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After the Snow

January 30, 2015

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized New Mexico, photos, poetry, rosemary, weather 3 Comments

We had a serious snowstorm – for southern New Mexico – last week. The Superintendent of Schools didn’t think it was bad enough to close schools, with the result that there were five or seven children in classes that officially numbered 20. They ended up closing early. Two days later, everywhere the sun could reach had melted. The shady areas took a few days longer.

I went out to see how the garden had fared in the snow. The parsley was very happy. The rosemary decided it’s time to start blooming.I decided to bring a few branches indoors to add some green to my study. I hadn’t thought about how much rosemary looks like an evergreen tree until I started working with these close-ups. It’s leaves are like fir or spruce. And I found one source on odors of herbs in cooking, which calls rosemary “piney.” Looking at the vase of rosemary in my study, I started playing with these ideas.

An untitled work in progress

What’s rosemary to you? When Ophelia
said “remembrance” I pictured
a soft leaf to brush against the cheek,
not this sturdy stiff-needled bush.
This kind of memory stays green,
refuses to go away, an ugly scene
replaying from an old movie.

Playing with the Camera

January 4, 2015

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized flowers, grass, native plant, photos 2 Comments

The son who gave me my new camera last Christmas was back this year and gave me some lessons in more things I can do. One was about focusing close-ups. Here are some of my attempts: And another: My son, in demonstrating, had the good artistic sense to focus on a green leaf among the red ones.

Photo by Jack Young

Here is my effort. A few days later I gathered some leaves from the tall ornamental grass in my yard, and did some more practicing. The plant outside is much browner now because we had a snowfall the day after New Year’s. I’m enjoying this color while it lasts.

The San Diego Desert

December 28, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized California, desert, native plants, photos, San Diego, Scripps Preserve 1 Comment

I was in San Diego, California, in October, but other things intervened and I’ve only now uploaded my photos into the computer. These photos are from a walk in the Scripps Preserve, a small sample of what the landscape of the San Diego area once was. It still seems amazing to me that this area was desert, right up to the water’s edge, before people started altering the landscape. Dry bushes on the cliff give way to green in the arroyos, which probably benefit from the runoff from houses, roads, etc.There are small yellow flowers, similar to the ones I see in “my” desert far inland. I guess that this is some variety of Bahia. a family with many varieties. Many of the bushes had recently gone to seed – as one would expect in October. And the overall look of the area made it quite clear that California is in drought conditions. Deserts are deserts whether near sea level or at 4,000 feet, where I live. And this is in spite of the greater humidity coming off the water. My skin appreciated that difference.

Not a Sunrise!

December 21, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized photos, solstice, sunset 1 Comment

This evening a little after five p.m. I looked up and saw an unusual amount of color in the eastern sky. This is the direction in which I usually photograph sunrises. We had a neighbor in Maine who lived on a point and could measure a sunset by how far around the circle of her view there was color. Tonight’s was nearly a 360. There was color both north and south.

It was as if the sun had decided to make a big splash because it had such a short work day. Which is utter nonsense, of course. But it was beautiful, and seemed a good omen for the new season of moving slowly into more light. Here is the main show, a little bit south of west, seen over our roof.

Is It Winter Yet?

December 1, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized native plants, New Mexico, photos, winter 1 Comment

Of course it isn’t winter yet by the calendar. But many plants are reacting to recent freezes and changing their colors.

Cottonwoods in the arroyo are all golden, but haven’t yet dropped their leaves. The leaves of the buffalo gourd vine, on the other hand, have all frozen, leaving the gourds to show their stuff. In my back yard the four-wing saltbush is covered with ochre seed pods. And the tall grass plant is turning leaf by leaf from green through red to yellow to brown.There’s an extra glow in the morning sun which I haven’t found a way to catch in the camera. I haven’t caught it in words either, though I admire it from my desk every morning.

September Revisited I

November 24, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized hike, native plants, Organ Mountains, photos, wild flowers 1 Comment

At the first cool spell in September I went out on a hike to see what the rains had done in the hills. Yes, there was green. And some wild flowers. Then I got involved in my book readings. It was over a month before I got the pictures transferred to the computer. Then I forgot that I had done that. Another month has gone by. Here, at last are some views I found to share from that September hike.Yes, there was grass along the trail.And thick growth as I climbed into the canyon. There were lots of sotols. These were not affected by the rains, they had bloomed in the spring and long since gone to seed, but I found one worthy of a close-up.I was not up to a long hike, but it was pleasant to get closer to one of the Organ Mountain peaks.There were flowers blooming, thought none were very showy. If I went back this week, the grass would all be yellow and the flowers gone.

