Snapshots of May and June
This week, the images are all Laura's, the words mostly Ruth's
No paid post this month…
…not yet, anyway. I sort of had the idea that the first weekend of each month would be a paid post, but I am hitting a rhythm with the book that makes feel like I’d rather put my available hours for extended writing towards that. I might change my mind later in the month, but for this week, we’re going to do something a little different.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have been trying to learn some new skills, namely sketching and photography. I’ve not taken any formal classes in either, and I cannot say that I have a lot of innate talent for drawing, though I would like to believe that every so often my eye captures something good with the camera. Mostly I love the way trying to render the shape or color of a creature helps me to know it more deeply, or how the way I frame a shot says as much about me as it does the thing I’m photographing. I recently got a new-to-me camera—a “real” one rather than just my iPhone 13—and while the learning curve is steep, it is incredibly rewarding.
Anyway, I thought I’d post a few of the results of my nascent artistic practice, then let the words be mostly Ruth’s, from a column dated June 3, 2001.
Rural Reflections
by Ruth Dennis
Snapshots of the first days in June
It is that time of the year again—the time I have looked forward to from the mid-winter days of bitter cold and wind and snow.
I have filled the two big iron kettles with brightly colored petunia plants. The kettles have long since been used as antique planters and only a very few passers-by have any idea of their original farm use.
I had a long anticipated visit to a neighbor's greenhouse early in the week and came away with flats of petunias, pansies, and other annuals. Since then, as weather permitted, I have spent spare time and some not so spare time digging, planting, pruning, trimming. There is more to do but it has been cold, windy and rainy. That really doesn't matter. My flower beds, flower kettles and patio boxes are works in progress and they will be a very important part of my life from now until October.
I come into the house with dirt under my finger nails, lame in my knees, fingers tight, and very happy. I have been digging, planting, pruning, trimming. I silently repeat the words of the poet that “God's in his heaven and all is right with the world.” Certainly “all is right” in my world.
The hummingbirds have found my hanging basket of pink impatiens on the front porch. They come for their 4 o’clock tea of nectar and I watch and marvel at their beauty and their motion. They, too, are a joy and I look for them many an afternoon.
Last Sunday afternoon the skies became very dark and forbidding. Thunder roared around the hills and sometimes crashed like cymbals, almost overhead. The lightning was bright and fierce and the rain came in gusts. I huddled in the recliner, trying to reassure myself that I wasn’t too afraid. I failed to convince my cat who snuggled deep into my lap and failed to purr with any degree of contentment. She sensed and shared my apprehensions.
Thankfully, the storm did not last too long and in spite of radio forecasts of continued “severe storm watch,” the skies cleared and there was some late afternoon sunshine.
I looked out the glass front door when I saw something moving in the grass below the lawn. There she was, a yearling doe, eating away. I watched as she moved up onto the lawn where the grass was more tender. She seemed to be unaware of being close to a house and the possibility of people or pets nearby. She would graze, then look up contentedly, before moving a few steps and continuing to eat.
I watched and silently told her she could eat as much as she wanted since the lawn needed mowing. She would look up at the glass door. but I didn’t think she ever saw me watching her. It was a few minutes to remember, a summer snapshot before my eyes.
The next morning when I went out with the mail, I saw a rabbit huddled tight in an open spot on the back lawn. I wondered, “What is the matter with the bunny? Why is he sitting like that when the hedge row is so close, is he hurt, did the outdoor cat hurt him?” And, I asked, “is he dead?” I walked as quietly as possible closer to him and there was no movement. I feared the word and said, “poor bunny,” forgetting how many times I would yell at rabbits in my garden.
Then, there was a quick movement, and, in a flash, the bunny had “unwound” himself and literally jumped into the security of the hedge row. I continued to the mailbox and back to the house, but several times later during the day I wondered about “that bunny rabbit.”
Memorial Day, I watched the steady flow of RVs passing on the state highway. I wondered how many families had spent their first holiday weekend with cold and rainy weather. I remembered some that we had, and how almost discouraging it was when the sun finally did come out, when we were packing up and heading home.
I also remembered some of those rainy weekends when we were “RV bound” in a campground far away from a shopping mall or museum. We often found these to be special opportunities to really listen to our favorite cassettes of big band, country or classical music, to write letters (no computers) and to do much that we did not find time for when away or even back home.
A very different ‘Reflection’
Two friends and I attended the Hornell Wind Ensemble’s “Star Spangled Spectacular Concert” at the Hornell High School the evening of May 26. The program was excellent; the guest conductor, Air Force Colonel (ret.) Arnald Gabriel added so much to the performance.
But it was the overall musical talent and versatility of this local and area community group that was a real joy. I wondered as I shared in the spontaneous applause of the audience and as I listened to the commentary as people left the auditorium. “How many here in this greater Hornell area know what a musical treasure they have?”
I thought about the members of the Wind Ensemble who come together every Tuesday evening between Labor Day and Memorial Day to rehearse and who present several concerts during the year for us to enjoy. I decided then and there that I would try to attend some of these concerts next year and hoped that others would too. The greater Hornell area has much to offer us.
