bits & pieces of shed/yard video.

I enjoy playing around with moviemaker, cutting and pasting the bits of video and then dragging them back and forth across each other, seeing what happens. I expect if I spent some time being precise and planning how images might interact with each other I might be able to make some interesting things with a little more polish. but I've got rocks to move and bamboo to cut and all that toxic muck to drag up out of the creek. so I'll just be contented with a more haphazard approach to video-editing, and get my husband's big rubber boots on and go play in the mud, like a contented and blissful child.

all of the blossoms have fallen from the cherry trees.

and now that the leaves are full and green, the trees give gracefully moving pieces of shade. the branches have been released from all that pink heaviness, so the wind moves through them more easily.

there seem to be robins everywhere and even a little yellow canary yesterday in the bamboo, for a sunlit moment by the creek. it's coming along.

I'm fond of the phrase "coming along", I've decided. it sounds like progress, but an unhurried kind, in tune with natural processes and principles. I allow myself to imagine a partnership between me and the water, the muck I drag up out of it, the stones I throw into it.

it's not especially late, but I'm tired and think going to bed is the most sensible thing to do.

and, seeing as how I'm in a relatively sensible mood, I think I'll follow my own good advice for a change and get a good sleep. tomorrow's supposed to be even more beautiful than today. the yard is coming along. I've rearranged the living/dining room again (still hoping for the perfect solution to present itself) and shuffled furniture from room to room. if I could just go buy what I wanted it would be easy; I've paid enough attention to the possibilities and difficulties of the room and thought long and hard about the smartest and most comfortable way to make everything work together. but I'm working with furniture brought from a much larger house in texas, and then bits and pieces picked up here and there, and so it's slower going. but more exciting, I suppose, making what I have into what I want.

there are wild white morning glories that grow like weeds (the way morning glories do) up the bamboo.

and I've decided to plant heavenly blue morning glories there, to twine in the tall stems with the white ones. and sweet peas, and maybe scarlet runner beans.

how beautiful that would be, to have the flowers dripping out of the bamboo like that, all that hot and cool colour and then the green on top like the roof of the world, and then the smell of the sweet peas in the afternoon when the sun hits hot there, that would be worth the digging and the few dollars for seeds, don't you think? I'm working hard making paths and flowerbeds, shallow ramp-like steps and all sorts of nice places to sit and look at things, or past them.

this is the mango jar upside down, lit up inside the shed.

and I took far too many pictures of it, by itself and in combination with lights in other jars. I put the camera on the fireworks setting and drew with the different coloured lights for many blissful moments during which nothing existed but the hush-click of the camera, and sometimes not even that.

this is the tulip moon.

as it rested on the window-ledge the other night. the jar makes the most beautiful wavery patterns, and I'm always happy to see a jar of mango slices in the fridge because I love the taste of mangoes and when the beautiful taste is all gone, I get the jar.

if you set the light on the bottom and the jar on the top of it, the pattern of light on the shed roof is so delicately lovely, so liquid and silvery-blue. sometimes it feels very cool and shimmering in the shed, and on those nights I dream about fishes and mermaids and things like that.

today I climbed into the middle of the bamboo and made myself a nest, and almost fell asleep there.

it was the most at peace and comforted I've felt since I don't know when. hidden, trusting the bamboo to hold me up, listening to the creek behind me. watching the birds and the sky from inside the bamboo, snugged down inside it like a mouse in the tall grass.

the inquisitive cat vists the shed.

he had to come in through the window because the doors were shut, and so he just hopped up on the ledge and came in, as calm and self-possessed as you please.

he sniffed at the piled up stones and the candle (no singed whiskers) and then sat in my lap, his muddy paws all over, not caring that I was in the midst of a particularly deep thought. he was insistent that I pet him, and bumped his head forcefully against my chin over and over, demanding affection, claws dug in, purring as he nuzzled.

this is the last of the tulips.

I enjoyed every single bloom. they graced the front and back yard, the house and the shed. this one is resting in a glass jar on the shed window. I set it right-side up before I came in for the evening, when it was still dusk outside, and put a solar powered LED to shine on top of it.

if I lean over and peek out the back door I can see the the light filling the jar, and the jar resting on the window-ledge, shining like a plump, satisfied moon.

half of the blossoms have fallen from our two ornamental cherry trees.

and the rain and wind the last few days (with beautiful, sparkling, sunny breaks now and then) has hastened the falling. my camera has two splotches on the lens now, and I have gotten quite adept at hiding those with light or colour on photographs, but video is trickier. at some point, a new camera. but there's no money in the budget now for necessary luxuries like that. and if at some point I print something, there's always photoshop to smooth the spots out, I suppose, if I was inclined to that sort of time spent at the computer fixing up pictures - and I'm not. but you can't always do only what you're inclined to do, even if you are a selfish sort, as I am.

"be happy" is the message I've set for myself on my cell phone. before that it was "be kind" and before that, "relax" and I must say, I've got the relaxing part down. being happy and kind takes much more effort, especially on days when I feel weighted down with responsibilities. but I think I'm a better person now than I have ever been, it's a slow and halting progress, but I'm happy with it, or at least I am on those days when I'm inclined to be happy about things. I intend to be inclined that way today, and the sun's out, which helps. (though I have to confess, I have come to quite love the rain.)

the cat's gotten two moles now, a fair number of mice and seems especially fond of catching garter snakes.

and I'm sorry about all of them, even as I'm impressed with his hunting ability. the moles are a nuisance, of course, but my husband was quite happy with the cat and gave him extra love after the moles turned up, with their funny little faces and strong, delicate feet.

the yard's coming along, I'm reclaiming land back along the sluggish creek and making the mud and bamboo leaves into a raised path through the bamboo, which needs attention quite desperately. it's got all sort of dead, dry bits that need cutting out but I haven't even done much of anything with the pieces that were cut last fall. I have fences in mind, and trellises, and things of that nature.

blossoms in various stages of bloom and decay.