Some last looks at Chrismas. 

I normally keep the tree up forever but it is looking a bit dry.

I did post earlier about my love for shiny toy like things.

I do not think there is any doubt about it.

I am guilty.

I also love SF and robots.

We went to Zoo Lights last night.

I still need a lot of work with the new camera.

However it was a nice warm winter night and the lights were beautiful.

 

Winter stops by for a visit each year.

Dead leaves cluster around.

They know what is coming.

They listen to some silent song.

Over Montana

William Stafford

Hardware store roses inspect a snowy landscape

Good news Christmas has been great. I got two books on using my Canon camera.

Maybe the pictures will get better. Thanks for the good wishes and great gifts.



They got chocolates I got a ribbon.  When is the turkey ready?

I have enjoyed collecting a few Nutcrackers. 

I admit I have never watched the actual ballet.
I suspect I just like collecting shiny toy like things.

I think I will start looking for a mouse or two.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Christmas Bells 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Every year I leave my Christmas cards too late and end up feeling a bit harried.  However the real sadness comes when you realize you have one less to send.

"The shadow of the loon will soon embrace

the shadows of the continental shelf

as night becomes a shadow of itself."

                The Shadow-line

                                William Logan

The ornament was left to us by a late friend who loved loons.

New York

This is the last post on the New York trip.  Often the things that we enjoy in any trip, and it was no different in New York, is not the big attractions like the Empire State building but small unexpected treats.  How small corner stores would open up as you went in, with a second floor full of beautiful deli counters and wonderful cookies. 

The brownstones dripping sculptures, the reminders of the past sandwiched into the present. The fall of light on old buildings. The views of rooftops and water tanks. I am not sure I could live there but I would love to go back.


                        
                          "Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender,
                          strong, light, splendidly uprising towards clear skies,"


                                Mannahatta
                                Walt Whitman

    

New York

We went to New York in late Sept. Central Park was still green, every tree heavy with robins possibly the same robins that had haunted our lawn a few weeks earlier.  It was wonderful, dogs and trees, the glimpses of the great buildings that ringed it.

The Conservatory Water of Stuart Little fame ( I am thinking book )

" (He was an adventurous little fellow and loved the feel of the breeze in his face and the cry of gulls overhead and the heave of the great swell under him) "
                                                                              Stuart Little
                                                                                     E.B. White

And of course Alice

" Things flow about so here!" she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf above the one she was looking at.



Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
       Lewis Carroll