March 13, 2009
March 11, 2009
Bluebonnets
The bluebonnets are starting to flower! I have seen some along Woodlands Parkway. I like those flowers. Seeing a field of them live in person is an experience of beauty, especially when the field is broken by rock, a lone tree or two, some old barbed-wire fencing, or an old wood building. And horses.
Texas A&M‘s Department of Agriculture has an article, entitled “Texas Bluebonnets — Texas Pride,” written by Jerry M. Parsons, Steve George, and Greg Grant of the Texas Cooperative Extension, that says:
As historian Jack Maguire so aptly wrote, “It’s not only the state flower but also a kind of floral trademark almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat.” He goes on to affirm that “The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland.”
Picture from the Wikipedia entry on bluebonnets.
There are lots of good pictures of bluebonnets on PBase.com.
“Texas Bluebonnets — Texas Pride” goes on to discuss the history of the bluebonnet as the Texas state flower…and the fact that Texas has five state flowers:
As our state flower, bluebonnets have a most interesting history. Texas actually has five state flowers, more or less, and they are all bluebonnets. Here is how it happened.
February 16, 2009
Beautiful Day For A Horseback Ride!
Blue sky, sun, high of 60 degrees F, about 44% humidity. And the silence and serenity of the woods.
This is my horse looking at some other horses before we left the place where I stall and went into the woods:
Today I rode bareback (and bitless, as you can tell from the above picture):
It’s been a long time since I rode bareback. Glad I did. It was fun, and I needed it as a measure and reminder of balanced riding. I really needed the practice: I lost my seat a few times! Ugh! (Which is not to say I fell, but to say I didn’t stay glued to a specific part of the horse.) It’s good to feel the horse work, too — something you can’t feel with a saddle between you and horse. I could feel the muscles engage as my horse changed paces and could feel the muscles pull and work as he’d run.
We trotted some (but slowed down to go under the crown of a fallen tree), walked down and through a ravine (but trotted up and out), and cantered along some trails (but not enough). The videos require Quick Time. They were taken with my cell phone; you can tell by the quality of the images: sometimes you can see little squares of color.
February 15, 2009
Orange & Silver
Nice: The clean, metallic, silver-colored pipe, exposed after being repaired. The expertly dug trench: steps, straight lines, and symmetry…reminiscent of the shapes and solidity of a step pyramid…or the excavations for a skyscraper. The warm, brown, upturned dirt that feels good as it shifts and flows through your fingers. The bright orange fencing announcing and setting off man’s work in the midst of a forest, and protecting the area as if it were a surgery on one of earth’s veins…or as if an archeological excavation were underway.
The pictures could have been better, but given as how they were taken (on an overcast 2-14-09) with a cell phone and on horseback, I’m just glad they were not blurred.
