inauguration day

Inauguration day dawns. Shades of blue, brown, white and green preside over a hushed butterfly garden. The butterflies are gone.

2009 comes in cold

As the calendar changed year, Dorcas and I retreated to Grantsville. Here's 2009 blasting its way into view. Grey and wind on January 1. Drifts over the little Casselman brook. The Maryland state flag tugging the pole over the ambulance station.

More church work

Seems like doing more requires doing more.

Besides more work hours since the end of October, I've been putting in more resourcing hours.

Last Saturday I attended an American Guild of Organists seminar at this artfully arranged pile of stones, the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.

The two morning seminars were organ playing by Wilma Jensen and a new anthems reading. In the afternoon it was adding percussion to congregational singing and techniques of inspiring singers.

What happened at Monterey? It achieved the miracle of unchangeability. The cat was still hungry and winter was still heavy on the land.

Saffron blooms

When it appears that the garden is done for the year, the saffron blooms. This flower here is part two of a complicated life of this member of the crocus family.

First thing in the spring they look like onions pushing up. When the garden is just beginning to produce, the saffron checks out and goes underground until winter is nearly here.

Each flower sports three red filaments. That's what you pluck and lay out to dry. And they become the most expensive spice in the world.