Watch the birdie

So many birds -- so little time....

Maia's bounty

Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.
~Kahlil Gibran

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~ Emily Dickinson

Lost and Found

What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.
~ Dan Quayle

Reflections on the week

As we struggle to make sense of things, life looks on in repose. 
~Author Unknown

Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does. 
~William James

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. 
~Lin Yutang

Three ways of looking at a blackbird

As inspired by Wallace Stevens ~

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Follow the leader

Walk this way...

and don't mind the shadows -- or the fact that we're being watched.

The reply

I've been more than patient with you stomping around here.

Now, get lost!

And stop pointing that frickin' camera at me.

Oh deer....

Here I am relaxing, enjoying the sun after a nice breakfast.

But then Trevor shows up, all neurotic about seeing a few people along the path.  "Trevor," I say, "this is a PARK. We're SAFE. There's always gonna be people. Get used to it!"

But, nooooo, he just can't relax. So it's back to the underbrush -- again....

Someone's watching

Duck eyes. Always watching, keeping a wary eye out, even though I was shooting some distance away with a zoom lens. 
Some ducks have distinctive patterns around their eyes. 

Some don't. 

Some look pissed off. 

Some look eerie. 

And some look miffed because I interrupted their luncheon. 

A difference of opinion

We received this cute guy as a holiday gift from our 5-year-old nephew. It's a birdhouse made from a gourd. To enter the birdhouse, birds would have to fly into the cat's mouth (which our nephew thought was hilarious). It IS very clever.

However, someone at our house was not amused....

Fowl play

Geese with attitude

Pretending to be decoys

Fowl play?

The art of getting your ducks in a row

Mid February

Whisper of spring...

amid the ice

of winter

Daydreaming

Tired of winter? I am.   

So, here's some color...

Some light... 

Here are some dreams of spring -- tulips for Valentine's Day.

Cabin fevered dreams

 

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. 
~Andrew Wyeth 

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. 
~Pietro Aretino 

On a winter's evening

So far, this has been "the winter of our discontent" with an overabundance of snow, ice and cold. But the nasty weather outside provides an excellent reason to curl up with a book (and perhaps a cat) inside. 

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. 
~James Bryce 

To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one. 
~Chinese Saying 

On an additional "book" note, Petrea Burchard, one of my "Blogville" friends (she does Pasadena Daily Photo) has a new novel that came out today -- Camelot & Vine. Congrats to Petrea! 

~ ~ ~ 

There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house. 
~Joe Ryan 

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. 
~Attributed to Groucho Marx