Prisma Glitter

Lawn-Mower at Work

This is Mandy's first appearance on here . . . she has the solid red ears, while Jake has freckled ears . . . speaking of Jake, he was out on the back lot, eating hay today . . . while Mandy was busy doing yard work up near the front . . . she normally stops and comes to the fence when I walk out . . . but nothing was distracting her from her job today . . .

The Mocking-Bird

In mirth he mocks the other birds at noon,
Catching the lilt of every easy tune;
But when the day departs he sings of love,--
His own wild song beneath the listening moon.

Henry Van Dyke
10 November 1852 ~ 10 April 1933

Happy Birthday, BLE III

These are some of the Everhart family photos I need to scan and share . . . the tall Everhart in this photo is 23 years of age as of today . . . and the short one will soon be 18 . . . they are standing in front of the azaleas in my Mom's yard in Rockdale, Texas . . . that is my vintage Canon AE-1 that was used to capture those images . . . there are lots of family photos around today, thanks to that camera . . .

Reflections

This was an interesting photo challenge . . . with everything on the camera set on auto, the camera could not quite figure out what to try to focus on . . . the can itself . . . or the image reflected in the can . . . so I set the dial to AV and played with the aperture setting . . . it still has not sunk into my brain which way to turn the dial to change the depth of field to accomplish what I want . . . with everything in focus . . . or only a part of the photo in focus . . . or whatever . . . so I take a lot of photos, changing the dial between each shot . . . need to do some studying on that one . . .

Happy Birthday, Robert Frost

This photo . . . highlighting one of the poems by my distant cousin, Robert Frost (1874~1963) . . . shows pages 194 and 195 in one of my books, The Little Big Book of America . . . notice the shadow image of the chain holding up my swing . . . to represent my link to the writer of this poem . . . who was born on this date in the year 1874 . . .

Eurasian Collared Dove

Eurasian Collared Dove

Pages of Your Heart

See also . . . Bricolage . . .

Late Night Snack

OK . . . I was hungry! . . . so I went to Whataburger for pancakes-to-go . . . and an apple pie for tomorrow . . . shot this photo from the window of the Sequoia as I was driving back home over the Boxcar Willie Overpass (for real . . . there's even a sign that says so) . . . when we moved here 20+ years ago, NONE of those businesses were there . . .

The Cradle of Texas

This is a photo of a page in The Cradle of Texas, A Pictorial History of San Augustine County . . . by Charla Jones . . . published in April of 1997 . . . I picked up my copy at Half-Price Books . . .

On this date . . . the 22nd day of March . . . in the year 1838 . . . Mahala Lee Roberts marries John M. Sharp in San Augustine County, Texas . . . Mahala and John are my 3rd great-grandparents . . .

We don't yet know what happened to John M. Sharp . . . by the time of the 1850 census, John is nowhere to be found . . . and Mahala and their two children are enumerated next door to Matthew Cartwright . . . who at that time was living in the house in this photo . . .

In Memory of Elfie

Elfriede "Elfie or Frieda" Haf-Concepcion Haf-Serafin
21 March 1933 ~ 21 July 2010

Let me remember only lovely things . . .
The sapphire of the sea, a star adrift,
The spreading glory of the dying day . . .
The clear, blue sky that follows summer rain,
Sweet warbled notes, and sunset's afterglow.
Thus shall I keep the storehouse of my mind
Barred to the gloom that memory often brings;
Beauty will mold each thought that lives with me --
I shall remember only lovely things.

Willa Hoey

Happy Birthday to Gini's Mom

Bennie's Birthdays

Ten years ago today I presented the above gift certificate to my Bennie as a surprise for his 53rd birthday . . . this piece of paper has been in this place on his shop wall since that time . . . it informed him that I was gifting him with the opportunity to take 20 laps in a Winston Cup Stock Car (NASCAR) at Texas Motor Speedway . . . he had a blast! . . .

More than fifteen years before he started racing (1998) on the dirt tracks around Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, et al, Bennie bought a Cessna 150 and earned his private pilot's license . . . he enjoyed the freedom of flying above the earth's surface . . . sooo . . .

