31 July 2009

Swan Leavin's...

[Or...]
How To Cure Writer's Bloc...

First-- Got Someone ya Love???

Then find them. There ain't nothing like a Muse to tap the floodgates, to release the pent-up dam that is creative Flowing...

[Um, You can pretend here; 'S okay!
Or... even better yet...
DON'T!!!]

Or... DON'T. B'cuz I'm tellin' ya, folk, NOT having a muse gains you Three in misery. Just Quantum Math, as I see it...

Well, okay, I'll quit being Cygnus [the Celestial Swan] and be Sirius [the Dog Star] for a bit en vent, ca va?

[And F.Y.I... Beethoven's name, said with a proper French accent, and peppered with the colloquial flair, sounds like "Bit en Vent", thus translating directly to the ear as 'Dick In The Wind'... ]

So, I can't think of what to write, honestly?

Well, BULLSHIT!!!

I mean, I'm ALIVE, aren't I???

so... WRITE.

FLOW.

TALK. {That's right! [HA! WRITE]!!!}

Is the sun rising? Why are the rays the most beautiful lavender and pink I have ever seen? Why is the sun burnt Endless Summer red?

Is THAT the Moon?
My MOTHER???

WHOA!!!

What of the Crones?

Where's the Maiden? WHO is the maiden?

Why am I recalling a strip club in Beaumont, Tx., right now, ...

And who is that? Yes, THAT? That... that VOICE on the phone?
Now, someone PLEASE tell me I did not just talk to a woman on the [OOOHH!!!] {C. cups hand and whispers in your ear,{softly} "potty"!!!

And you say you are left, now, with NO visual?

Hmm...

Well... you could always do a comparative essay titled "The Dog Sits"...
[500 words minimal, pleeze!]

HA!!!

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

30 July 2009

Anyone Got Any Writing Ideas?

'Cause I Tell Ya... I Think I Done Run Out...

Well, truthfully, I am in possession of several of them. All good, too! REALLY!!

It's just that I also have all these...
[BUM BOM BAAM!!!]
Severe Summer Dolldrums...

Writer's Bloc? Nah... Writers' "BLAH" is more like it.

I was gonna write on the ideal of the move to the country...
But, I done that already. A time or three.

Music is nice...
I have a c.d. collection when I'm really in the mood...

I could tell you about my love life... but don't care to provide somnolent stimulation... ha!

Garden-- we know I do.
Pictures? I've taken them.
Plans?

Hmm...

[Cygnusasks: "Define 'PLANS'? "]

Nah... I got some.. We all do; all got something or someone we wanna get done. Why bore ya with mine yet again, when they seem ever-destined to be changed! HA!

Really, though, Bloggerville-- we all seem to have hit on the fact that today was a piss-in-cheerios kind of day...(or is it just me; did I miss the regular bowl?!?) So... what's on YOUR minds, collectively?

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

27 July 2009

A Baker's Dozen from Houston




















The first nine are from an outing to the Herman Park Houston Garden Center a couple weeks ago.

The final shot is a tendril from my own Eden in the late evening light.

Slainte, folks.

Cygnus

Photo-P.S. [So, would that be Post-Photo-- P.P.???] These Bonus Three make a Baker's Dozen...







Enjoy, Folks

Okay, So... I'm Naughty.



So? Punish Me.

An Oral lashing seems appropriate, since I'm about to blather...

I know I know-- you said "...let people find it on their own..."

But... then, what fun would THAT be? Where's the blush factor THERE???
[Nice Lighting...]

So, any of my regular readers that care to read another of my regular readers that just started her own "...Post" [HA!], follow the gloved hand.

No pressure or nothing, Kitten Lady!

[Or... is it CatWoman?!?]

Welcome to the writing world, Lady Felinae...

HAHAHA!!!

OHANA, Woman!!! You CAN'T be mad, Lady... you know I love you! You know I HAD to!!!

Slainte!

Cygnus

26 July 2009

The Makings of the Garden Legacy...

I recently wrote on my list of "13 Things To Do While Living" about leaving for posterity a series of Gardens.

