just two weeks ago but it doesn't matter; fall arrives the minute I feel the need to put on a pair of warm socks. When my feet are cold, I'm cold all over so there'll also be an extra blankie across the foot of my bed so the rest of me feels, well, just right. This situation will remain until near my birthday in March when Spring arrives. Until then, it's socks for bed, socks to wear around my place - with slippers, socks with my shoes and boots.

Luckily, with the Winter Solstice, not only will the days begin to lengthen, but I will begin counting down the days to Spring when I'll be able to take my socks off. 

A Robert Frost Poem Read by Tobias Menzies

This photo, which I took last April, shows both the early "first green" and the gold remnants of fall, so suited to this poem by Robert Frost.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold. / Her early leaf's a flower; / But only so an hour. / Then leaf subsides to leaf. / So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay.

This reading is from A Poem for Every Autumn Day: A Light In Dark Times, with Helena Bonham Carter, Tobias Menzies, and Jameal Westman, joined by Allie Isiri. Directed by Paul Weiland this anthology was for the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

October Theme Day: Transportation

 

Recently, I was in the Fountain Square neighborhood of  southeast Indy to participate in a "paint-out." It had been many years since I had painted "en plein air" and it showed. All summer, it's been so hot that the weather bureau issued frequent air quality warnings advising people to avoid activity. Obviously, I took those warnings very personally. When I went to scout the area I wanted to paint I was looking for a place where I could sit quietly out of any direct sun. That spot turned out to be in an alley behind a row of businesses. What was otherwise pretty dingy looking had been brightened by graffiti, baskets of red flowers, and a striped beach umbrella. But the best part of the scene was the lavender bicycle with white-rimmed tires.

On the first day of every month, members of the City Daily Photo blog site post an image relating to an assigned theme. To see how other members have interpreted the theme, just click on the CDP badge to the right of this post, or on the link above.

An orchid got on the bus ...

 

A couple weeks ago, I was on my way downtown, when a young woman got on the bus, carrying a take-out meal in one hand and a potted orchid in the other. She told me she'd rescued it from the trash at her workplace; the owners use live plants to decorate the office and had thrown this one out to be replaced by new flowers. The woman had learned from her mom how to nurture and grow orchids so was taking this pretty creature home to care for. As in most workplaces, the orchid has been seen as a place-marker to be tossed aside when its usefulness had, in the eyes of its owner, become faded. It was pulled from the trash by someone who will tend and care for it as the beautiful bit of nature it is.