..."to the vagrant gypsy's life"... WHERED THE SUMMER GO?

Can you post some of the pictures?

While waiting for the coffee,
I noticed something odd about the kitchen calendar.
July, it seems, has run out of days.

I looked carefully for the re-set button.
I tried to re-boot by holding down firmly on the 31.

The espresso began to sigh into the little carafe.

Steaming the milk, I tried to remember
what have I done with the middle of summer?

Oh, that's right.

I watched the moon rise for two nights running.
Thought about going to the shore, but didn't.

hmm.

Now I have to turn the page up,
find the nail for the nail hole.

Ah.

What a nice, new, squarish month is August.

Still, it feels as if she has arrived early.

I won't say anything to her until I've had this coffee.

Then I'll ask her not to go so soon.

Joe

snap-snap-snap CEEWWWLLLL snap snap.

That was great, Joe. And very much how I feel about the passing of this summer.

Ill try to post some pix. I have a film camera and this Canon is sure a neat camera. Now all Ive gotta do is to figure out how to post them.

Are the film camera and the canon camera different? Is the canon digital?

yep, the Canons a digital. I had both the CAnon and Nikon out and I like the Canon because its many buttons are intuitive and quite easy to get the grasp of > I dont have to spend all my tim e looking at a manual-I can get right with concentrating on the pictures I want. I like the way it accepts many kinds of lenses (not juwt 1 brand). It also has a huge view screen .
I bought a tilt lens which allows me to get some neat pan shots . I also like the way its so easy to slip from B&W to color with just a very few button pushes. ALso depth of field is so easy. I love it.
People with Nikons just like paying more money for not much .

Sounds cool! Getting pictures online should be a lot easier with the digital. I hope you're giving it a good shake down - trying all sorts of shots.

Ive been driving around taking pix of Belted Galloway cows and old houses and some of the tidal effects.
Were set to leave sometime Tuesday and will be gone about a week or so. If the weather turns too bad for blue water chugging, well hug the Nova SCotia coast and put in here and there at commercial docks.

I believe that lobstah season is done with over on Scotia so we may be more interested in scallps and clams and other seafoods. Well be there for wild blueberries which are coming in very soon.

Im anxious to get shots of the moody fogs in and around the Madellaines. These islands are kinda last bastions of the isolated fishing communities that eisted on the entire East coast of US and Canada. The MAdellaines,(Magdalenes) from our last visit many years ago, are mostly peopled by rather aloof French Canadienne. Ive gotten more mellow in dealing with such people. However, if they dont appear like they want to be , at least neutral, then well pull off and head SW to PEI and rent a car for a few days of touring about .

Ill stop in and see if I cant find that thread about posting pix again.

Sounds wonderfully beautiful.....

The wattles have begun to flower here. Spring has definitely arrived in the southern hemisphere.

I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay and wattles made . . .

Are you sure that wattle is native to Oz? I ain't sayin' yer wrong, i'm just askin' . . .

Accordin' to Wikipedia (who ain't not never wrong 'bout nothin'), what is called "wattle" in South Africa and Oztralia is the acacia.

I had to look it up since I thought they were from Australia, and maybe some from the southwest US. Yep, according to Sunset Western Gardens, which I trust more than Wiki: native to the tropics or warm parts of the world, notably Australia, Mexico, and the southwest US. Then it lists 34 species.. which may be just a start.


Adds, maybe some not listed in Sunset are from South Africa as well.

Wikipedia claimed that there are more than 1200 varieties, of which more than 900 are found in Oztralia.

Wattle in the context of the Yeats poem i quoted its thin branches or lathes which are woven together to form a frame over which mud/clay is smeared (or daubed, and in wattle and daub, a common English name for the method) to form walls. The term "breaking and entering" dates back to the middle ages, and is found in manor court records in England as much as a thousand years ago, and describes someone literally breaking through a wall to enter a house for the purpose of theft. Wikipedia claims that wattle and daub construction has been known for 6000 years. Personally, i suspect it has been used for longer than that, but it is unlikely that any remains would last much longer than that. It would be a pre-eminently degradable construction method.

We sometimes used to use "wattles" - non budding branches tied together - in trenches to break the face of slope flow downhill re lots of big rains... something of an intervention when shrub and tree plantings were young.

Now I'm all jazzed to see what acacias grow here/would be native in New Mexico. People can be allergic to them, not sure if all species. I used to love several of them back in southern CA. A. pendula and A. podalyrifolia come to mind.

