A happy dragon fly was flitting around this morning. We did a lot of yard work today. Can you find six differences between the 2nd and 3rd photos? Rosencrantz was sitting in the window by the front door wanting in, but I was on the deck. Instead of going through and letting him in, I photographed him through the glass in the door to the sunroom. He finally gave up and walked around the house to join us on the deck and lay on the table with Guildenstern.
The roses don’t look too bad, but they are definitely stressed by the heat and limited water they are getting. Rosencrantz is as feisty as ever.
I tried to bring rain home with me from Paris, but I couldn’t get it past TSA — no liquids on the plane. Even though there has been zero rain in the Albuquerque area in 2013, Tristan and David ran the drip systems and soaker hoses I set up before we left, so we at least we came home to a colorful garden.
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.
Black roses and a black Rosencrantz.
I know there is a bit of “déjà vu all over again” in today’s spread, but the roses were speaking to me, and another super-wide photo of the cleared property with a bare cottonwood and a stormy sky was too much to resist. The late afternoon sun shining through the bird’s coleus created interesting patterns, as well.
Laurie distributed the flowers and roses from Reyes around the house adding extra color, beauty and cheerfulness to each room. I got up in the wee hours of the morning to find one of the ghosts lying on the floor under Laurie’s robe. I thought Laurie was laying on the floor in the darkness, but I could see she was still in bed with cats on her as they were light the moonlight streaming through the window. I grabbed my camera and set it to high ISO, ghost mode and snapped some photos. The phantasm filled out the body of the robe, but it had no head, arms or feet. When I pushed on the robe, there was nothing solid under it to fill it out, but it was filled out, and the robe would pop back into shape when I took my hand off — I thought I heard a faint giggle each time I poked it, but I would not swear by it. When I got up in the morning the robe was laying flat on the floor — I guess the spirit, warm and comforted by the robe, had gone off to wherever it hangs out during the day.
On the 12th day of Christmas we made Spanish Chocolate, almond biscotti, and Spanish tortillas, put out queso Manchego, got lots of flowers, and then we partied like it was 1699. People brought wine, guacamole, chips, pastries, cheese balls and bread and we had a great celebration of Reyes / Epiphany. We made about 2 gallons of Spanish Chocolate and we ate almost all of it. Now that’s what I call the good life!
Off Center & Not Even 