You can tell it's close to our summer, the days grow humid and hot, everything is bathed in sunlight, the clouds line up for a chance at afternoon showers, and the flowers have mostly all bloomed by now, and the green has matured. The birds have been . . . squirrelly lately, probably the last few males wanting to hitch up to one of the last available females, and the desperation making them short tempered and squally. Until late afternoon there is a lot of shade on the ground and sun in the tops of trees, only after noon does the light start creeping over the thinning grass.
This is the last week of school and I am finishing up making the ring pattern for Friday. I had promised them something fun to do on the last day and the way this ring is turning out it's bound to appeal to them, I hope <smile>. They have been a good class as a whole and some of them have really blossomed and experimented with the patterns and stitches. I can't wait to see their final exams, two bracelets they had to make from a pattern they altered. They could not make it the way it was written, so basically they had to figure out two new patterns using different shapes and sizes of beads and create their own clasps. It should be great to see what they come up with.
And, I got the best compliments this morning, something I overheard as I was going around looking at what they were doing. One of the eight grade girls was talking about how she would miss mini-courses next year in the ninth grade. She told her friend before she started taking mini-courses she had to have a rubric, a step by step plan of what was expected and how it would be graded, but the mini courses taught her to make her own plan and do her own evaluation. And she said she was glad the parents had so little say in what mini courses contained, or which ones they took because some of the mini courses she took that her parents thought were a waste of time, like beading, taught her the most about how do figure things out for herself. I had to restrain myself from going over there and giving her a great big hug for just about making my whole entire nine weeks, but I try not to react to things they are discussing among themselves, unless they invite me into the conversation, and I was not at her table. But I felt like maybe all this work was worth something if even one of the girls got that much out of this course! Hooray! <chuckle>
from "Tweets"
White gull glissando
& minor cormorant notes
Wild keyboard
Turkey vulture floats above
The littered highway
Waste management
Marie Harris
When I was out this morning, I almost ran into a flock of turkey vultures, having a breakfast of armadillo around the corner down the street from us, a blind corner. When I drove round it, three or four vultures suddenly flapped up barely skimming the windshield and one just hopped over to the other lane. These were all black, and the skin of the armadillo gleamed oily silver in the sun. It scared me so bad I was still shaking when I got to the corner to make the turn on Toddville. They are huge black apparitions that you know are around, that you see on telephone poles and street lights, in dead trees and, like this morning, on the road. Lately, they seem to be more reluctant to move, even if they see you coming, but this morning the surprise was on both sides, a moment frozen in a heartbeat and then over, danger averted, and I could see them settle down again at their meal before I got to the end of the road. This haiku recalled their purpose, waste management, and they were doin' a fine job of it!
At the library, where I went to discuss this month's book, you could see sea gulls in the air above the bay, like white strokes of ink on the blue paper sky. They sure do make a racket when there are a bunch of them together. They are as loud and abrasive in their own way as the crows are some mornings, the black and white of rough voices.
The clouds are still lining up and up, perhaps they will condense to rain, but I think maybe the sun will win this round, too much blue, too much light
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