On numbers, I remember there to be zillions of kinds eucs out there too.

Blood on the wattle

By Margo Kingston
October 17, 2002

Australia! Australia! so fair to behold

While the blue sky is arching above;

The stranger should never have need to be told,

That the Wattle-bloom means that her heart is of gold,

And the Waratah red blood of love

In Australia, the wattles are the largest genus of flowering plants. Of the 1380 species of acacia in the world, Australia has about 985. And in Australia acacias are the extremely diverse - found in habitats from rainforest to arid lands. The largest numbers of species are found in the semi-arid wheatbelt region of Western Australia but high numbers also occur associated with the rocky tablelands of the Great Divide in eastern Australia. Although species numbers are generally lower in the inland desert regions, it is here that Wattles are King with species like Mulga (Acacia aneura) dominating the landscape for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. Wattles range in size from mat-like creepers (e.g. Acacia aculeatissima and pulviniformis) to tall forest trees (e.g. Acacia bakeri and Acacia celsa). Most, however, are shrubs or small trees between about 1 and 5 metres tall (e.g. Acacia acinacea and Acacia acuminata).

Botanists still ponder the question as to why there are so many different species of wattle in Australia. Why in Australia is there such wattle diversity?

Australians may have made a home for themselves amongst the gumtrees, but it is the wattletree that has found its way into Australian symbolism. Most Australians can recognise a wattle, at least when it is in flower. In the years leading up to Federation in 1901, the Australian Natives Association (ANA) began a campaign to find a national flower as an emblem for Australia like the rose for the English, the thistle for the Scots, leeks for the Welsh and the shamrock for the Irish. The Canadians had just recently chosen their maple. The wattle was the choice, the ANA committee said, as it was not excluded from any part of Australia, had bright beauty and was useful in tanning hides! The wattle was being called upon to represent an egalitarian, classless Australia of golden prosperity

So, do Australians sneeze a lot?








(I don't know the truth of the allergy thing, I just remember it as a cautionary note.)

The Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) is now the official floral emblem of Australia, wattle blossoms are to be found on the Australian Coat of Arms, and the Order of Australia is in the shape of a single wattleblossom. Australian Olympic athletes wear wattle inspired green and gold uniforms. A Governor General, Sir William Deane, took wattle blossoms to Switzerland to commemorate young Australians who died there and Prime Minister John Howard wore sprigs of wattle at ceremonies after the Bali bombings.


Wattles around the world
Acacias have been used by humans for a very very long time, around the world. Ancient Egyptians used acacia as one of their major timbers, they even used this very hard wood to clamp shut their Mummy-coffins. They were building boats and furniture out of wattles in 3,ooo B.C. Roman buildings in North Africa, and built structures unearthed in India have all been found to have preserved acacia timbers from 2,ooo years ago. Acacias even make it into the Scriptures, with the Book of Exodus (Ex.25) having instructions to build the Arc of the Tabernacle out of Shittim wood, which undoubtedly came from one of the species of Acacia found in the Bible lands.

Napoleon's wife Josephine was a keen horticulturalist. Josephine's efforts in her beloved garden at Malmaison outside Paris ensured the introduction of many Australian plants to France. When Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) was just a squiggle on a map, the French ship Recherche made a visit in 1792. On board was a gardener called Felix Delahaye who later became the Empress Josephine's head gardener. Together Josephine and Felix planted wattles in France from seeds gathered in Australia 16,ooo km away!
Her husband may have leading men into battle, but she was part of great botanical discoveries.

genus Acacia is often lumped with Mimosa ( subfamily mimosoidies)

That reputatin is undeserved.

Acacias are much maligned as far as allergies go and one often gets the impression that they are a major cause of hay fever. Unfortunately it is estimated that only about 5% of the population are sensitive to Acacia pollen but this is much less than the percentage allergic to grass pollen and when both acacias and grasses flower together (as is often the case) the acacias are blamed for hay fever. Severe reactions to Acacia pollen have not been recorded. This data is from a 1996 letter from the Deputy Director of Health Services in Queensland.

Acacia pollen is large, heavy, sticky and dispersed by insects. It is not readily distributed by wind (as is grass pollen) so you really need to be very near the flowers to be affected. I have heard some people accuse the Wattle scent for being irritating but that would not cause hay fever.
more info here