September sky

Hard to believe that we've arrived at September, but when I went for a (literally) fast walk this evening, I could more or less tell myself that there was a faint sense of fall in the air.  Another way of putting it: it's time the Dodgers got their act together ...

 

rearrangement

The stucco work on the house began today - and the team managed to accomplish a good deal before a big storm struck.  We had to move plant pots, and furniture, and - well, everything, away from the house, which means we have this fetching little arrangement of chairs and table sitting as if we are about to take tea, or a margarita, overlooking the road, with a hint of sunset in the background.  The cats did not care for the power washing (nor did we).  And as a result of the storminess, we were without internet for about six hours, which was very far from a blessing when faced with various end-of-month deadlines: there's a limit to what one can do by way of tethering one's computer to the one-to-two fluctuating bars of reception that one gets on the sort-of grid out here.

 

Geometry of dining

To dinner with friends at La Paloma - an excellent Mexican (as opposed to New Mexican) restaurant in town - with a view from our table through to a private room/courtyard - everything looking poised for an evening ... though no one else ever arrived there.

 

Coopy

Our magnificent Coopers Hawk is back - looking for ... rabbits? 

We went to see Eliza Gilkyson (plus Ray Wylie Hubbard and Jimmie Dale Gilmore) at the Lensic tonight, and it struck me how, when I first heard and fell for Gilkyson's music which must have been ... maybe in 2000, maybe a little earlier ... the line in "The Beauty Way" that goes "Red hawk diving for a rat on Sunset" meant absolutely, absolutely nothing to me.

 

leaf

I haven't anything in particular to say about this young Morning Glory leaf - it's just a particularly nice leaf.

One of the regular exercises (or so it felt like) at my junior school - when I was eight or nine -was to find words to substitute for those bland, lazy four letters: "nice."  Ummmm - luminous? fresh? spiny and corrugated? cheerful?

 

choices

... and here are three of the four painted bits of board, which we are moving around into shadow, into shade, into sun, in order to see what looks best when it comes to wood trim (the re-stuccoed walls will remain more or less the same reddish brown, most likely).  I think it's fair to say that they don't show very accurately in a photograph - or rather, perhaps, the photographs indicate quite how changeable the colors are in different lights.  This afternoon we had a phone call from the stucco company saying they'd had a cancelation, and could they start work on Monday ... please keep your fingers crossed that they are not power-washing the walls during any important Zoom meetings, or, for that matter, when I'm trying to Think.

 

local lichen

It's been a while since I've celebrated lichen here ... I was sitting outside on a rock this afternoon, painting some boards in a range of sample colors: one of them will end up being the new paint for the trim on our house here when we get it re-stuccoed very soon (what color do I want? "lichen" is the best description I can find, though "winter chamisa" may run it close: I think it'll likely end up being something called "misted green."  Anyway - what color is lichen?  None of these is quite what I meant ...).