Tuesday, April 13, 2021 (In two weeks, April’s full “Pink Moon” rises nearest earth, becomes highly visible.)

Disney’s long standing theme song originally written for the 1940 children’s movie, “Pinocchio”, is titled, “When you wish upon a star”. Sung by Jiminy Cricket in the popular movie, probably everybody worldwide knows the song and remembers its first stanza.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you….

Today we’ve become much more familiar with astronomy and some events occurring regularly in space. Maybe it’s not too odd to consider that old musical image as less provocative and thus less powerful Nowadays, maybe we’re more likely to want to wish upon a full moon.

The April full Pink Moon is called a “supermoon”. Named so for appearing larger than average when its orbit puts it at a point nearest to earth. Its near position makes a supermoon appear up to 30% brighter than full moons normally positioned in the sky. Supermoons are about 221,905 miles from the Earth, versus average full moons at distances of about 240,000 miles. The approximately 20,000 miles make moon sightings quite distinctive.

Here’s the April Pink Moon, nearest to earth and eyecatching. I’m eager to photograph it.

To be honest, every full moon, those nearest or most farther away, draws me in, compels my vision. During a full moon’s visibility, I look to see it through daylights and night skies.

Having written this, I’ll be on searches for more or better rationale for wishing upon moons rather than on stars. While it’s a funny project, all imagination, we do want to wish!

Dear Friends: Childhood images have so shaped our lives, Disney was a true genius! Diana

Monday, April 12, 2021 (15 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Who in this town knows there’s a street sign identifying itself as “Bee Tree Lane”? Did those in the know learn about that street by accident?

Well I did, while driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I’d chosen to take a scenic route toward my destination. Shortly thereafter and feeling a bit lost, I turned suddenly onto Bee Tree hoping it would lead to an area more familiar. Instead, I found myself on a dead-end short street and a small neighborhood.

The area surrounding Bee Tree is former farmland. The dwellings are fairly new. Annoyed about my wrong turn, I headed for the street’s end with space to turn around. I’m attracted to historical remnants and sighting yard ornaments from earlier times stopped me short. I got out of my vehicle and carrying a camera trespassed.

Get a load of this ancient Fire Truck.

Behind the fire truck an old wagon with a team pole for hauling by horses. The pole’s length suggests that the wagon, fully loaded, needed a four-horse team.

There was more. These working mailboxes have posts of old farming equipment.

• 

• 

I’m concluding that there are few wrong turns. Even in places seemingly uninteresting, open eyes find rewards. For me, the photos are enough. These capture historical artifacts, record creativity, and suggest use variations to collectors of ancient implements.

Dear Friends: A rapidly changing world makes it essential to grasp our disappearing past. Diana

Sunday, April 11, 2021 (16 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Little is like a first tasting Guinness Irish Draft with a friend who previously has visited the Dublin Brewery, and who loves the beer. So my friend, Susie, introduced me to the stout. She knows I’m a habitual Coors Light drinker and cautioned that I might not enjoy the brownish drink. Oh, but I did.

I learned something new and cool. It’s seeing a newly poured Guinness taking shape in its glass. An initial darkness at the bottom foams upward and on reaching the top produces a lovely head.

Thus began a pleasant sharing whatever came to our minds. Spinning ideas like the foaming in a beer glass, we reflected and predicted. This included drinks and eats. Following the Guinness a lovely Argentine Malbec perfectly accompanied snacks of good cheddar and fresh cheviche piled on low-carb tortillas. Yes, we did the event right.

What’s best though is the mutual confidence bringing us together. I air mixed feelings about suddenly quitting a job and dumping a months-long re-fi process. She loosens a preoccupation with producing and marketing her family’s Heliladder (www.heliladder.com), and instead, speaks of what she’s learning from books and movies, from her kids and friends, and describes her sheer happiness while adventuring outdoors.

Soon we’ll be sharing an outdoors adventure. We’ll be chasing April’s full Pink Moon, hoping to capture the sky’s beauty as that moon begins to rise. The days will be longer, and we’ll find how lingering light may influence our vision.