Sunrises

November 17, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized art, nature, photos, sunrise 2 Comments

What is it that makes a sunrise so attractive? The ephemeral nature of it is no doubt part of it. The clouds don’t stop moving so that their effect can be admired.

The difficulty of capturing a sunrise is surely part of the attraction. Painters are naturally interested in sunrise and sunset because the colors are so varied and hard to reproduce. I can’t do a sunrise justice in a poem, because there aren’t enough names for all the variations in the color, and people don’t agree on the names there are. Photography has its own complications of capturing the shifting light against darkness elsewhere.

In our household we are such creatures of the clock that we only notice the sunrise at a few brief periods of the year. The rest of the time we are up too early or too late. The problem of being too late is obvious. The problem of being too early is caused by my inability to put off getting to work – near a window through which the sunrise does not appear.

These photos were taken on two consecutive mornings―this past weekend. Two very different beginnings of two different days. This morning there were no clouds at all to create any colors.

Desert Blooms

August 23, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized native plants, New Mexico, photos 1 Comment

The desert, in this case, is the arroyo behind the three mile long dam built to protect Las Cruces from floods of water coming down from the mesa into the valley. Plants get plenty of water from the runoff of the rains. The weather is moving toward fall and a few days have been cool enough for a walk in the sand during good photo hours. Above the yellow Bahia and the white datura (jimson weed) with the dam in the background. The city is right on the other side. Below, some datura close up.Another native plant which has been enjoying the weather is the potato plant. Like the datura, it is poisonous.The dominant perennial plants here are creosote bush and mesquite. The creosote bushes are covered with small yellow flowers.Another plant which appreciates the rain is buffalo gourd. There are already a few gourds on this plant. Come fall, the gourds will be bright yellow balls, which some artisitic people collect to make Christmas tree ornaments.On my way back to the road, I noticed this Texas sage plant. Its brilliant color is in contrast to most of the flora here. Texas sage is not native here, but well suited to the climate. Some bird brought the seed from somebody’s yard.

Napa 3: Yes, There Was Writing Too

August 17, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized Napa valley, native plants, photos, poetry, tanka 1 Comment

My back yard has acquired its post-rain carpet of green. When it first appears I can’t tell which plants will be weeds and which will be wildflowers. I feel a bit that way about the results of my participation in the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. I’m sorting out my drafts of poems and my new ideas and deciding which pieces have most potential.

Many of my poems centered on the past. Perhaps this was because I was back in California where I grew up, though the Napa Valley wasn’t part of my home turf. Perhaps it was because when one has 20 hours to produce a poem, one goes back to basics. Here’s one piece which may be complete in itself, having taken the shape of a tanka. The assignment was to show passage of time:

Almond blossoms in spring,
tiger lilies in summer. Our height
marked on the door post.
Before my brother grows tall,
the house is no longer ours.

Another piece is too short for a tanka, too long for haiku. Perhaps it is the beginning or end of a longer poem, though right now the rest isn’t working.

Prunes, apricots,
cannery by the tracks. I bury questions
in my grandfather’s orchard.

Since I’ve been working on a different poem about trying to put my ancestors behind me, I may put this aside for a while. I have researched all the main lines of my ancestry and after writing John Emerson Roberts: Kansas City’s “Up-to-date” Freethought Preacher (see Books page) I thought I was done. But here is my grandfather and his orchard once again.

Meanwhile, in a corner of my yard not as covered in new green shoots, a little clump of purple mat, my favorite local wildflower, is flourishing. It didn’t have to wait for the rain to get started. And I have lots of other material to work with while I decide what to do with my new pieces from Napa..

Napa Valley, Land of Sun and Wind

August 13, 2014

ellenrobertsyoung Uncategorized balloon, Caifornia, grapes, Napa valley, photos Leave a comment

Napa and its valley are known for wineries, and the territory lives up to expectations. There are fields of grapes everywhere you look. I even found a small plot of grapes in a small park in St. Helena, the town where our conference was held.

There was a vineyard across the street from where our conference met. The first day I had time to wander over for a closer look, the plants looked much like the one in the park, the grapes tucked among the leaves. The next day I went back with my camera and found this:

My guess is that this is to give the grapes more sun. This would also make them easier to pick, but I think the savings in labor at that point would be balanced out by the work of pulling each laden vine down.

My hotel didn’t serve breakfast until 7:00, so I was often up and working on my writing assignments before then. One morning I looked at the usually empty field outside my window and saw:

Though New Mexico is famous for its balloon events, I had never seen one being filled. A slow process, requiring patience, and from the look of the number of people walking around, considerable co-operation and precision.

I continued to watch until the balloon left the ground. Two people remained behind to fold up the ground cloths which had protected the balloon from the dirt.

By the time I left for my workshop, I could find no trace of the balloon in the sky.

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