HEAVY HEAT WAVE

August 12th
Clouds threatened rain when I returned.

I watered the garden at dusk anyway because it had been neglected for three days, and continued with that pleasant routine early evenings as the sun moved off.
 
I was still using the wounded camera holding the lens in place, hence the shadow of a finger in all the shots I wasn't able to crop.

Beastly hot and damp days.  Inside it was blessedly cool with the air conditioner at 79 degrees, and sometimes just the fan was enough.

Daily, I rose before sunup and fed the birds for the pleasure of watching them. Did a little bit of art play with water color pencils.

Days later I continued playing, and wish I hadn't
 
Also tried a flower wrap on breeze-cloth
 
Impatient, I undid it only a few days later
 
But, when soaked there was little color left.  Days melted into just being, and being without computer was a gift. Nights there was some entertaining TV from the BBC I don't get in New York.
~*~

Saturday morning I found a dead bird under the feeder, and there was a mourning dove inspecting it for food.  Maybe I should have left it and walked away, but...

I brought it inside and washed it free of mites.

What a beautiful wing.

 ~*~

I read books about Julius Eastman (Link) with an essay by R. Nemo Hill, a book about Bill Rice (Link) whose Garden theater I attended several times in the East Village.  I read the Hanuman chapter of "Bali", and perused sections of "Alchemy" by Johanne Fabricius

 
Finished "The Book Shop" by Penelope Fitzgerald whom I'd never heard of (Link), and she's wonderful.  I listened to Cuban music and to Judy Henski's album "Big Judy" (Link), plus several more discs.

 Here's a choice taste of Judy Henski

~*~

After supper I went outside to listen.  August is the desperate month when crickets, cicadas and katydids must mate and die in order to provide a future for their kind.

 ~*~

Still blooming,
the garden is also chock full of seeds to save.

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~*~

Tuesday the 16th--Time to leave.

So it was I left notes and food, locked up,
bid farewell to the watchman...

and boarded the 3:07 back to muggy Manhattan.

~*~

LINKS
Julius Eastman
https://books.google.com/books?id=EOItCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Bill Rice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Bill%22_Rice
Penelope Fitzgerald
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/late-bloom
Judy Henski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Henske 
 

HEAVEN OF VIBRATIONS

Why?

Why write what one thinks?
Why IS the sky blue?
Admittedly, I want responses,
conversation optimally.
Living is a lonely business,
to each their own.
Infirmities are daunting,
the pay is bad.
Sometimes the food is good,
often sleep arrives.
Everything is ephemeral, 
and there's the rub.
I won't refer to rose thorns,
nor bramble bush.
Perhaps It is enough to stop;
language is overrated.

I was just drifting...

adrift 'till a music post on Face book swept me up,

and carried me where I needed to be.

https://youtu.be/I_is1iyUDJ8

I played it over and over for an hour.

NOURISHMENTS and IMPROVEMENTS

Made lots of good organic food over the long weekend, and still feasting on it.
Did a few things to improve my mind and spirit too.

Red quinoa

parsley, garlic and a little fresh mint

Tomato sauce 
Roasted garlic and onion

 Watercress
plain and simple

 Mixed Pasta
whole-wheat, corn and rice

Apple
with goji berries

Music

Free and fine

New paintings

at Tibet House

Zazen with

Chuck Ryoshin Kalmanek

~*~

Also

More cleaning and clearing:

Trashed old emails down from 16,000 to 7,000 and more to come.

Computer's working better already.

~*~

Information

You tube rules tightened:

"In general you may not download videos posted by others."

Go to 'help' if you want to read the whole thing.

ARCHANGEL AFTERNOON

I descended into the subway for the train uptown.
A bald-shaved burly man covered with tattoos was pushing a high tech baby carriage, his wife beaming nearby as I asked permission to photograph his legs.

He seemed pleased too.

When you depart the train at 103rd Street, walk West a few blocks, and there is an old stone overpass for the Metro North line which you must go through.  Emerging from that, if you look back and up, birds and trees live in that wall.

Archangel brought a swell and generous picnic.  We met to eat on the front patio of the Museum of NY where there are tables and chairs, and a choice of sun or shade.  Later, in a brief visit inside, I asked this man if I could get a shot of the back and front of his t-shirt.  He too was pleased, as was his wife.

I was disappointed that the message on the front included an advertisement.

On to the Conservatory Garden across the street.

Next to the entrance gates.

Looking down over the Roman garden from the high Wisteria portico.  Later there will be a fountain rising two stories up from the center of that circle, and many shrubs and perennials will be in bloom in between and all around.  It's just begun.

Looking up through the iron framework to the newly pruned vines, and remembering when the lavendar blossoms blotted out the sky.  That will happen again little by little.

These are ancient vines.

Ah, the crab apple trees will bloom and fruit again,  There are two of these alleys flanking the Roman Lawn on either side.

The English garden

Dogwood bloom

Dogwood branch

Archangel and I took simultaneous portraits of each other.

blue Scylla

A sudden change in weather.

Archangel headed home.
I wandered further uptown.

Music for days end.

Took a slow bus home.