For his 1st birthday in Heaven . . . and for the 63rd anniversary of his birth here on this earth . . . I submitted his photo to be included in NASA's Face In Space program . . . click on the following link to view a few related images . . . you still have time to submit a photo to go into space on the final shuttle mission . . .



Bennie & NASA . . . his face in space . . .

Vinca aka Periwinkle

Today I found several of these blooms in the shaded southwest corner of my goat-yard next door . . . the ground in that shaded corner is covered with this green vine . . . Jake and Mandy have not been in there to graze yet this year . . . I vaguely remember a green ground-cover that was there last year, but I never saw a bloom . . . and I definitely did not plant this . . . or anything else in that spot for that matter . . . anybody know what this is?

Edited the title from "Unidentified Bloom" to "Vinca aka Periwinkle" after proper identification was made by Carol (see below

Four-Leaf Clover

Well . . . that suspected four-leaf clover from the St. Patrick's Day photo was indeed a 4-leaf clover . . . growing out of my concrete driveway . . . and it is now pressed between the pages of a 1932 pocket calendar for safe-keeping . . .

Four-Leaf Clover?

Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all!

I took photos earlier today . . . of a small patch of clover growing out of a crack in the driveway . . . it is under the edge of the race car trailer . . . and I did not look at the photos until tonight . . . do you see that unopened clover leaf just to the right of the middle of the photo? . . . I think I see four individual unopened sections . . . went back outside to check it a few minutes ago, but the clover leafs are all closed up for the night . . . will check it again tomorrow . . .

BeNotForgot Blogiversary

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of when I began blogging at benotforgot.com . . . so I'm sharing a photo of one of the business cards I designed using Picasa . . . I just picked a background I liked . . . added a few dingbats . . . and the text for the info I wanted to share . . . and printed . . . this one is printed on photo paper . . .

Watermelon Tourmaline

This piece of watermelon tourmaline came home with me from a 1998 trip to Maine . . . not sure if it's actually Maine tourmaline . . . but it was purchased in Maine . . .

Thank you, Mr. Postman

Look what arrived in my mailbox today! . . . I purchased these papers for two reasons . . . for one thing, they are connected to Rockdale, Texas, which is my hometown . . . but the main reason I decided to bid on them was the unique handwriting . . . and the antique papers . . . what wonderful ephemera for scanning and using in digital scrapbooking! . . . if I am reading the dates correctly (some of these are written in French . . . any interpreters out there?), these papers are dated as far back as 1874 . . . which just happens to be the very year Rockdale was founded . . . the Rockdale Centennial cover was not a part of the package . . . that's from a 1974 publication on the history of Rockdale . . .

Hearts and Flowers

Spring Forward

During his time as an American envoy to France, Benjamin Franklin, author of the proverb, "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," anonymously published a letter suggesting that Parisians economize on candles by rising earlier to use morning sunlight. This 1784 satire proposed taxing shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells and firing cannons at sunrise. Was this old Ben's version of Daylight Savings Time?

Fire in the Sky over Texas

There were multiple wildfires in North Texas today . . . thousands of acres burned . . . some of them just a few counties west of me . . . so with all that smoke in the air, my camera and I waited patiently for the time of day when we could capture this view . . .

Tatted Trim

Evening in Paris

This photo shows the newest additions to my collection of vintage perfume bottles . . . these bottles arrived in the mail yesterday . . . I first started collecting this particular style back in the 1980s . . . when I was doing a lot of counted cross-stitch, tatting, teaching classes at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, et al . . . these were attached as needle-holders to the fabric chatelaines I designed . . .

Backyard Critters

Siesta Time

Sad News from the Alamo

On the 6th of March about midnight . . .

This photo shows a page from one of my most-used Texas history books . . . Texas Extra - A Newspaper History of the Lone Star State 1835-1935 . . . from the collection of Eric C. Caren . . . it apparently took until the 12th of April in the year 1836 for the news of the fall of the Alamo . . . on the 6th of March . . . to hit the pages of these New York newspapers . . .

Candlelit Candy Jar

Queen's Crown and Sunset

Glass Flower Frog

Texas History

Pretty Bottles All in a Row