Austrian Copper put on its first bloom yesterday. We had hard frost the past few nights, so some of the older tulips are showing cold damage. The purple parrot tulips finally bloomed, despite hanging their heads from the cold the past few mornings; and a hummingbird moth was making the rounds when I was out photographing the tulips.
Sadly, the 2013 Institute For Medieval Studies’ Spring Lecture Series is over. The final lecture was “Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings” by Janetta Rebold Benton of Pace University. Ms. Rebold Benton’s lecture was wonderful, with a lot of great photos of gargoyles and grotesques (non-water spouting gargoyles). I had never though about it before, but true gargoyles are water spouts that drain roofs, and the name is derived the same root word that gives us the term “gargle”.
We got home very late from a wonderful reception celebrating the conclusion of this years lecture series, so I only took time to process a photo of a Lotus Elise that was in the parking lot when I left the office, heading to the Lecture series last night.
Leslie Webster’s talk on “The Staffordshire Treasure: Art and Power in the Seventh-Century Anglo-Saxon England” was wonderful. The Staffordshire Treasure was buried in a remote spot near the old Roman road o Walting Street near the end of the 7th century. It was discovered in July 2009 by a local with a metal detector. The stash consists of over 10 pounds of gold and 3 pounds of silver military accouterments, such as parts from swords, studs and trim for horses and saddles, buckles, crosses, helmets and so on. It’s the largest and richest assemblage of treasure from the early Anglo-Saxon Period.
The tulips were chomping on a branch from a trumpet vine yesterday morning. We went to the first lecture of the Institute of Medieval Studies spring lectures series, “Medieval Myths & Monsters” last night. The speaker was Leslie Webster from the British Museum and her topic was “Myth and Mission: The Riddle of the Franks Casket”. It was a wonderful lecture. Tonight there will be two lectures. The first lecture is by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh from Harvard University speaking on “Early Irish Origin Legends”. The second lecture is by Leslie Webster on The Staffordshire Treasure. The lectures begin at 5:15 in Woodward Hall at UNM. Woodward Hall is just west of the Student Union Building, across from the Fine Arts Building. As you can see from the photo below the first lecture was well attended, but there were still lots of open seats.
Guidenstern came up with a new kitty fashion for laying around on the deck — “Leaves and Filtered Light.” Kitty fashion is like sand painting — it only lasts one day.
Laurie and Tristan finally talked me into dumping my dumb phone for a smart iPhone 5. I think the smart ones in this matter are T-mobile and Apple, because the monthly service and the iPhone 5 work out to be 7.5 times higher than the service for my old dumb phone.
When I went out to the ditch late this afternoon to check on irrigation water, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked I saw the wild, gray kitty “snaking” me like Stretch used to do when it was time to waterboard him. This kitty hangs around a lot, but I normally only see glimpses of it running away from me. This was the first time it was still and let me talk to it and photograph it for a few minutes before it ran off.
The rest of the photos are of the tulips blooming along the fence on the west side of the house.
The water droplets on a spider web reminded me of a matrix. Patti came back to my office this afternoon and said there was a good photo op on Gold in front of Cafe Giuseppe. So I grabbed my camera and went to the front of the building and got the photo of the scooter and the police motorcycle. If I worked at the front front desk in the office instead of the “meat locker” in the back, I would get endless photo ops — but then I probably wouldn’t get much else done. I got another drive by with the low sun behind the Old Town sculptured tower landmark at westbound I-40 and Rio Grande Blvd.
On my way home, just before the sunset, I saw this Western Cattle Egret hanging out with the geese in a field along Corrales Road. I turned around, went back and photographed it. I never saw one before, and it’s a little strange that it was by itself among the geese, ducks and crows in the freshly watered pasture — they are normally in a flock like the other birds in the field.
We got a lot of wind and dust on Monday, and sporadic rain, wind, snow, and hail yesterday, making the light really strange at sunrise and sunset. I think some places in the metro area might of got measurable precipitation, but it didn’t register on our rain gage. “¡Cuatro gotas!” (not much rain) as the Spaniards would say — just enough to leave muddy rain drops all over our cars.
A costumed crowd was gathered outside the Kimo Theater. I wanted to park and get photos but there were no parking spots available, so I swung around the block and did a drive-by photo at about 10 mph. The sunset was beautiful, but my best opportunity of getting a photo of it was a drive-by at 80 mph on I-40.
Off Center & Not Even 