sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2022-12-27 01:13 pm

Even in these tightening lanes, the seasons cycle around and around

I have been terrifically wiped out by this set of holidays. The major accomplishment of Boxing Day was taking a walk and a couple of pictures, which I did shortly before sunset. I was very taken with the intertwining of the ember-bright berries and the fruits with their frost-feathers which I imagine would have been even more striking against snow. Both were tangled through the chain-link of a yard.



I believe the feathery vine to be old man's beard, although I am making this identification almost strictly from the illustration in Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies of the Seasons (1988). I can't tell if the red fruits are winterberries or something else seasonally apropos and unwise to eat.



They look like the X-rays of snakes.

This afternoon is Boxing Day Observed, meaning the presence of my niece and my brother. I did not appreciate the prompt return of the contractors at an hour when I had already been unable to sleep all night.
gwynnega: (Basil Rathbone)

[personal profile] gwynnega 2022-12-27 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Those photos are lovely. (The return of the early-morning contractors is egregious.)
yhlee: snowflake (StoryNexus: snowflake)

[personal profile] yhlee 2022-12-27 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)
*support support*
ethelmay: (Default)

[personal profile] ethelmay 2022-12-27 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
About three years ago I posted a similar photo to your second one on Facebook, and a friend said, "Wild clematis AKA Traveller’s Joy. When the seed pods are out, as now, it’s also called Old Man’s Beard."
ethelmay: (Default)

[personal profile] ethelmay 2022-12-27 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a character nicknamed Traveller's Joy (her actual name is Joy Shirley) in a sentimental but somehow addictive series by Elsie Jeanette Oxenham. She's kind of hyperactive in the early books, always tramping over the hills or zooming about on a motorbike. I don't know if Barker would have known of the character, but it's possible. And she would very likely have known about Juliana Horatia Ewing's mention of Traveller's Joy in "Mary's Meadow."
ethelmay: (Default)

[personal profile] ethelmay 2022-12-28 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
I am reminded that when I was little, if I was sick enough to stay in bed, I was allowed to look at my mother's old copy of Mother Earth's Children: The Frolics of the Fruits and Vegetables. (Content note: racism, national stereotypes.) I don't think we had the companion Flower Children book. The artist, Marion T. Ross, doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia entry: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/ross_p.htm "M.T. Ross, who was affectionately nicknamed "Penny", was an illustrator and comic artist in the early twentieth century. He lived in Oak Park, Illinois and had his studio in downtown Chicago. He was one of the first co-workers of Walt Disney, as well as a close friend of R.F. Outcault, with whom he developed 'Buster Brown'. M.T. "Penny" Ross moved to Southern California in 1926 to work for RKO and other studios as a set designer."
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)

[personal profile] sholio 2022-12-27 11:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, those pictures are very pretty and fascinating; what an interesting plant!

I really hope you'll be able to get some rest and recover a bit, in spite of the contractors.
minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2022-12-27 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I really hope the contsrtuction finishes very soon.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2022-12-28 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
I've got some of that volunteering in my back yard, but it's covered with snow.

I'd sure give you as much of this snow as you wanted, I tell you what.

P.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2022-12-28 09:14 am (UTC)(link)
Lydy is out of town, so she's good. David and I have both shovelled the front, and so far nobody has reported us to the city, so I guess we did an adequate job. David also cleared the area around the trash carts before the city workers came to empty them. Cameron did the driveway today. This leaves the back path through the yard to the garage, but she'll get that tomorrow when there's a thaw. I'll probably try to chop up the packed snow in front. It was so light that anyone walking by squashed it right down.

We didn't have an inordinate amount of snow for Minnesota, though it was a bit enthusiastic for December. But it divided itself up into too many episodes that each required immediate attention.

That said, I figure that if I'm not in Buffalo I'm plenty lucky.

P.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2022-12-30 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm glad your friends are safe; may they remain so.

We are looking at an ambiguous storm building, where the track is uncertain so that the exact form the abundant precipitation will take is also uncertain. It is hard to even know what to hope for. But at least it doesn't sound as if sub-zero temperatures will be involved. The worse combination is wet snow or rain followed, before one can shovel anything, by an immense drop in temperature. I call it rude.

P.