November 3, 2024 by drkottaway

Chorus again

Rainshadow Chorale sang the Rachmaninovff All Night Vigil yesterday and we get to sing it again today! It is so gorgeous. Exhausting too. The rhythms are unfamiliar, the measures are all different lengths, the time changes all over the place and it’s in the formal Church Slavonic language from 1915.

I still loved singing it and will enjoy it today. Here is the 12th of 15 movements.

My daughter took the photograph in March, 2020, before lockdown.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chorus.

October 15, 2024 by drkottaway

A nearby parcel

There is a parcel of land up the road from me. I noticed over the last couple months that it is blocked off so people cannot see in. But now I have been there: Studt’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Farm.

Our Olympic Peninsula Corn Maze does not have a mechanical bull to ride, or Redneck Bazooka. There was also a kid game called jelly balls that had masks and guns, but I don’t think the guns actually fired at all. They just made noises.

There is a large hay slide, a large pumpkin patch and a very large corn maze. I found all the story sections but didn’t finish the mystery puzzle. There is an air filled bouncing place.

And a rather attractive petting zoo. Hurrah for the watchful goats!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: parcel.

March 30, 2024 by drkottaway

Old camera

The first camera I had was a hand me down from my grandfather. I don’t have it any more. The viewfinder would open and you looked down into it to frame the photograph. The pictures were square. It became difficult to find film for it quite quickly and small cheap 110 cameras were becoming plentiful.

I had a 110 cheap camera and did not like it much. My parents got a Minolta 110 in the mid 1970s with a built in zoom. I was hooked! It was much more fun to be able to frame my shot and I took many of the family photographs. That hooked my father in turn and I inherited electronic cameras with built in zooms from him: a Panasonic, a Canon and a Nikon. I think he was trying to find one with an image steadier that could stand up to him, but he had a bad resting tremor. He moved to a tripod and that worked much better.

I took the photograph at my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding in 2022. K is in his teens and we were both playing with cameras. This was the day before the wedding at a brewpub and before the rehearsal. I love that the photograph is off center and the circle behind him mimics the camera lens. I have permission to post!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: camera.

May 22, 2023 by drkottaway

Fine fettle

Our giant salmon is in fine fettle
Stuffed with rhodys and not with nettles!

_________________

Taken at the Rhododendron Parade in Port Townsend, Washington, on Saturday, May 20, 2023.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: nettle. Gosh, telepathy or prescience or something. I took the picture two days before the prompt and those are the only photographs I took of the fabulous parade!

February 14, 2023 by drkottaway

Celebrate

I took this last May. Let’s celebrate with watermelon balloons hanging from the ceiling! They are red like the Valentines though they are green too. I thought they were awfully cheerful and rather unexpected.

Happily, these are not suspected spy balloons and do not need to be shot down.

Meanwhile, a zoo has gotten creative about ex partners. For a small fee, they will name a cockroach or a carrot after your ex and feed it to a zoo animal. I hope they don’t get indigestion. That really is delightfully silly and creative.

There are still people found alive in earthquake rubble: more prayers and let’s celebrate that.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: celebrate! Welcome to our newest prompter, Perpetua.

And here is a celebratory song: