The Dollivers invade Cape May, Day One

Just back today after a wonderful, packed, three days at the shore, with the only three days' good weather to be had anywhere in the region, sunburns, even.

The Ds were rendered speechless by the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Get a look at that, it's HUGE.



Very big for Dollivers. They held hands on the whole trip, just to be sure.

And the whale and dolphin watching boat came by on their first beach visit, to great excitement, see, it says d-o-l -- hey, it's the Dolliver Watching Boat!!



wave, they're watching us here on the beach.

Nice piece of natural sculpture there, too




Next stop the hawkwatch platform, where they craned out to see as much as they could without falling into the marsh



and a new friend, Susan A. took their picture.




Turns out that aside from being an instant Dolliver fan, and a very nice woman indeed, she's an artist, weaves, makes dolls, has worked in clay, you name it, a kindred spirit! and she went so far as to make our portrait, Boud with Dollivers, a first.





What a piece of luck to have met her. Wonderful new friend.

Then a hike to the bird blind, where the Ds were amazed at the sight of a pair of swans with six cygnets, all wound up together like kittens, hard to count, but we think it was six.





We kept at a prudent distance -- you don't want to irritate a pair of swans with young.

At the entrance to Cape May Meadows, next stop, we read the official recognition that this is one of the few last best places!



we all vote for that. And there was the usual obliging bird who sat on a post long enough for a picture.



There's always one for me, every year. Maybe it's the same one. Oh, it's her again. Well, I'm a nice guy, I'll pose. Again.



Also at the meadows, a snowy egret, the kind with the golden feet,



danced about gracefully for a while, and overhead an osprey flew over with a huge fish in his talons. Many hawks and vultures, a glossy ibis in the shallows, and at the edge of the ocean, joy, the piping plovers, rare and protected, are nesting again and succeeding. And a couple of oyster catchers wandering about casually as if they were not the first ones I'd ever seen.

Back at the fort, while we lay around on the balcony,



an energetic mom of three tiny kids organized them into the wading pool,



while a couple of teens read intently in the big pool, maybe finals are coming up.




More adventures to come!

Goodbye, iris and pansies, we're off soon...

The Dollivers finally managed to get their entire wardrobe stuffed into the Big Suitcase, largely by sitting on it, and wanted to show the world their beach gear before climbing into the traveling Bag of Doom. We don't care that it's been raining wall to wall for years, we are going to shine at the shore!

Meanwhile, the iris





and pansies



have been perfectly happy in the rain and wish to wave to us as we leave on our Great Big Annual Trip.

Wheeeee!!!!

Okay, exhaling now

Now that I've done the pictures and admired the Nautilus journal all over again, I had to share it with HP but



I kept this picture back from the Beautiful Metaphor blogpost, the final piece in the journal, from Minimiss, because it's such a wonderful signature piece for this blogpost. I hope that's okay by you, M!

I thought you'd like to see the other hugely excited recipient of the Nautilus journal, HP, who loves the images, studying it with great care. When we started this journey, I didn't know that by now he would have lost a lot of reading ability, but still be very open to images and color, and this is such a great experience for him. I pointed out the pages from people who are in touch with us otherwise, to identify them for him, and he wanted to be sure you all know he's very happy to be included in this experience!

Here he is admiring Annie's page, after enjoying the beautiful watercolor and mixed media piece from Irene (dogonart) -- incidentally, first time in a while he's used his hands as well as that



And Heather's beautiful insert page



And here he is enjoying the signature Friends page.



And, in case we need to remember the significance of the nautilus image: that's a shell creature who, as it outgrows the previous section of the shell, closes it off firmly and moves on to grow more into a new life. A metaphor for a life well-lived, I'd say.

This Just In -- the Journal has landed!

Our Nautilus Field and Fen Journal came home yesterday, and the wonderful results are posted in Art, the Beautiful Metaphor, my art blog, because the journal has transcended Field and Fen, and is now officially Art!

See it and enjoy and comment and just bask at: http://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com/2011/05/nautilus-field-and-fen-journal-is-home.html

Jinny, retired but never retiring!

Today was the retirement party for our library director, Jinny B., who has been a rock and steadfast friend to the Adamses as well as a great professional. We did a ton of art undertakings together, she conferred on me the title of Fairy Godmother to the library's art adventures, and this was only a fraction of what she accomplished in the 20 years we've known her. I have little doubt that she will be wowing other people, other places, and continuing her bringing science to everyone, and robotics to people who've never heard of them, as well as the visual arts everywhere she goes, and weaving people of all nations together, and who knows what other enterprises.



Jinny in typical explaining pose

It will be strange not to have her in her chaotic office, replete with items you can hardly name among other more common ones, but all Useful Stuff that would eventually be used for some good purpose.

The event was, well, unusual. I mean, how many people have a dragon in full regalia turn out to honor their retirement?



dragon getting ready outside to march in


and present her with an official dragon suit, which she donned immediately, and wore throughout the event? or have people come from all corners of the country to be there today? or have politicians send real messages of real friendship? and some of them show up in person just to say thank you? and people tumbling in at the last minute, laden with gift packages. and have songs written especially for the event? and sung by a local youth choir?



Jnny in dragon suit enjoying the serenade


and a personal pianist (I'm proud of this one, since I made the connection between her and Bill Bauer for program purposes a while ago, and the partnership seems to have flourished) playing the audience into the hall, and accompanying the choir? and a full complement of artists, themselves well known exhibiting artists around the country, in attendance? here's one, Bob Justin and a young student



and messages from a theater director who had to be at the theater today and sent a message to be read for him? and the mayor and board, and library users of all ages and nationalities crowding around to be sure and be on hand? and all the libe staff turned out in their official libe tshirts, zooming about in a blur making sure all went well? which it did.

Well, maybe you know people whose retirement party goes this way, but I have to say this is the only one I will ever know!

J is one of those people who do a bangup professional job, but also do a huge amount of good by stealth, not wanting any credit, just wanting people to do well. I'm hoping to be her when I grow up.

RIP Beeper, fly away home

This morning our dear Beeper the parakeet died. We think he was about eleven years old, we've all lost track. Lovely little green bird with a perfect necklace, he was the last remaining child of Opal and Harriet, bred accidentally in my kitchen, but beloved. She was the best mother a bird could have, and he did have a nice life.

I took him out to bury him under leaves among the trees, close to nature as I could get, and just as I got into the trees a huge redtail hawk swooped right in front of me, with a rabbit in his claws and swooshed away through the trees. A life goes on moment.




Thank you Beeper for a ton of amusement and pleasure at your beauty and the songs you used to tune up with when you heard the outdoor birds going. And the occasional imitation of the microwave beep.

As soon as I removed his toys from the cage, Duncan seized on them and decided they are now cat toys. Very pragmatic.

Lilac and WIP

A WIP, in the trade, is a Work in Progress, and what you see is the current wallhanging in midstride, cotton spun heavy yarn, and many knitting stitches. Yes, knitting is an art, too. And please don't use the Bad Word macrame around a knitter...macrame is a series of extremely simple knots, employed by hippies in the 60s to make ghastly plant hangers and other busywork objects. Great fun for little children, though, since the skills are not too hard for them.

In this piece, there are quite a few different knitting approaches, and as usual it's done spontaneously, deciding as I go what happens next. Astute observers will note the feather and fan motif in there, too. When you do this sort of intuitive approach in weaving it's known as saori weaving. Not sure what it would be called if knitting is the approach. Knitori. Hm.



And the scent of lilac is drifting all over this work, since the bush a few yards away on a neighboring patio is in full fling.

The Labyrinth and Nothing

After my wildlife refuge time the other day, I had an hour free before I needed to get home, so I found myself at the labyrinth, which is only a couple of minutes away from the wildlife place.

It seemed like a good idea to walk the labyrinth at this time, since I usually do it as a kind of spiritual help to friends going through difficult times, and there certainly seem to be plenty of difficult times to go around.

This time it was dear P.B. and her husband S. who between them have a load of health and professional issues to cope with that would daunt anyone, and they're just the sort of Good People that Bad Things Should Not Happen To.

Anyway, little I can do to help them, but I can walk the labyrinth, and as usual at the entrance I presented the labyrinth with what I think I'm there for. This time it was very hard to formulate a question or a concern, so I just thought, well, here goes nothing, and started.

I decided to simply walk, not change anything, not push any of the rocks on the paths displaced by rain and squirrels back into place, just allow things to be, suspend my endless need to organize my surroundings.

