New Orleans

Every once in a while, Mr. Fuzzy manages to leave the farm for exotic destinations; recently Amtrak took him to a conference in New Orleans. It was the annual conference of the South East Conference on Foundations, a very well run and worth while meeting.

Because of the Amtrak schedule and the meeting opening speech, Mr. Fuzzy had an entire morning off at the outset and an entire afternoon at the end, both spent in famous cemeteries, St. Louis No. 1 and Lafayette.

 Unlike his last trip to the Big Easy forty years ago, these two photogenic cemeteries are safe to visit (unlike some of the others).

Cemeteries are full of people with stories to tell and frequently anxious to tell them, but so few with a heartbeat stop long enough to hear their very quiet voices.


All of these images are best viewed large so double-click on them, please, or you will miss the subtleties. 

dang its cold!

The high today, in brilliant sun and abundant wind, was 25F here on the farm. At 9:00 p.m., its already down to 14F. Baby, its gonna be cold tonight. The Century Furnace is filed with oak and locust and heating the house nicely.

A graphic from the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Virginia, says it all:

Five Photographs in Five Days Challenge

There is a photographers' game going around on FaceBook where you are challenged by someone to post five black & white images, one per day and you pass the challenge on to two or three others. Mr. Fuzzy has been a little disappointed in what has been posted as those images often represent 'greatest works' and can be twenty years old. It seems especially disingenuous to post an image in a format that the photographer doesn't use any longer.

My five are all from 2014 and made with (1) a dying Canon point & shot that gave good service but it was never intended to take 5,000+ images, (2) Panasonic X20, a ground breaking mirrorless camera with a fixed zoom lens or (3) Panasonic Lumix GX7.

In sequence are Mr. Fuzzy's five images:

All of these images contain subtle tones and details that are only viewable if you double click on the image to enlarge it. Hopefully, these have not bored you, dear viewer.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."

Mr. Fuzzy was on the road six of eight weekends and then caught the creeping crud two weeks ago at the autumn executive session of The Honourable Company of Horners. He has yet to totally shake that infection, alas, but at least feels clear-headed enough to write a blog post. It will be your judgement, dear reader, as to whether he really is or not-

About four or five days ago, Mr. Fuzzy's collection of Christmas cacti simultaneously burst into an explosive array of blooms. The day could not have been any finer: 65F, dead air, brilliant sun warming every surface it blessed, nary a cloud in the sky.

 

 Fast forward to yesterday morning. The clouds were so thick and the snow falling in such a concentration, that it was dark until almost 45 minutes after sunrise. Yes, there was an inch of snow on the ground and visibility perhaps reached 125 yards every once in a while. Eventually there was more than two incches accumulation.

Last night the wind shook the house much of the night in subfreezing temperatures (I heard from a friend the chill factor was 15F); Floyd county was under a high wind warning all night and at noon, its still unpleasantly gusty. Just fie days ago, my conceited mammalian mind thought it knew better than the Christmas cacti which were blooming far too early. Now Mr. Fuzzy knows what the Christmas cacti knew - winter is here.