Here's where I've been proactive in that venture to date:

What was it-- must have been two summers ago... nope. Last year, really?
Started at my brother's house in Round Rock, Tx. We'd ordered a plethora of seeds from Heritage Farms/Seed Savers Exchange. Only success I ever had with tomatoes from seed-- we took a waterbed heating element/pad and used it to bottom-heat the dehydrated peat pellet seed starter kits you can get at any nursery...

That year it was potatoes from compost; came up all on their own, in their own corner of the garden, so... we let them ! ha!

We (Brother, Nephew and I) had spent many a cool night in B's back yard, throwing darts and burning scrap wood and cut timber, incorporating the ash into an already-existing garden bed ~4.5' x 12'. The bed was one year used, and one dormant, but the dormant year saw a lot of the afore-mentioned "scrap wood" cover the bedding area, thus keeping active the bug/moisture retention biodiversity... and the soil nice and malleable come my planting turn...

I started the seeds, planted the seedlings... got a job as a landscaper in Austin...
Moved away...

Granted, not far away, but the 15-minute cruise north to see B and N and the Garden became a 45-minute hell from the 40-workweek traffic Hegira.
We had an auto-water sprinkler set up for the area, for the garden. And I did make it several times-- usually twice, oft more, never less than once a week-- over the next couple of months to the Double R to check progress, weed, compost-turn... You know... GARDEN.

The brother told me later that summer/fall that there was tremendous success in growing vegetative growth in the garden.
The fruiting? Not so much... [A recurring problem in this Houston garden-- but I give myself away...]

And speaking of that Landscape job...

The second garden came there, at the employer's yard.

There was an office building complete with restroom and small kitchenette (well, once you provided the fridge and Coleman stove... and a dish or two. Somebody got food, right?!?) and several other rooms. One of these I would make "home" for several weeks during a moving transition from RR to Austin. And the beauty of this was...

Right outside the window of the floor-mounted box spring I slumbered on, separated from me by only a crushed-granite path not three feet wide, was my [ **quickly intakes breath**] ("other") Garden...

The Company had seen fit to grant me space to plant some of the seedling tomatoes I had in pots from the spring seeding. They allowed me an area ~9' x 9'.

Eggplant, tomatoes, squash, peppers hot and sweet, watermelons...

It was the height of summer. I had an outdoor job I loved. I had an outdoor shower tucked behind a grapevine that was a slice of Heaven removed and placed Mid-Town for me.
I had nights alone to wander the yard, to ground in the Garden...

I could sleep until three minutes before worktime because... I was AT work! ha! But I was usually up early, taking a morning rinse outside, turning on the water for the veggies, watering the 'commercial' plants..

Not sure how that garden ever turned out; a difference of opinion drove me from the landscape company-- and the yard my garden was nestled in-- and fates found me that hurricane season riding out Ike in the Beaumont area. [Fun, that. Still have MRE's and a tarp from that month...]

And this year... well, here I am in the nation's fourth largest city, ekeing out some heat-skin-cracked tomatoes and an occasional okra pod or three, and with the cantaloupe being the compost fruit du saison...

And you know... I really hope to be able to report next fall, from the hills of the Ozarks, that my Orchard Project and Berrypatch sidekick are the newest additions in this hopefully annually-recurring and growing-- pun is there, intended or not-- Legacy...

Slainte, folks...

Cygnus

25 July 2009

Thirteen Complete. Umm, yea; about THAT...

Drumroll, Please!!!

And how to conclude a lifetime's worth of achievements in thirteen easily-written, bulleted "here's my list and I'm skickin' to it" thingamagigs?

EASY: MATHEMATICS.

Thirteenth on my list of Thirteen Things To Do Before I'm 125 Years Old And Have To Check Out is...

THIRTEEN GOALS

Let's take a look at these two words, shall we?
T-H-I-R-T-E-E-N W-O-R-D-S
is made up of thirteen letters.

I originally thought of leaving #13 Open, kind of an 'everything else' [to borrow a friend's phrasing of the concept], but...

That would be too... EASY. And not leave me any writing fun-- I mean, assignments, sure!

So, I shall take the original "Thirteen" [okay, 12...] and expound each by thirteen...

