Going Blind

The blind photographer in John Waters film 'Pecker' has always fascinated me. All my photo systems are in a state of decline. Soon I may need an assistant to make them seen for me. There is no energy for a picture struggle right now. My mind is elsewhere while the world is blue aster. It is hard to describe that kind of light.

Think theater light during Intermission in a crowd of Peckerheads. Tatarian aster.

The Hairball Returns

The hairball in my photo editing and storage system is alive and well. The Picasa photo editor stopped recognizing my camera again. One step back. I'm kind of over it and don't have much enthusiasm for getting the kinks worked out. My technology is full and a decade old. We all know what that means.

The gardens are pretty much a hairball by this time of year, at their tallest and floppiest. It is to be expected. It is not a matter of will the meadows fall down. It is just a question of quality and degree. No hail this year.

I mowed the paths and eliminated the flop in the sunny utility meadow. The sisters will be here at the end of October to fetch their mother. They will appreciate open paths. I'm the only human in the gardens right now and don't have much enthusiasm for whacking asters in full bloom. My garden remains a flop in the tallest sections. I can wait until things freeze.

It all started when Dinah kept running away from home. No matter how many times I took her back, she kept moving back over to my house.

That is when I discovered my mother's house was infested with fleas. Then a mama cat showed up with four kittens. Solly then disappeared for three days to go camping with the new cats in the woods that Button was trying valiantly to chase away. I don't know how many are left.

My 93 year old mother proceeded to have a mild heart attack. We don't know if it was from worry over Solly being AWOL or too much salt on vine ripened home grown roadside tomatoes. She is well and back to normal after four days of testing, testing, 1 2 3 in the hospital. In the mean time someone chopped down a tree in the middle of the night and dropped it on the powerline below my house TWICE in a couple weeks.

Some where in there is when my photo editing and storage system went kaput. Then a nursing dog with matching puppy arrived to wander lost along the scenic byway to add to the hairball.

I've been vacuuming like a fiend.

Last Thursday morning the matching puppy became two and I saw the black kitten has no hair on its tail. On Friday I learned two vaccinated people in my hermit like circle caught Covid and the hairball in my photo system came back.

Blue asters wash over the mountain top. 

In the Land of the Crooked Shed my enthusiasm is a bit strained. There are parts of the hairball best left undiscussed, but I feel like I have left something out. Could it be the huge cherry tree that fell down and blocked the main entry to the deep forest. It is all chopped up. One of my younger brothers turned 60 this week.

Tomorrow I will go pick up the trash along the scenic byway. The weather has been perfect with sunny blue skies, chilly mornings and cool days. The leaves will be turning soon. Picking up trash is a bit like vacuuming up fleas except I have faith that the fleas will come to an end.

Grasses

My photo editing and storage system is almost back to normal. I gained re-entry into the external hard drive where all my pictures are stored. They were all still there. A small remnant hairball remains in the filing cabinet system that needs to be worked out. Next. 

My suspicion is a coinciding hostile takeover attempt by Google Drive for desktop mucked things up. Microsoft and Google are constantly at battle over control of the computer and both of them want to suck up every move I make on this machine into the cloud. Welcome to the Borg people.

On the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. There is no escape.

It is September and the grasses are in bloom. Blue asters wash over the mountain.

I weed whacked the paths in the ridgetop garden yesterday while it was dry. Mama cat was waiting for some food. I saw a black kitten with her a bit later after mowing. That is one out of four? There was a dog with a matching puppy running in confused circles out on the byway when I left to go home. I prayed for a kind hearted dog person to drive by. Please no. My mental plate is full. The cattery is still in disarray.

The glass is half cracked.

My house is still standing in a Tall Flower Meadow in high bloom as the summer turns into fall.

I Carrie on being washed in cold hurricane waters once more.

The Shiny Objet Of The Day

Someone has chopped down a tree in the middle of the night and dropped it on the power line directly below my house twice in the last month. Read that sentence again. Who does that?

There was some left over electric in this repair. It's alive! In just seven days I can make you a ....... Life with the Crooked Shed.

At Rest

Further sleuthing and experimentation has pinpointed my photo editing and storage problems to a hairball of undetermined nature with the external hard drive where all my pictures are stored. That is a bit scary. I would hate to lose all my photos on that storage device. There is an open back door where I can see all of 2021's pictures, but it won't let me in the front door or go back in time.

The Picasa photo editor I prefer using resumed function once I changed the storage address. Progress. Still, no hurries. Plenty other things need tending to. Outside Clyde can take a little rest. Maybe the hairball will be combed out by next month's Bloom Day.