On this trip, I'd found a couple of items blowing about on the path that seemed appropriate for these friends, one a down feather, white, perfect, one a tiny strip of ribbon, purple and gold stripes, which struck me as funny.

At the center of the place I put my offering in the container there for the purpose; the feather made several attempts to leave before agreeing to sit in the bowl, and the ribbon fluttered about as I tried to put it down in a wind. Just as I realized it wasn't appropriate to force myself on events, even this small, they both lay down.

What almost always happens, on the way out of the paths, is that a sudden thought comes so urgently to mind that I have to entertain it. And on the way out of the winding path this time, the thought exploded in my mind: nothing matters in the end. Which sounded horrifyingly negative, until I turned it over a few times and saw several ways of thinking about it. Seeing "nothing" as an entity. It matters in the end. Seeing "nothing" as "seeing no thing as more important than any other thing" matters in the end. Or, don't just do something, let nothing happen for a moment. And on and on.

So I let it be, and let the prayer flags carry it up to wherever they take thoughts to. And yesterday at home I was pressing a few flowers, so I needed the giant dictionary for this purpose, and opened it at random to find a page without flowers and leaves already pressing. The page that opened had, at the heading, the word "nothing."

And at the foot, last word on the page, "nuance."

I always hope that this sort of prayer effort helps the people it's meant to. And maybe that means all of us.

Mother's Day Wildlife Walk

Happy Ms Day to them as celebrate and to them as are as good as Ms to relatives and neighbors. That's all of us, I think!

I made a trip to the Rogers Wildlife Refuge, in Princeton, braving the potholes and mudflats of the approach road, left unfixed, probably to deter people from speeding down and scaring the wildlife. About two miles an hour is top speed.

After a mile or so of this, you see a bird watching platform, built out onto the marsh, and a little place to park. Years since I was last here, and to my amazement the platform has been completely rebuilt, with all the steps in place and handrails and altogether sturdy construction. Very unlike the flimsy rickety thing that used to be there, which made me wonder if one day I would be pitched into the water among the snapping turtles.

Today there was sun and wind, the leaves just starting to open on the trees, and the wildflowers still in bloom. Once the leaves open, and the canopy shades them out, they vanish again till next year. So for a few good days, we have spring beauties



arabis







and for a bit longer, wild phlox.

And, always the phragmites grass, native but still invasive





And the powerful scent of honeysuckle everywhere



and the sound of bullfrogs tuning up, and great blue herons



hunting



and being nagged at by redwing blackbirds



and tree swallows swiping the bluebird houses for their own. The bluebird houses are put up in pairs a few feet apart, since the tree swallows tend to pick one, and the bluebirds don't mind having the other.

And so many birdsongs, most of the birds invisible, but now and then a black and white warbler flashed across, and a wren, not a Carolina, the other kind, and catbirds and many I couldn't identify from their songs. This is a refuge that Roger Tory Peterson, the famous bird book man, visited years and years ago, and one of my friends, being along with him, well connected, you know, said, gads, he'd identified about twenty five birdsongs before they'd all got out of the car. In birding terms, it was like trying to jam along with Mozart.

So I thought I'd share this trip with you, dear blogistas.

Dogwood and duffers

This morning Sevi Ballesteros died, way too young, a massively talented golfer and nice man, who added a touch of light relief to the too-earnest golf world, and won over even nongolfers such as I.

Yesterday I happened to catch a duffer on the golf course out back, vaguely wondering where his ball had gone, and no doubt his game, and that of a lot of other weekend hackers, who are thrilled and high-fiving if a drive goes more than fifty yards, was influenced by people like Sevi, even if he doesn't know it.



He was having a lovely spring day out on the course.

The dogwoods are a little tribute to Sevi's last spring.

May Goeth All In White

I have no idea where that title comes from, but any knowledgeable blogista who can, without googling, tell the rest of us, is welcome to do so! Shakespeare, maybe? Jonson? Herrick? And it might be Spring, not May. Aside from that it's totally accurate and authentic.

Except that this year, pansies are on the menu. Closeup



and five echoing circles, two pots, two support tables and one glass top.



Chances are I'm the only person on earth who thinks this is cool, but oh well.

Today the houseplants, most of them, went outdoors onto the patio, their summer home, or camp, making the living room look a whole lot bigger. This is the allee of plants.



And this is the same allee from a different direction.



Just to make this more of a travel brochure, The Delights of the NJ Patio.

