Magazine Posts

"Back 40 years ago the tulip fields of Skagit Valley looked like a Mondrian abstract, geometrically colorful grids laid out with Mt. Baker in the background, a photographer’s wetdream. A few folks rolled up from the cities, braving the weather and us locals, but not so many the farmers took notice. Like a lot of innocent beauty in this world, the Chamber of Commerce decided to, well, what we refer to today as ‘monetize’ those candy colored flowers. Organize, advertise, centralize — monetize! The town’s surrounding the fertile fields in the Skagit floodplain joined forces, hoping the next flood would be human"..... Read more

Have you heard,
a songbird sing,
when in flight,
not on a wing?

Imagine the sound
a sharp, sharp trill,
when you listen for
a singing Whippoorwill.

If you relax and
don't be in a rush,
you may hear a song,
of a small thrush.

What must I do,
what can I say,
when my desire,
is to stay away.

The pain I feel,
the emotion in play,
keeps telling me,
to stay away.

Our oldest son visits,
in a week, just one day.
She saw him on Easter,
she looked away.

She does that to me,
every visiting day.
She knows not her son,
his hurt won't go away.

My love and emotion,
worn on my sleeve,
Alzheimer Disease,
stays, will never leave.

The Sun will rise tomorrow,
no matter where we are.
Keep your life travelling,
by plane, ship or car.

Try a new adventure,
do it now, don't be late
for if you want to travel,
don't be left at the gate.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A composite of images captured about a week apart from mid August 2022 through late March 2023, this series traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars. Progressing from lower right to upper left Mars makes a Z-shaped path as it wanders past the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters, through the constellation Taurus in planet Earth's night sky. Seen about every two years, Mars doesn't actually reverse the direction of its orbit to trace out the Z-shape though. Instead, the apparent backwards or retrograde motion with respect to the background stars is a reflection of the orbital motion of Earth itself. Retrograde motion can be seen each time Earth overtakes and laps planets orbiting farther from the Sun, the Earth moving more rapidly through its own relatively close-in orbit. High in northern hemisphere skies the Red Planet was opposite the Sun and at its closest and brightest on December 8, near the center of the frame. Seen close to Mars, a popular visitor to the inner Solar System, comet ZTF (C/2022 E3), was also captured on two dates, February 10 and February 16.

Photo by Tunc Tezel

Camille Pissarro (1830 - 1903) Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. He "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists" but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and van Gogh.

Cats living with humans dates back over 10,000 years. But in all that time, there is not a single documented case of a cat ever thanking its human cohabitant. In ancient Egypt, people worshipped cats as gods. To this day, that’s still how most cats see themselves.....Read more

Why do we exist,
where memories are of pain,
scarring our Soul,
we are unable to explain.

Why, is a person we love,
repeats over again,
a loss of memory,
nothing will remain.

There are no days,
of just hugs or sighs,
only the sad days
of the long goodbye.

When the life you are living,
no longer feels, cool,
you should change your habits,
stop being everybody's fool.

We have friends who love us,
practicing the "Golden Rule."
others will only love us,
from jealousy of being cruel.

Those who stay with you,
no matter your present life,
cherish them, your true friends,
who love when good or in strife.

Who said,
"Don't worry,
it's a new day?"

When Love
is in bloom,
what ever
day you say.

I knew you when,
we had nothing at all.
Ther was no money,
we were in "free fall."

Now we have riches,
we have it all,
except we don't have each other,
it is the worst time of all.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, the Hamburger Galaxy. It also reveals a small galaxy nearby (below), likely a satellite of NGC 3628, and a very faint but extensive tidal tail. The drawn out tail stretches for about 300,000 light-years, even beyond the left edge of the frame. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for creating the tidal tail, as well as the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk. The tantalizing island universe itself is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo.

Photo by Mike Selby