Tag Archives: Virginia

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Wild light

Christmas 2018, my son, daughter-in-law, daughter and I drove to Roanoke, Virginia to see my two aunts and one uncle. We went to the science museum. Among other things, there were mushrooms that light up under black light.

I am not sure any of these are neon lighting. But they are wild light!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: neon.

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Lullaby of Birdland

Today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt is flute.

I have played flute since fourth grade. This pastel was done by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, in 1980. We lived in Alexandria, Virginia. I am playing flute and Johnny Johnson is on trumpet. My father played trumpet too. Johnny was trying to teach me to improvise. I had not listened to much jazz and was not very good at it. I was well trained in classical flute and could read music. Johnny said, “No, just LISTEN.” I did learn it and can still play it.

One night the three of us were playing. We had a knock on the door. It was an Alexandria policeman. “We have had a complaint about the loud party.”

We looked at him blankly. My father says, “Well, you are looking at it.”

“Three of you?” says the policeman.

“Two trumpets and a flute.” says my father. “We can make a lot of noise.”

“Hmm.” says the policeman. “Well, um, could you keep it down a little?”

“Yes,” says my father, “It is after 10, so we will play more quietly.”

The policeman left and we did.

My mother’s pastel is titled “Lullaby of Birdland”.

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Deer yard

I took this at my aunt and uncle’s, in Covington, Virginia. The deer are adapting quite well to their neighborhood even with new and more houses and people.

I didn’t get a photograph, but they also have a metal cage bird feeder on their porch. Various birds visited, but it is the first time I have seen a pileated woodpecker at a birdfeeder, right on the other side of the glass. Looking like a pteradactyl, really.

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Up close and personal

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday Challenge #76: a very fuzzy friend met on the day before I left Virginia last week. We were in Arlington, on a hike down one of the runs to the Potomac, with the George Washington Parkway way over our heads and airplanes rising from Reagan National Airport nearby.