Category: color

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #902 – Beauty so simple

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Marigolds
A garden of marigolds….orange, yellow and rust,
Bright, soft and rich, touched with golden dust.
Quiet and regal, sun kissed and fair,
Basil -citrus fragrance that mellows the moist air.
A thousand smiling marigolds, a thousand smiling suns,
Sweet nectar, ambrosia, for natures gentle ones.

Woven into garlands, yellow with tips of red,
Woven into memories with many a words unsaid.

Love’s hopes of an Indian  bride, clad with marigold,
With dreams wrought ‘n promises, her heart dearly holds.
Tearful farewells to soldiers, who traverse through destiny’s doors.
A garland weaved with love for  those, from across the seven shores.
And when the body is but a thought, as life grays and  olds
Wrapped in a hearse of love, their love, with weeping marigolds.
An offering so humble, yet flowers a Goddess  wears,
Auguring celebrations, with a soul’s heartfelt  prayers.
Orange, yellow, rust..to love, to pray, to mourn,
Golden, sun kissed, blessed.. marigolds that life adorns.

Nishu Mathur, India

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #901 – Raindrops, So little raindrops

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We had so much rain a month or so back that I never thought I would be asking for more. But it always seem we want what we don’t have, then whine when we don’t have it and whine some more when we do.

We can be so fickle!   ††††monos en theos † jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #900 – The eyes have it

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This cooperative  little beauty sat (do butterflies really sit?) and posed away for me a good fifteen minutes. I was allowed the time to get close and play with my lighting. He was busy preening himself as if trying to make sure to be groomed and presenting his best side.

May we all look so good! monos en theos †† jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #899 – A rose without thorns

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I am surely in need of a wider variety of blooms. I keep going back to my Rose of Sharon shrub. It is just so prolific and I often favor on the side of easy.

I searched for a poem, some nice words to dance with this image. But the poems all spoke louder and longer and seem to step on the toes of my image. After all the image is supposed to be worth a thousand words and all that.

Some days we fall short  by a hundred or so, but we will make up for them tomorrow.

monos en theos † jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #898 – Beauty and Da Beast

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On my return to the house from our morning walk I stopped to pause at our Rose of Sharon bush. It has a number of mostly identical blooms. Outstanding in color and form but one does get bored with the same view. One bloom stood out with this praying mantis eating his breakfast of a little Skipper butterfly. Of course my macro kit was sitting inside the house and not even all together. So a mad scramble to make my return and see the last tastee’ morsel disappear.

It is all about timing and being ready. Your ship always arrives while you are waiting at the bus station!  monos en theos ††† jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #895 –The cry of summer’s heat- The Cicada

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Ah yes, along with the oppressive heat comes the ear piercing cry of the cicada. More info than you probably want or need:

Although only males produce the cicadas’ distinctive sound, both sexes have tympana, membranous structures by which they detect sounds. They are the cicadas’ equivalent of ears. Males disable their own tympana while calling, thereby preventing damage to their hearing this is necessary partly because some cicadas produce sounds up to 120 dB (SPL), among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds. The song is loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss in humans should the cicada sing just outside the listener’s ear. In contrast, some small species have songs so high in pitch that the noise is inaudible to humans

To the human ear, it often is difficult to tell where a cicada song is coming from; the pitch is nearly constant, the song sounds continuous to the human ear, and cicadas sing in scattered groups. If a singing male becomes alarmed on the approach of a possible enemy, it softens its song so that the attention of the listener gets distracted to neighbouring louder singers, creating a confusing ventriloqual effect.

In addition to the mating song, many species have a distinct distress call, usually a broken and erratic sound that the insect emits when seized or panicked; at the same time it is likely to squirt waste liquid from the sap that it had been sucking, possibly distracting certain classes of attacker. Some species also have courtship songs, generally quieter, and produced after a female has been drawn by the calling song. Males also produce encounter calls, whether in courtship or to maintain personal space within choruses.

A pray for cool and quiet!  monos en theos†††jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #894 – A Rose of Sharon is a Rosasharn is a Rose of Sharyn!

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Rose of Sharon is a common name, a biblical name, that has been applied to several different species of flowering plants that are valued in different parts of the world. The name’s colloquial application has been used as an example of the lack of precision of common names, which can potentially cause confusion. “Rose of Sharon” has also become a frequently used catch phrase in lyrics and verse.

  • In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Rose of Sharon (often called “Rosasharn”) is a major character, the eldest daughter of the Joad family and the sister of the protagonist Tom Joad. In nature the Rose of Sharon was found to survive the adverse conditions of the Dust Bowl just like Steinbeck’s character.
  • The Rose of Sharon is referenced in the Killswitch Engage song “Rose of Sharyn” from their 2004 album The End of Heartache.

Things are what they are!  monos en theos ††††† jas L

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #889 – Trying to find ways to work in the Heat

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The East Texas heat has been, well it has been oppressive to say the least. Nonetheless, it can drive one to feeling a lesser man when I pass road construction crews on the way to starbucks for an iced coffee, and I try not to complain of the repetious hammering of roofing crews disrupting the beat in my earphones. So I really busted my arse to do some photo work with some fresh flowers (in a vase, in the air conditioned house) to produce (play) with an image in photoshop. It was fun but my pleather recliner did make me sweat a tad, but at least I found a way to work in the heat. Maybe I should wear a tool belt for all my photoshop tools, they are so hard to find and carry about. Can a hard hat be far behind. One needs to be cautious of those stray falling petals. Life can be so hard…….monos en theos †† james

Shades of Gray from Grayson Co, TX #888 – Young Katydid in the green

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Oh brother is it HOT. Dog days of summer and all that. Did get out and walk the dogs early this morning it was a nice 72 degrees. Now my mercury sets at 105 in the shade, and I don’t even want to know what the humidity is. This desert boy is dying in this damp heat. In West Texas, we always got to say it was a dry heat. It was true, you could go for the shade and it was very comfortable even in the high 90’s.

In addition to the damp heat,  the difference of East Texas culture gets to me. In dry heat, men wore long sleeves and pants. Not so here. I have almost bolted and run at the number of middle age, out of shape men that think nothing of strolling the aisles of the grocery store without a shirt on.

And I thought the heat and humidity was bad, but that is enough to make you run for the air conditioned comfort of home and draw the shades.

I digress, I did manage to find this young katydid out in the heat amongst the honeysuckle. He was shirtless, but looked good none the less……monos en theos †††james