The green carpety looking stuff between the terracotta tiles is flower carpet, which is shade flowers this year, and I have high hopes. Usually that's where the impatiens goes, but I thought, hm, no law against changing that. Especially since this collection includes coleus seeds, which may become houseplants later on this year.

And here is a tour of the herb garden.



Three containers, one of new sage plant and the old one, about 20 years old and still hanging in despite the landscapers and the weather and floods and bitter cold and feet of snow. One container of basil seedlings, which will yield some good pesto in a couple of months. One container with thyme, rosemary and oregano.

Spearmint is all over the place, and it cracks me up when people want to know where to buy it to plant! I just instruct them to come over here and I'll yank some out from practically anywhere and present it to them. With the suggestion that it be planted in a pot, no scrap to escape and infest the neighborhood.

And, after the severe winter, the wild cherry tree, planted by birds long ago, is in major bloom, with squadrons of bees happily working it all day long and into the evening. They are putting in overtime this year.



I like very much that my tiny area is doing its bit for the bee population. It's never been sprayed and never will be. The scent is powerful, to me like honey, to other people not so much!

But the racket of all those bees working at once is a great illustration of that phrase from Yeats, I think, about the "bee-loud glade". Yes, clearly he'd been there, heard that.

Blake and Music and Unintentional Wedding Hilarity

Yes, as soon as you see the word hilarity, the next mental image is of wedding hats. To be exact the wide variety, almost all totally lacking in anything resembling design, seen at the Abbey yesterday. It was wonderful, the comic relief of the day.

Every solemn occasion needs a court jester, after all. My favorites were the futuristic ones that looked as if they were wi-fi enabled, particularly the ones Andrew's daughters were wearing. I bet they also get terrific shortwave reception on those things. Then there were the bulletproof designs, a little like concrete mixers upturned and painted interesting shades of puce and other festive colors.

I'm glad I didn't get to place a bet on the Queen's color choice, since I'd gone for blue and she went back on me and picked primrose. Interesting political choice, since the Primrose League is the more or less trade union of the Conservative Party, which she's not supposed to favor, being expected to maintain a grim neutrality no matter what rubbish goes down at Number 10. I expect if this comment comes to the ear of the Palace, somebody will groan, oh God, everyone's a critic!

The music veered from glorious and wonderful to comic, too. Very jarring to suddenly have the national anthem introduced with a fanfare and all (the fanfares were great! I'd love a whole CD just of fanfares) right in the middle of a religious service. Just in case we all forgot who's in charge there...and the touching sight of Prince Philip having to sing the words while the Queen maintains her usual dignified silence, it being Her Song.

And whoever timed the motet that went on and on and on, long enough for all the signings to be done in the smoky back room or whatever it is, was brilliant. It worked just perfectly. Unless the party was held back until the right time to emerge, they having already signed, called their bookies, made their Facebook entries and other things, in the meantime.

Jerusalem I love, the stirring, rousing sound, but it comes with such Women's Institute (country association of women involving good works and jam) associations, since it's the anthem they sing at every meeting, as far as I can tell. When they're not posing for calendars wearing only a string of good pearls.

So once it struck up, Philharmonic and all, I was looking all over for the women sidling in, carrying the tea urn, and setting up the tables with little pink cakes...and let's not get into the words of Jerusalem just now. It's Blake, folks, Mr. Mystical and Sex, and better not to go there right now. Otherwise we'll be explaining, on the subject of Blake, that the tiger referred to elsewhere is um, not the big stripy animal trotting about in the jungle.

All in all, a great day's fun, wonderfully poised and beautiful bride, who will no doubt bring a touch of class to that family, good idea, and a nice husband, who actually has less hair than his father in law, poor guy. Takes after his grandfather and father that way.

But I have one lingering question: you know how the bride doesn't wear any rings at the ceremony until the groom puts (forces, in this case, ow) the wedding ring on, where was the Engagement Ring at this time? In Harry's pocket? did Camilla offer to mind it? were the little bridesmaids playing dressup with it? hm?

I have to say that yesterday's show was definitely worth the price of admission. And I wonder still at the US commentators who insist the Brits are reserved despite panoramic views of millions of them all over the country, drinking and dressed up in silly gear and dancing and making the kind of jokes they have to watch out not to put on television. It's one of those sweet myths.