Summer in May

While much of the nation is suffering from a surfeit of rain, or at worst, horrific, devastating storms, we in New Bern are baking.  It's 91 degrees ("feels like 95").  We've had no precipitation for weeks.  "Scattered thunderstorms" have been in the forecast occasionally, but they seem to veer away from us.

Some of the geese pant in the shade, their beaks open to reveal their pinky tongues.  You wonder why they don't just keep paddling around in the creek all afternoon to stay cool.  I guess they want to doze.

But, coming through the living room window, making it not too uncomfortable, is the faintest of breezes, scented with pine straw.  Pine straw--the collective needles of the long leaf pine--is the mulch of choice here.  A partial truckload of bales was delivered yesterday; it now forms a vegan wall along part of our front yard, providing the pleasant feeling of enclosure that being in a fort or tree house imparts to kids. 

About a third of this shipment is ours.

We'll disassemble the fort as we rake the pine straw over the beds.

But not this afternoon.  "Because it's hot, and only an idiot would pursue optional outdoor activities in this kind of weather?", you observe.  Nope, it's because my tennis group is scheduled for a tennis match against another club late today.

Back in the saddle

Went to a two-and-a-half hour planning meeting for the upcoming Craven Arts Festival and spent additional hours drafting a news release announcing the event.  Deja working vu!   Enjoyed it, actually.

When the meeting wrapped up, we were led down to inspect the dank basement of the Bank of the Arts as a potential storage area for "mud balls," a potential craft activity for Festival-goers.  A local artist dug up mud, shaped it into balls, let it dry, added tint to a couple of them, and then burnished them with a smooth rock.  No firing or glazing.  The size of tennis balls with the heft of billiard balls, they were hard, smooth, shiny as porcelain----though still not completely dry, and apparently still redolent of the earth.  The one that kept its natural color was a nice greenish khaki color.  

In a yoga class, one is often invited to "set an intention."  I see if a one-word intention comes to me that applies to the asanas, the physical part, but that would carry over into living the day.  Today, it was "appreciate."  Maybe that's why I liked the mud balls.

Perhaps "appreciate" arose in part from finishing "The Book Thief" this morning before I went off to Sun Salutations in the gazebo, with the river sparkling, the wind blowing, clouds piling up, gulls cackling. Death is the novel's narrator--that should tell you something. And much of it is set in a basement.  Hmmm...  And, it taking place in WWII, depravity wrenches all dignity and comfort from ordinary lives. Yet, desperate people persist in finding solace if not salvation in simple things:  books, an accordion, apples, mute understanding.

I always appreciate the view from my study window.  This evening:

Court date

 Rodger almost-but-not-quite-Federer, and Evelyn, tournament champ.

Had fun helping to organize a mixed doubles tennis tournament.  Tim and I both played, but neither as partners nor opponents.  This is a good sign that Tim has pretty much recovered from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which debilitated him for months.

Tim

Good weather held for the morning event and the evening potluck party in Gail's lovely back yard. But, while other parts of the country have had more than enough water, we need rain. Recent passing showers didn't provide growing things with the good soaking they need.  Weeds come up with only dust around their scrawny roots.  However, we have tomatoes on the two vines, and the zinnias, moon flowers, poppies, and cosmos I started from seed are sprouting. The unintimidated rabbits that hop by nearly every morning don't seem to be too interested in our garden. But, some creature did chomp off a couple of stems of marigolds in the front--and left them there without chewing them up.  Oddly, this happened to a certain few plants in certain spots, and then again after I replaced the amputated plants--but their surrounding marigold sisters remain unscathed.  Funny.

Finished Franzen's "Freedom" and saw "The Social Network," so I'm up to date on U.S. popular culture.  Now reading the harrowing "The Book Thief" for the Newcomers Club book group.

Goose family

 This spring we again have a goose family visiting our back yard.

There are 8 or 9 offspring.  They seem to live somewhere else but swim here to eat. The parents are quite vigilant, one always alert if the other is eating or dozing. We keep a respectful distance, and they don't seem to mind us. Our next door neighbors have been known to feed the adult geese, which I don't think is wise; isn't it better if they stay wild, uneasy with people and foraging for themselves?  The babies like to peck at a weedy patch in our yard.

The goslings are cute.  As they quickly grow, it's interesting to see how their fuzz begins to change as they acquire the color and pattern of mature goose feathers.

There are also four ducklings, but I saw them only today for the first time, from the second-floor window, skimming up the canal. 

Here are pictures of the geese.

Weekend o' Fun

Chris, Mark, and Tim

It's been so warm, with--wonder of wonders--low humidity. So, what a gorgeous day yesterday for a drive to Beaufort (that's "BO-fort," unlike the equally charming city in South Carolina, pronounced "BEW-fort") and a sampling of tasty bites from local restaurants accompanied by sips of wines from around the world at the Beaufort Wine and Food Weekend "Vin de Mer Tasting and Culinary Village."

To get there and back, we drove by a neighborhood about 13 miles from ours, where homes had been destroyed by recent tornadoes.  You could see them from the highway, roofs and walls missing or flattened.  Scary and sad.