Dear Friends: If happenstance I drifted home a wee bit tipsy, t’was worth it. Diana

Saturday, April 10, 2021 (17 days before April’s full “Pink Moon”)

I’ve completed a couple of serious changes. Quit a part-time job after working at it on and off for fifteen years. And, cancelled an online refinance project after my application lingered open for months.

Stopping work was difficult. It meant being among long-time friends less. Extra income is pleasing, but situations do change. It was time to leave and so I did.

The other event, arranging for a refinance online, began easily. The interest rate and terms were right, the mortgage broker was pleasant, and things began progressing nicely. Here’s the upshot, we initiated this process seven months ago, and clear to this week my app didn’t become closed.

The broker and underwriter explained that re-fi’s have slammed their system because of low interest rates, causing the longer time to close my app. Finally, I began complaining about the wait, they were reassuring that my application was in its closing stage, would complete in a few days. I waited but with continuing complaints and they reassured continually.

Here’s what got to me. Over six or seven months a life will change. One might marry, divorce, have a baby, switch jobs, and etc. Each time the mortgage reps requested updates to my application, they called for documents not needed in the beginning, maybe a way of continuing their stall. The lagging time became more problematic, until it felt best to bail, and I did.

So, there’s a new me, no outside work and still with a long-time mortgage arrangement. I’m relieved. The years have taught that when matters cause discomfort, it’s appropriate to assess, to zero-in on what’s causing the most distress, and then, make mind-easing decisions.

Sometimes I’m wrong, and after cooling down have felt sorry. But another six or seven months pass and much changes, for time introduces unanticipated rewards.

Dear Friends: Appreciating more, home and neighborhood, embracing what’s most real. Diana

Friday, April 09, 2021 (18 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

While driving on a dead end-street, curious about where it might lead, I stumbled onto this emblem of the Old West. The wagon is parked in a weird place. One must know where to fine it, or like me discover by accident.

It’s nearly hidden in a large parking lot emblazed with No Trespassing signs. My first time seeing the wagon, I was trespassing. I had to use the no-trespassing area to turn around my vehicle and reverse direction on that dead-end street. I didn’t have a camera then but kept thinking about the wagon. A few days later I upped my courage and again trespassed, this time taking a camera.

The wagon in great shape evokes the period it represents. Sighting it makes a viewer’s brain dredge up images of this Central Oregon town’s early days, say that period between 1900 to 1920, or so. That period was true frontier living. This magnificent lumber environment really popped once finally rails were laid successfully the entire way, over mountains and canyons between the Hood River and Central Oregon.

Yes, this wagon is a magnificent reminder.

I love the local history and fortunately some of it remains evident. While out and about my eyes always are open to spot relics that draw up those old years and create a visual relationship to the past.

Dear Friends: Feeding arcane interests also teaches more about living today. Diana

Thursday, April 08, 2021 (19 days before April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Yesterday afternoon while mucking out around the barn, on catching sight of Broken Top I paused. From my viewpoint some twenty-odd miles away, its details seemed unusually vivid. Trying to understand why, I looked closely at the collapsed volcano. It was framed in late-day thin light. In the mild weather that unusual light revealed the profile differently. I went for my camera.

Broken Top on any day is an eye-catcher. It’s an identifiable, long and rangy structure among Central Oregon’s Cascades. It has standout jagged peaks surrounding its lower, beautiful center area. That spent volcano attracts hikers, bikers, and horseback riders, traffic that keeps it a busy destination.

Intrigued and hoping to capture more details, I focused-in closely and achieved this surreal image. It draws me in, tickles my imagination.

My direct line of vision from the barn to Broken Top always rewards. Its unusual profile attracts my gazes and stimulates my recalls of pleasant horseback riding there.

In these photos Broken Top seems more dreamy-like. The images stimulate new imaginings.

