Flower for the Day Snowdrops -Addendum

Today the flower for the day was snowdrops.

I am not familiar with snowdrops and in fact had never heard of them before.

I am in a class reading the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner 1995.

This afternoon I read an poem called Mid Term Break which Heaney wrote in 1969.

It was about the death of his younger brother Christopher. Toward the end of the poem 

Heaney goes upstairs to see the body for the first time.

           Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, 

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,  

He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.  

No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. 

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

• snowdrops: white flowers that bloom in winter

It was the day for snowdrops to turn up.

Flower for the Day - Snowdrop 3-7-21

These common snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) showed up at the Lake House. They grow from bulbs and are

the earliest flower to bloom in eastern Missouri. They are in the amaryllis family and  spread by self seeding.

Thanks to the Frankes for the image.

Don's Blog Robins - Addendum

It is always humbling to find out that you didn't know something you thought you knew. The American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
is a most common bird. Wherever I have lived they have lived year round. Given that their name is migrators it is not a stretch to think that they might migrate. So my group of robins could just have been part of a migration. The apparently can fly in groups of fifty to thousands. Because I have not seen it does not preclude this.

They usually separate in the daytime to forage for food and congregate together at night in the trees.

Now as to their group name - all that sent in a suggested name are correct. There is no official ornithological name for a group of
American robins. In Britain the Royal Ornithology Trust has named robins in a group a 'round' of robins. And there it gets interesting.
American robins were named after the shape and color of British robins but the birds are not the same. The American robin is a thrush
while the British robin is an Old World flycatcher.

Each spring at mating time one of my robins starts flying into my widows. Crash!!!! Crash!!!! If I do anything to have it stop then it just moves to another side of the house and Crash!!!! No window has been broken and after 3-4 weeks it stops. I have not seen this written up but my
opinion is that during the mating season the robin sees its reflection as another male competitor and he attacks it.

Its fun to keep on learning.

First Flower for the Day - Crocus 2-27-21

Ready or not here they come. The first flower of the year has warmed my heart. 

The crocus is in the iris family. There will be plenty more to come. 

      Winter Awakening 

     Cave dweller peeks out

  Dawn calls behind sheltered clouds

    Hibernate no more

  Beth Murphy, haiku and tanka poet

 

WINTER AWAKENING

Cave dweller peeks out
Dawn calls behind sheltered clouds
Hibernate no more

Read more at: https://www.icreatedaily.com/spring-haiku-poems/
Copyright © iCreate Daily

WINTER AWAKENING

Cave dweller peeks out
Dawn calls behind sheltered clouds
Hibernate no more
Haiku by Beth Murphy, haiku & tanka poet

Read more at: https://www.icreatedaily.com/spring-haiku-poems/
Copyright © iCreate Daily

WINTER AWAKENING

Cave dweller peeks out
Dawn calls behind sheltered clouds
Hibernate no more
Haiku by Beth Murphy, haiku & tanka poet

Read more at: https://www.icreatedaily.com/spring-haiku-poems/
Copyright © iCreate Daily

Don's Blog - A Field of Robins 2-25-21

After numbing temperatures and heavy snow last week we are all melted and starting to green up

this week. While walking in the field behind our house I came upon this strange gathering of a dozen

robins. I have only ever seen them in ones and twos. I wonder whites going on here. 

I don't know the term for a group of robins but this was definitely a flock or covey, congregation, clutch, crowd, horde, mob, 

mass, multitude, host, army, pack, swarm, sea, gaggle, collection, gathering, assembly, throng, cluster, troop, number, or 

band of robins. What's your choice? 

First Flower for the Day - Vinca major - 1-24-21

Our strange weather has resulted in our first bloom of the year. It is Big Leaf Periwinkle  (Vinca major). This is by our living room window in a sheltered area. We have a minimal stand here. This is not to be confused with Vinca minor which almost rings the house. Fun to see.

0n the same day we got a new glass gazing ball. You can see me in self portrait. If you come by you are welcome to gaze at your leisure.

Don's Blog: A Murder Mystery

What we know:

While walking in a nearby park I came upon the body.

Search of the surroundings showed splotches of blood and tufts of hair up the hill from the body.

There were some signs that the body had been dragged down the hill to its current position.

Examination of the body showed that the abdominal cavity had been opened and 

also that part of the hind end had been ravaged. Note the tire mark on the driveway. 

Interviews placed the time of death within the last 24 hours.

Further examination showed no evidence of a gunshot wound.

Background: The body was lying near a spot in the nearby woods where a mother coyote

and her two pups have been seen on multiple occasions. These are the same pups that

regularly howl to accompany the daily 11:00AM emergency siren.

Request: That's the story as we know it. In these times of the pandemic and the recent winter solstice, I am asking that those of you mystery buffs who are interested write a story about what really happened here - the more dramatic the better. 

Disclaimer: Rumors of nearby vampire sightings and strange lights in the night  have been greatly exaggerated.

Grin for the Day

As an Otologist in a former life, I had to share this.

Don's Blog A SPECIAL DAY 11-21-2020

I was born 85 years ago today. I don't remember a thing. I am proud of my blog which began in 2009.
You can visit it at this link:

https://donsessions.blogspot.com

Final Flower for the Day Celosia 11-4-2020

We had a big freeze several days ago so most everything is wilted. My last offering is celosia which is an ornamental plant in the Amaranth family. Celosia is from the Greek word for burning referring to the flamelike flower heads. It is also called wool flower, velvet flower and cockscomb. 

Celosia spicata has distinctive flower spikes.

Celosia cristata has a crested inflorescence much like a cockscomb.

It becomes a luxuriant velvet.

Celosia is an annual which re-seeds itself yearly.

HAIKU
"Before the Garden"

Cockscombs--
I'm sure there are at least
Fourteen or fifteen stalks.

Masaoka Shiki
trans. Donald Keene

According to Beichman:
The headnote of the poem indicates that Shiki was on the veranda looking out at the garden. The poem is a comment on the cockscombs-- he has tried to count them and this is his estimate.

Shiki wrote the poem at a haiku meeting attended by eighteen of his disciples on September 9, 1900.

And according to Keene:
...ignored by most professional haiku critics for years, [this haiku] is now often acclaimed as his masterpiece…

"Every masterpiece is a flower on a precipice to be picked only with spiritual danger. The risk is life itself. It is too much to hope every poetry-lover will unfailingly grasp all subtleties of the creative act, but no artistic masterpiece exists without the danger of its being misunderstood. It is a tremendous assertion for the poet to have said, 'There must be fourteen or fifteen stalks of cockscomb.'
' After we read this poem we cannot imagine the possibility there could have been more or fewer cockscomb than fourteen or fifteen."
[end of excerpt]

And finally Greve comments

In a recent documentary about the life of Shiki, I saw the cockscombs in his garden, a flower he liked very much. When he could not move around any more, his sister, who cared for him lovingly, planted the flowers a bit closer to the veranda. Later, when he had to be in bed all the time, she re-planted them again so that he could still see them when he uplifted his upper body, holding on to a crutch under his arm. Counting the blossoms was one of his daily joys in his sickbed.