Vines Gardens Haiku 8

Slumbering giant

wakes and slowly emerges

from the rain-soaked earth.

Christmas Concert

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the music, and I especially love going to Christmas concerts. For several years I went to the Gwinnett Choral Guild's Christmas concerts, but, sadly, the Gwinnett Choral Guild called it quits in 2015. However, last year I found a wonderful replacement: the Gwinnett Young Singers. I loved their Christmas concert last year, and tonight I went to their 2016 Christmas concert, and it, too, was wonderful.

In the past, when I was a reasonable person, it would have been enough to go to the concert and enjoy it, but now I have a smart phone, and therefore felt compelled to take pictures of the event. So here are some of them:

(To tell you the truth, I took pictures specifically to create this blog post. Years from now I know I will enjoy looking through the books I have printed of this blog and seeing the kinds of things I used to do, and I hope I will see entries in later years about bringing my daughters with me to these concerts.)

Vines Gardens Haiku 7

Vines Gardens greenhouse
comes noisily crashing down--
Misty fall morning.

Vines Gardens Haiku 6

Beaver or vandal?

Either way, the tree is dead.
Sad chilly morning.

A Drive Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Today I went on a ninety-mile drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Asheville to Cherokee. Here are some pictures from my trip:

Vines Gardens Haiku 5

Fuzzy hanging fruit

and a twisted, knotty trunk--

what is this strange plant?

Vines Gardens Haiku 4

Abandoned hothouse

at the edge of the gardens--

weeds prosper there now.

Three Vines Gardens Haiku

Selfie by the lake

as summer makes its exit

this lazy Wednesday.

Faded red flowers

of plastic still standing watch

the boy now long dead.

Essays left to grade:
sixty. Yet the air is cool,
this swing, inviting.

Feeding the Crows

The crows I feed in our backyard are very cautious.

I threw out half a bag of old Tostitos for them about ten minutes ago. One of the crows has been perched on top of a pine tree just on the other side of our fence, gazing down at the Tostitos and scanning the area, for about five minutes now, but hasn't yet descended into the yard to eat. I haven't even heard him caw out to his family that he's found food.

I think the problem might be that it's rainy and sort of dark outside, and since we have our kitchen light on, he can see through the sliding glass doors to the table and watch me and Jessica and Elyse as we drink our chocolate milk (and coffee, in my case) and eat our muffins and plan (I'm sure he believes) his capture.

Or maybe he thinks if he waits long enough, I'll throw out some salsa or queso to go with the Tostitos.