Dear Friends: It’s less about what’s being seen, and more about how it’s being seen. Diana

Wednesday, April 07, 2021 (20 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

I’ve always been a reader, grew up following mostly male writers, didn’t become introduced to modern women writers before discovering Ernest Hemmingway. My first reading of his work (I forget which one) set me back on my heels. The writing, clean, specific, and sparse but powerful, re-set my standards for “good writing”.

After my eyes had opened, I searched for other writers using sentences that seem sparse, but create impact. One of my favorites was the Southern writer, William Faulkner. There were others excellent, too, who represented the Harlem Renaissance, James Baldwin and Zora Neal Hurston, among others.

Soon I discovered Twentieth Century women writing in styles sparse and impactful. Initially topping my list were Jean Rhys and Tillie Olson.

This ever growing pursuit of fine writing I attribute to having read Hemmingway. He was a genius and brilliant writer, whose novels and stories deserved every accolade they achieved. Like many others interested in writing well, I studied his sentences and story structures.

Other than his writing skills, I can’t stand Hemmingway. My feelings are refreshed by the now-streaming Ken Burns television series, “Hemmingway”. Aside from being a writing genius, Hemmingway was a bully, a drunkard, an unabashed slaughtered of African wild animals, and a needy womanizer.

I hesitate to add this, but as much good as Theodore Roosevelt did for us all by establishing America’s public lands, his persona otherwise reminds me of Hemmingway. It was no accident that Hemmingway’s hero was Theodore Roosevelt.

Both got away doing “manly things”, before public consciousness grew to today’s levels. Nowadays we worry about the environment, its wasting resources and disappearing species. We dislike those who poach and plunder.

Maybe it’s wrong to apply today’s standards to yesterday’s heroes. Can’t help it though. I had to cringe physically and squint my eyes to avoid witnessing Hemmingway’s now-terrible “sports-killing activities”. In the Burns telling, besides a viewer having to see the fun of slaughtering gorgeous wild animals, try watching as bulls are slaughtered by a human dancer who’s surrounded by protective teams of humans.

If my writing is readable, has value and impact, I owe much to having read Hemmingway. After writing now about him, maybe I’ll revisit old favorites, “The Sun Also Rises” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. I’d read in a modern light, I’d re-think the meanings that might underlie his sentences. Maybe I’d even manage cut the man some slack.

Dear Friends: “New wine in old glasses”, or views over time altered by experience and learning. Diana

Tuesday, April 06, 2021 (21 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Eleven years ago I plunged and brought home ten day-old baby chickens. For weeks they huddled in my garage, in a large horse watering trough over which hung a heat lamp. Those were my first ever chickens, and I liked them.

A couple weeks later while shopping in a feed store, I came across three unwell baby chicks, separated from other chicks. These were two bantams and a Welsummer, sale priced at fifty cents each. I knew about bantams but nothing about a Welsummer. I inquired, learning it’s a standard breed that originated in the Netherlands. Oh well, might as well try to save three lives.

On the way home, I wondered how to separate safely these tiniest babies from bigger ones in the trough.

I rummaged and found an unused terrarium, set it on a living room side table and added a couple inches of critter layer (a kind tiny beings won’t sink into). The challenge was to rig an essential heat source. I solved that by taping to the terrain a 2×2 stick of tall lumber, to support a hanging a lamp.

In a short time, I had a reason to fall in love with the Welsummer. She was tiny, but bigger than the bantams. (I could set at once on one palm all three chicks.) Almost immediately in the terrarium, each bantam snuggled its way under one of Welsummer’s little wings. She accommodated their need with striking generosity. Then and afterwards, the three slept in a huddle that was smaller than a baseball.

Early on, I lost one of the bantams. The other and Welsummer survived and eventually joined the other chicks. On that first day, when Welsummer singled herself out to me, she had become special.

Now eleven years later, all the chickens except Welsummer have passed away. She still looks good, has appetite, and her behavior is normal. I’ve learned lessons from my domestic chickens. When one aging stops eating, roosts alone in unusual places, and “looks off”, there’s not much help for it. I’ve tried to counteract nature assisted by a knowledgeable veterinarian. I’ve force-fed, force-watered, and kept a hen alive for an extra month or two, but when one’s ready to go, that’s it. Domestic chickens aren’t bred to live much past their active laying years.