Today is the first gathering of the photography activity group of the Newcomers Club.  Somehow I became the leader of this group.  We hope to go to Tryon Palace to shoot in the gardens; on the first Sunday of every month, admission to the gardens is free.

Tonight, a performance of the North Carolina Symphony downtown.

What the geese said

I heard about a photo contest a local developer is running, selected entries to be displayed in the company's model home and perhaps used in its promotional materials for "Stillwater Harbour."  The theme is the "New Bern life style," which ideally might incorporate images from that neighborhood-in-the-making itself, right down the creek from me.  So I rose before the sun was over the horizon's clouds and drove there with my camera.

One newly built, attractive, and so far uninhabited house sits on the former quarry, with another house under construction beside it. Sixty-two additional vacant lots--er, "homesites," staked and sprouting various accoutrements for utilities--ring the water. (I think I've mentioned this place before in this blog.)

I went to the farthest lot, on a potentially picturesque overgrown outcropping.  Beyond the askew "sold" sign, weathered mobile homes and houses rested beside the unseen creek.  A rooster crowed.  Below, in the genuinely still water, some Canada geese glided by.  They had a few choice words for me: "Whaat, whaat, whaat, are you crazy?"--sounding, then, a little like my husband. "You're going to take pictures that'll help these guys sell our habitat?  Ya know, first it's 'a naturally-inspired lifestyle you’ll adore,' as the web site says, and then it's 'these stupid geese are a damn filthy nuisance.  Let's get rid of 'em.'"

Geese at Stillwater Harbour

So I said to the geese, "Oh geez, what was I thinking? Sorry." After all, the geese are our allies.  Not our buddies, of course; they are wild animals.  Yet, they have taken onto their feathery shoulders, unbidden, the responsibility of guarding the shade under our crabapple tree.  And, as I write this, one pair generously has brought their eight goslings into our unmanicured lawn to eat grubs and who know what other pests.

After snapping several shots of geese, water, and the tangled, muddy banks of the "Harbour," I headed home, resolved not to share my photos--probably not brochure-worthy anyway--with the contest sponsors. I don't resent new houses bringing new neighbors; that's inevitable, and no doubt beneficial for the city's economy.  And here we are, encroachers on creek and into Croatan, with our little herb garden in what used to be forest. Species snobs that we are, we save the cypress and massacre the mimosa. We grant safe passage to visiting geese but crush entire colonies of fire ants.

Despite such hypocrisies of my own, I wish Stillwater Harbour had a different strategy. What gets under my skin is the "mega" aspect of the place: "exclusive" and "luxury," with 100 (!) boat slips--yet, "peaceful and untouched"?  Yeah, right.

So, I won't be contributing to the marketing campaign by uploading a photo to their Facebook page. 


Although, a photo of a noisy, messy ol' Canada goose just might slow the juggernaut....  

 

"Moody" and "Flight"

Tim at Grand Canyon

Plein Air at Night (artist Brenda Behr)

Here are two of my pix that got 1st place in the Coastal Photo Club of New Bern "mini-competition" for January.  The theme was "moody."

Today is a "moody" sort of day.  It rained all day yesterday, and most of today.  The geese swam in a line upstream, then swam in a line downstream.  That kind of day. It is a day to delete over 100 old e-mails from one's in-box.  A day to think about working out, but probably not actually doing it. Ditto finishing the bathroom painting project. A day to download from National Public Radio a free blues number by Gregg Allman. A day to consume a small packet of trail mix that was in one's husband's Christmas stocking.  A day to abjure the writing of poetry about rain and the photographing of geese--both phenomena compelling to contemplate, with the recognition that it's impossible to convey their essence with any originality.

Tonight, however, will be a lively sort of night.  We are attending an ECU Pirates basketball game.  It is convenient that the Pirates have the same team color as the Lord Jeffs; one can re-purpose one's purple hoody.   There's just something about all these people wearing purple, the odd exertions of cheerleaders, and drama of sport that is reassuring.  Especially if one's team wins. As members of the Pirate Club (at the Buccaneer level, I believe), we have reached another level of integration into our new community.

Hosting a gathering of the Newcomers Club book group was another milestone in resettlement. I served homemade mango lassis and the salty/spicy snack chana-chur, since we were reading The Space Between Us by Thrity Umigar, set in Mumbai. I'm not sure how well these exotic refreshments went over, but the effort was appreciated. The discussion generated uneasiness when somehow we got into religion, and the Christians in the group were a little baffled as to why there shouldn't be an emphasis on their religion in public school curricula....but I think we recovered enough to be able to forge ahead to the next gathering, to discuss A Long and Happy Life by Reynolds Price (who died last month).  With a novel set in rural North Carolina, perhaps there will be less tension--although maybe we will get into politics rather than religion. As if there is a difference.  But what will the hostess serve?  Skimming swiftly through the book, which I haven't started yet, I see references to pecans, chicken pie, "canned oysters for a big fry," and, not surprisingly, biscuits (see blog post of January 29). Sounds like a well-rounded North Carolina feed, actually; the only thing missing is collards.

The theme for the next Coastal Photo Club of New Bern "mini-competition" is "flight."  Hard to imagine, on a moody sort of day.  My only potential entry so far is an ECU male cheerleader in mid back-flip. 

Go, Pirates.