On Boxing Day

"The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers." ~Basho

Another Gulf of Mexico Sunset

"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator." - Mohandas Gandhi

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." - Rabindranath Tagore

"There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book of Nature." - Claude Debussy

Thanksgiving

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. - W.T. Purkiser

O Lord that lends me life,Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.~William Shakespeare

The year has turned its circle, the seasons come and go.

The harvest all is gathered in and chilly north winds blow.
Orchards have shared their treasures, the fields, their yellow grain,

So open wide the doorway, Thanksgiving comes again!

Waiting For His Ship to Come In

November in Cozumel.

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think. ~Robert Henri

Cattails

Reflected here, where no one sees,

The fallen petals find their ease

And lay in tremulous rest among

The cattails and the rippling trees.

-Full Recall by Michael Rudasill

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

How old do you think I am he said

I said well I didn't know

He said I turned sixty five about eleven months ago

I was sittin' in Miami pourin' blended whiskey down

When this old grey black gentleman was cleanin' up the lounge

There wasn't anyone around 'cept this old man and me

The guy who ran the bar was watching Ironsides on TV

Uninvited he sat down and opened up his mind

On old dogs and children and watermelon wine

Ever had a drink of watermelon wine he asked

He told me all about it though I didn't answer back

Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime

But old dogs and children and watermelon wine

He said women think about theyselves when menfolk ain't around

And friends are hard to find when they discover that you're down

He said I tried it all when I was young and in my natural prime

Now it's old dogs and children and watermelon wine

Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes

God bless little children while they're still too young to hate

When he moved away I found my pen and copied down that line

'Bout old dogs and children and watermelon wine

I had to catch a plane up to Atlanta that next day

As I left for my room I saw him pickin' up my change

That night I dreamed in peaceful sleep of shady summertime

Of old dogs and children and watermelon wine - Tom T Hall

Quilt by Ruth Powers

http://www.ruthpowersartquilts.com/gallery.php

The Leaves

"The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Autumn

Red leaves blow in the wind

Leaving home and everything it's known behind

Barren branches wave goodbye

As the red leaves slowly die

Every flower stares and watches

As the wind takes me away

Before the sun shone upon me

Now the wind takes me away

Red leaves fallingthrough the branches

Making their way to the ground

Blowing by the flowers sleeping

No one knows the leaves are leaving

by Haste the Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3B3VV2QWCI&feature=related

Green and Golden

"And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden
I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams."
- Dylan Thomas

A Thing with Wings Running Late

"Monarch butterflies fly from Canada and the U.S. southward for up to 3,500 km and overwinter in Mexico for approximately five months without breeding. Then, at the end of March, they reach sexual maturity and survivors remigrate northward for an additional 1,500 km to the U.S. Gulf Coast states where they lay their eggs and die. The ensuing generation of adults continues the migration northwards into southern Canada and, over the summer, as many as three more generations are born. The annual migration cycle is completed when the adults born in the last summer generation begin the fall migration in late August and early September." Monica Missrie, World Wildlife Foundation/Mexico

November Comes to Lady Lane

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." -George Eliot

"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all." -Stanley Horowitz

Halloween Thoughts

When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam,
May luck be yours on Halloween.

What do you get when you divide the diameter of a jack-o-lantern by it's circumference?
Pumpkin "Pi"

How do you mend a broken Jack-o-lantern?

With a pumpkin patch!

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion." ~Henry David Thoreau

The Duke and the Llama Llama Ding Dongs

Oh I got a girl named Rama Lama, Rama Lama Ding Dong
She's everything to me
Rama Lama, Rama Lama Ding Dong
I'll never set her free
For she's mine, all mine - The Edsels

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, June 29 - November 2, 2008

"Thanks to an unprecedented and exclusive loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kimbell plays host to 92 of the most celebrated works of the great Impressionist painters. The Art Institute’s Impressionist collection has never before left Chicago in such a large group, and it will be shown only at the Kimbell.

The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago features signature works by the most beloved group of painters of all time, including Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The fact that this succession of geniuses worked largely in the same country and within the span of a single lifetime is one of the miracles of the history of art.

The exhibition is especially rich in the work of Monet. The 26 works by him form an exhibition-within-the-exhibition that shows every phase of his career, from his earliest Impressionist experiments to the great serial paintings, including 6 of wheatstacks, 4 of scenes on the Thames in London, and 3 of the water lily pond in his garden at Giverny. The exhibition also features 7 Manets, including The Races at Longchamp (1866) and Woman Reading (1879/80); the monumental Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877) by Gustave Caillebotte; 12 Renoirs, including Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1875), Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (1879), and Two Sisters (On the Terrace) (1881); 6 paintings and pastels by Degas, including Yellow Dancers (In the Wings) (1874/76) and The Millinery Shop (1879/86); 7 Cézannes, including Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair (1888–90) and The Bathers (1899/1904); 5 Van Goghs, including Self-Portrait (1887) and The Bedroom (1889); 7 Gauguins, including Arlésiennes (Mistral) (1888) and The Ancestors of Tehamana (1893); and 3 Toulouse-Lautrecs, including Moulin de la Galette (1889) and At the Moulin Rouge (1892/95)." -The Kimbell Art Museum

Three Weeks From Today, Going Back to the Yucatan

"A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for." ~John A. Shedd

Big Tex

"Big Tex made his debut at the State Fair of Texas in 1952. Back then, he had a crooked nose, a lascivious wink and no ability whatsoever to speak. Today, the long tall Texan has a perfectly straight nose, wide-open eyes and a booming bass voice that periodically welcomes visitors to the State Fair of Texas. He also wears size 70 boots, sports a 75-gallon hat and towers 52 feet above the crowd. His shirt is a size 100 180/181 and his Dickies jeans come in size 284W/185L XXXXXL. All of Big Tex's announcements are performed "live" by Bill Bragg. His booming voice echoes over the entire 277-acre grounds of Fair Park for nine hours each day. During the State Fair of Texas, you’ll find Big Tex overlooking Fair Park from his station in front of the Tower Building, next to the northern entrance to the Texas Skyway." www.fairpark.org

Big Tex's Train Set

If you miss the train I'm on,
You will know that I am gone,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles -sung by The Kingston Trio

Oh, listen to the jingle, the rumor and the roar
As she glides along the woodland, o'r hills and by the shore
She climbs the flowery mountain, hear the merry hobos squall
She glides along the woodland, the Wabash Cannonball. - sung by Roy Acuff