I have still a happy hen, and best of all, it’s sweet Welsummer. I figured that when only one hen remained, she’d become my household “inside chicken”. But now in warm spring days Welsummer seems comfortable as always to hang out with my twin goats. She eats eagerly, and aside from Purina feed, receives chopped greens, rice and beans, and handfuls of treat “gummie bugs”.

More lessons from my chickens: they’re individually smart as needed, and each has a unique personality.

Dear Friends: Those little impulse chicken buys gave me years of eggs, fun, and learning. Diana

Monday, April 05, 2021 (21 days until April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Last night, I watched the original movie, “My Fair Lady”. Without much that interested me on television (I don’t subscribe to cable), I turned to Netflix. That site just had added the movie.

I’m a Hepburn fan, but resisted the movie, “My Fair Lady”, because I’m also a Julie Andrews fan. Andrews created on Broadway the leading role of Eliza, and the onstage musical ran for years. Back when “Lady” was about to become a movie, Audrey Hepburn’s onscreen fame was enormous. She badly wanted Eliza’s role, and got it. I was among the Julie Andrews fans angry that she who had created Eliza onstage didn’t get the movie part.

Both actresses, British born, understand how to create a cockney role. Aside from that, the all-musical movie role requires dancing and singing. Hepburn once was trained as a classical dancer but wasn’t fully capable. Her singing voice was small and its range limited. In the movie, she lip syncs to singing by soprano Marni Nixon, who often performed as “ghost singer” for non-singing actresses.

I boycotted the movie then and since.

Last night, it turned into a wonderful reintroduction to the marvelous Rex Harrison, as Professor Henry Higgins. (Harrison created the role on Broadway, co-staring with Julie Andrews.) The movie is beautiful in every way, cinematically, visually, and musically. Hepburn as Eliza is charming, and of course after Harrison has turned her into a swan, simply is gorgeous. These many years later, the movie comes together nicely, even if one still has reasons to resist its charms.

An original poster to today’s header photo, because it’s so lovely, hung for years in my Kansas City apartment. Sure wish I still had it today, probably a collector’s item.

Dear Friends: Much depends on politics, timing, opportunity. Second chances may alter appreciation. Diana

Sunday, April 04, 2021 (In 23 days, April’s full “Pink Moon”)

Spring cleaning! I’m working in the RV garage. It’s been storing hay. Now, needing more space I’m examining stuff in there long-forgotten, tossing the unused and unwanted.

Suddenly, a surprise. A box holds a set of books purchased years ago that I’ve assumed were lost. It’s a collection that sends me back by half-a-lifetime. These books have to do with the American poet, Emily Dickenson, once my special interest and long time study project.

These hardcover books are a variety. Some contain all her known poems, including special volumes that contain all her poems in handwritten facsimiles. These demonstrate how her handwriting changed over the years.

Yes, I was that much into Dickinson.

There are biographical works, most by recognized Dickinson experts, all finely researched and written. Besides this unexpected opportunity to re-read Dickinson’s great poems, rediscovering her returns a significant bit of my personal history. Remembering amazes me.

I knew Dickenson’s poetry well before becoming assigned to a business trip in NYC. Afterwards with free time, I rented a car and drove to Amherst, the environment of that great writer. After touring the Dickinson home and visiting the college, I drove to the Harvard Library to see its Dickinson collection and purchased the now newly-found volumes to pursue studies more.

After retiring and moving to Oregon, my interests turned to new directions. I got a couple of horses, and as an almost complete novice, had to learn quickly as much as possible about equine housing, training, and tack. I loved having horses and became consumed. Many books in my active library testify to these interests.

Now, in a sort of rebirth, I’ll re-find Dickinson and re-experience a learning curve on rediscovering her greatness.

Dear Friends: Among trash in a largely ignored space, found jewels will re-enliven a kindred mind. Diana