Starting, tomorrow, with the first 'dot'...
  • SAIL A BOAT TO HAWAII
Wonder what thirteen things a man, solo or with a first mate, set sail on an 18-day tour, could do...

I know a couple of the four or so readers out there know summat of sailing and the Mara...So forgive me in advance if my list on the morrow comes across as fanciful or otherwise fantastically lacking...

And I ain't responsible for sea-sickness, neither!

Slante on this Freya's Day Nacht, Folks!

Cygnus

23 July 2009

Don't Know...

Haven't named it yet...

Now breaths draw heavy to my breast
from weight born on my shoulder
The years levy unending tests
Leave scars of growing older
Though I'm not trying to contest--
The winter's not much longer--
My feet plod steady towards their quest
The burden makes me stronger...

jMc aka Cygnus


Slainte, folks.

Cygnus

22 July 2009

Number Twelve: Legacy

Another Broad "To Do"
[And no, not that kinda "broad", nor doing of her... I got another blog for all that poly stuff...]

I say broad because "Legacy" can mean any damn thing we want it to.

To some it might be measured in dollar bills, or Ducats, or whatever coin of the realm you choose/ exist in...

To some it is name and tradition... and though oft tied with money, it needs not necessarily be so.

I don't know what my legacy will be yet. I win the lottery it might be a hangar full of vintage airplanes! ha!

But...
I got a good vision of how to start. Two point two acres worth of vision...



I like gardens. I prefer to be able to eat from a large portion of them, but think of the variety of flora that means--not just garden veggies but fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, sunflowers (seeds AND flowers!),dandelion (tea, greens, salad (petals))...

I don't mind leaving as much of it as possible au natural, nor do I mind "formal gardening" [Xerescaping] of needed areas...
What I DO WANT is, this land made a Preserve; I want it not changed for aeons of future generations.









Two acres...
It's a start... Maybe someday little Swan Farms will pepper the nation, eke out their greening across climates varied, producing the same way.

Slainte!

Cygnus

19 July 2009

Number Elleven, Isn't This?

  • On Genealogy...
I need to research the MacClaughry insofar as their relation to O' Neal [old spelling Ua Niall, I think...]. The way it is written in our family's purchased-genealogy trace book, I can't make it match with some history I read in The Story of the Irish Race by Seumas MacManus (published circa 1921...).

I want to clarify if, and if so then how, the McLaury are O'Niall related...correct the genealogy book if necessary.

Well, tip of the iceberg for what I hope turns out to be a life-long learning hobby...

Slainte, folks.

Cygnus

Things That Make You Go "HMMM..."

We recently went to a 'Summer Schedule" at work-- to last thru 19 Sept. From 44 hrs per 5-day week to 40 [and no, I'm NOT complaining. Glad to have the 40 in today's economy, and nice to be headed home an hour earlier Mon.- Thurs.].

But it means no O.T.

Well, last weekend, I went in to complete the company's "Lift Truck" (forklift) safety course.

And today... I was able to fill in for a man in a department next to mine.
My work cohort was at a funeral.

Because Monday his best friend was killed in a forklift accident.

'Here and Now', as the parrot in "Fierce Invalids..." said, Folks...

Slainte.

Cygnus

17 July 2009

Another of the Thirteen...

It Plans Out Thus
in this feeble l'il bird's brain:

Arrive at the Emerald Isle-- preferably sailing right in to Cobh...

Promptly begin the "sacred sites" tour...

Meet Yew Berry...

[Well, now-- where else would a relationship lead? lol!]

Well, True! ha!, And even though they don't bury in/at Newgrange anymore...

Well, what'll I care-- I'll have moved on, and what a happy way to have done so!


To visit Ireland...

~SIGH~...

High on the list, folks...

Slainte.

Cygnus

16 July 2009

Thirteen Things to Do-- "Is Next? SWIMWEAR!!!"

Well, ACTUALLY, number 9-- not 'nein'-- will be the order.

And ONE WORD I have for the "To Do" here....

{Um, Bodhran roll, Please!}



  • ALASKA
I realize that Alaska is a 'place', but that makes it no less a "thing" to be done.