Today, the blue asters have arrived.

I found Reason in Florida deep inside a thick stand of invasive paper mulberry trees around 1976. We have been together a long time. I have been contemplating the proper burial of Reason of late. We have reached our destination. I'd feel bad if he wandered off with some stranger again.

New England Aster is not my favorite. It flops over the moment it begins to bloom. At five plus feet tall, that is a lot of sprawl, but it is mostly blue.

The current state of the meadows is a bit floppy. Ida, Irma, whomever, put a permanent bend into things. The first rains of Nicholas began after a day of driving Miss Margie. I have not been willing to cut off any blooms for open paths just yet. I am the only human in the gardens and I don't mind parting my way through - when it's dry.

The Tatarian Aster is more likely to stand back up after a bit of rain and the lilac color adds a different shade to the blues.

Like Ironweed, there is Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens. if you crave more than blue asters.

Now it is time to rest.

Blackout

The leap of a flea is not much different than the flap of a butterflies wings in theory.

My photo editing and storage system stopped working all of a sudden. After much analysis and experimentation it appears that the amount of photos I have taken over the years has maxed out the system. The current work around with Microsoft/Windows photo program is completely unacceptable. Google photos is no better last time I checked. The programmers of both of those photo editing and storage programs need to slapped upside the head. They are complete crap to use.

My old camera died a while back. My new old camera is showing signs of fatigue. I am in limbo until a new system is worked out.

My 93 year old mother had a mild heart attack at some point recently. The delayed symptoms showed up on Tuesday morning and she spent four days in the hospital getting tests. She is doing fine, back home and on a slightly altered pill program. All good, but this changes a great many things.

Aralia cordata 'Sun King' blooms at the end of summer in the Tall Flower Meadow.

The air has turned cool and the days have grown short just as the okra was beginning to make pods. You can't always grow what you want.

The seasons come and go. It takes great effort to slow the inevitable reality of impermanence.

The meadows are unavoidably ever changing. They require a good deal of acceptance and the ability to recognize the profound beauty that moves through them as a constant aspect of their character.

Solly, the Florida fleabag does her perp walk. Taking care of her while her mama was in the hospital I realized she has a high pitched princess voice. So appropriate. I'm headed over there today for another deep vacuuming to get rid of her imported Florida fleas.

Mama cat has been coming on schedule to eat and letting me get closer to her without bolting. I have not seen any signs of four kittens in a couple of weeks.

The Crooked Shed with lush Voodoo Lilies was looking fetching yesterday evening when we got home from the hospital. No photo editing program it seems can hide my own internal vibration that shows up in the lower light best suited for landscape picture taking. One day maybe I may take the pill my mama does for this gift of genetics. They say it's also good for the heart.

That black dot at the base of the electric pole is a bear. It often stops, stands up and scratches its back on the pole. A flea leaps off. The blue asters are starting to bloom. Change is in the air.

In The Wild

Solly decided to go camping with mama cat and the kittens. I went down to the campground and there she was not a hair out of place, perfectly content with herself. I did not see any kittens.

Solly lived alone in the forest as a kitten not so long ago with Button skulking about.

Cats always walk the curving brick road. Ask Dinah.

As I wandered a wild garden for hours today noting all the signs of plant mangling activity in a thinning Lush, a new name for the garden floated up unfettered, The Varmintage. Racoons do this. Deliberately. I garden in a zoo.

There are Elephantopus breeding in the wild.

So much going on botanically for one picture and every taste. That's where I wander.

Like Ironweed in the wild.

The cattery is nominally less askew with the safe relocation of Solly. She did not come home by the way. I had to kidnap her. A longstanding issue is the big tumor growing over Miss Collar's right eye - left to you. It needs to come off. Button? He is the boss.

We are at two and a half weeks in the life cycle of fleas out here in the wild. There are many more weeks to come at the cattery in disarray.

After Ida

The cattery is in ongoing disarray. Solly ran away from home two days ago. Dinah moved out a couple weeks ago and came to live with me. My 93 year old mother still has fleas. One would hope we are making progress in the multi-pronged attack.

Mama cat is still here. The kittens are in hiding. The present and former cats next door are on Button's regular patrol.

The camera is not really capable of capturing the amount and diversity of bloom in the meadows. I can see it all in real life. I think my computer screen eyeballs are going Monet. That doesn't help.

A light clip and fluff post Ida has been happening to make the paths more passable. There are sticks and a few big branches to pick up of course. The meadows bloom on.

Will Solly come home? There are fresh kittens out there somewhere to replace her.    Sigh.