Author: Mellow Curmudgeon
My blog touches on many things, often with humor and/or haiku. I have been a scientist; an engineer; an Alzheimer’s caregiver.
Turning toward Sounds of Motion
The sound of cyclists
comes from somewhere behind me.
Just wind in dry leaves.
It really did sound like 1 or 2 cyclists were behind me on this rail trail. I stood off to the right so they could pass, but they kept coming. I turned around, saw that nobody was coming, and then saw/heard dry leaves make the noise as the wind made them move.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Mythic Past
MAGA memories,
so like these silk orchid blooms.
Vivid but not real.
Vivid ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #358
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Merci, René Magritte
Early morning light
sets a gecko aglow, but
it’s not a gecko.
My haiga in response to
Early ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #357
harks back to a painting by René Magritte that is a fun way to make a point in epistemology.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Gourd Counts
Five began last fall.
Just two have not yet rotted.
More rocks are ready.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
After a Sunless Sunday
Cloudless Monday #1
|Cold morning.
|Sunday’s fallen snow
|garbs the pine.
Cloudless Monday #2
|Before long,
|snow warmed by sun will
|fall again.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Peace on Earth, at least with Poinsettias
“Bracts” say botanists.
“Those red things are not petals.”
I just call them leaves.
Merry Xmas!
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Indian Corn
Buy again next fall?
No, it’s good year after year,
until mice find it.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Seasons & Theodicy
I bring some seasonality indoors with rotating decorations, mostly artificial versions of whatever is blooming outdoors. Pondering three displays (for spring, summer, and fall) sends me in an unexpected direction.
Elegy for a Green Insect
First few cold days ask
“Who can overwinter?”
Katydids cannot.
When I wrote the original version of my haiku, I was aware that some insects can overwinter as adults, even where winters are harsher than in the Mexican mountains favored by monarch butterflies. Bark beetles are a dreaded example. Seeing a lethargic insect shaped like familiar crickets (but bigger and more colorful), I wrote a haiku voicing the unlikely hope that the insect (later nicknamed “Kermit” after the famous green frog) might be able to overwinter:
Last few mild days ask
“Ready to overwinter?”
Cricket moves slowly.
A helpful comment by Sue Ranscht on my post with that haiku prompted me to dig a little deeper. Kermit was a young male katydid. Winters where I live are mild enough for his mother’s eggs but still too harsh for him. Kermit ran out of time before maturing. That makes the middle line of my original haiku more like a taunt than a sincere question, so I revised the haiku to be an elegy for Kermit the katydid.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Green on Green
Last few mild days ask
“Ready to overwinter?”
Cricket moves slowly.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Coping with the Clock Change
My way does work for me and may work for U, if U can avoid evening appointments.
Dark Flame & Wicked Grin
Happy Halloween!
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Stubborn?
Ignoring hints
from tulip tree and maple,
elm stays green, for now.
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Maples — Where and When
Two kinds of maple are common where I live. Sometimes called “swamp maple” because it can thrive in swampy areas, red maple can also thrive atop rocky hills and in the intermediate conditions of landscaped yards. Sugar maples are the other (and more finicky) kind.
The wide range of suitable habitats may partly explain the wide range of turning times for red maples. While they turn early in swampy areas, some of them in other areas turn as late as oaks. Those that turn at a middling time don’t seem to mind being upstaged by the best of the sugar maples:
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Black Hole in Galaxy of Leaves
– Gray button (upper left corner) reveals widgets, –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Mellow Curmudgeon 