I also realize that her"doing" may take several weeks, or several years...

So, she gets her own post.

As will the "next" tick, eh? But...

You gotta tune in on the morrow for THAT locale/ Agenda! LOL!

Slainte, folks!

Cygnus

15 July 2009

Open Sunlowers and a Watermelon...

Here we have the "Baby group"-- maybe 3' tall-- in the West corner of the garden...



["Front Man!"]


[Here's the baby of the entire sunflower family in ol' Cyg's Eden-- this one is actually in the S. corner-- and about 18" tall overall-- the rest of the "smalls" are maybe 3'...]



And then we got the Granddaddy group-- in the mason bricks S.E. bordering the cantaloupe/watermelon vines...
These wonders are well above six feet tall-- the smaller {background sunflower} only three days ago now taking over as height king from his Brother--


[Note the coloration difference from varying pollenation maturation times in the faces ('dark' spots)]






[And again with the pollenation coloring. Cool differentiation.
{Well... that, or I'm just weird...
One can hope...! ha!}]


OH!!! And a Mrs. A.M.M. wanted to see my Melon!!! {Can you imagine! The AUDACITY!!! HA!}

So, if it make her happy... take a peek!!! ha!





[Um, it's bigger than the phone makes it look...
REALLY!!!]

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

11 July 2009

Fur Elise

It's Friday night, folks.

A hot summer eve, so go make something cold to drink. Set it on that table by the love seat.
Um, you DID get a lot of ice, oui?

Now, put this piece of music on your sound system:



Take that loveseat. Relax. Throw your leg over the arm.
Grab that drink.

Let the music wash over you.

You. Beethoven. The loveseat.
Some ice...(Oh! Right there-- yes!!)

Slainte.

Cygnus

08 July 2009

Sunflowers' Progress Today...

 


 

 


 






Over a foot of growth in four days... kinda like a teenager during summer break-- RIGHT AFTER shopping fo back-to-school stuffs! ha!

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

07 July 2009

Hey, YOU!!! KITTEN!!!

"Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere Anywhere!!!"



Artist(band)
Blondie


Call on me, oh call up, baby
Call on me, oh call
Call on me, oh call up, darling
I know who you are
Come up off your calling chart
I know where you're coming from

Call me!
(Call me!)
On the line
Call me, call me any anytime
Call me!
(Call me!)
I'll arrive
You can call me any day or night
Call me

Cover me with kisses, baby
Cover me with love
Roll me in designer sheets
I'll never get enough
Emotions come, I don't know why
Cover of love's alibi

Call me!
(Call me!)
On the line
Call me, call me any anytime
Call me!
(Call me!)
I'll arrive
When you're ready we can share the wine
Call me

Ooh, he speaks the languages of love
Ooh, amore, chiamami, chiamami
Ooh, appelle moi, mon cheri, appelle moi
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyway
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any day

Call me!
(Call me!)
My love
Call me, call me any anytime
Call me
(Call me!)
For a ride
Call me
Call me for some overtime

Call me!
(Call me!)
My love
Call me
Call me in a sweet design
Call me!
(Call me!)
Call me for your lover's lover's alibi

Call me!
(Call me!)
For a ride
Call me, call me any anytime
Call me
(Call me!)
Uh, call me
Uh, uh, uh, call me!
(Call me!)
My love
Call me, call me any anytime...

Slainte, Folks!

Cygnus

05 July 2009

13 Things Continued...

Making what is hopefully an Ever-evolving "To Do in Life" ticklist...



Here's some more dots with Cygnus games and mental meanderings:

  • Aerobatics Flight Training. Can't help but make me a better instrument pilot... a better Instructor, perhaps?


  • Run that li'l ol' race they run on the Big Island every October...


  • Write a cool book. Don't ask what yet... or be careful if you do-- you might end up in it!!!
Well, it's Saturn's Day when I'm writing this, and the Sun's Day when you're reading, so...

Three should be enough towards the 13.


Anybody wanna sway me with ideas to fill an empty spot or two?

I dunno-- I might be persuaded. Maybe.

If ya got some Mead...

!

Slainte, Folks

Cygnus