Sensitive Fern, Hairy Sweet

Having a listen to the one, Ms. Florence Price, a preeminent African American classical composer.  Born in Little Rock Arkansas in 1887, she later attended the New England conservatory of music and became the first female, African American to have a composition played by a major orchestra.  Raised in a prominent local family, she was the daughter of a dentist which brought my mind over to Miles Davis, another child prodigy who was born thirty-nine years later, three-hundred and seventy-one miles to the north in Alton Illinois.  He too was the child of a prominent, local physician.

I will try to stop writing about this, as if it were news.  I was interrupted in my typing this morning, yet again, by the charge of the orange she-fox.  She slinked up the lawn quietly and then raised her shoulders and made a full-on dash for the three squirrels enjoying a bite to eat below my window.  This used to be exceptional, then novel, and now commonplace to see here.  The squirrels are already back.  And I fully expect, to soon be writing that she has returned and after a harried sprint, returned into view with a fluffy tail in her mouth.  And, as if on cue, here she is. Unsuccessful again.  She’ll be back.

Friday mornings have a 3:00AM call for me.  It sounds God-awful, but it actually isn’t bad.  Coordinated from Australia time, they enjoy a day light savings at odd months to ours.  Not too long ago it was at 2:00AM.  That’s rougher for me.  When that call’s done, I’d just head back to bed.  But at with this one over at 4:00AM it’s only a bit longer till the dawn, which is always so beautiful looking out this way. 

We are up to World War II in our American history progression with the girls.  We ended the last class with the day-that-lives-in-infamy.  Appropriately enough, the postman delivered my very own game of Milton Bradley’s Battleship this week.  I’ve mentioned that we repurchased Monopoly and repurchased Clue, which the girls had all played when they were kids.  Not so, Battleship.  I suppose the last time I played it was when I was ten?  Whatever was lodged at that time was vaguely positive but certainly didn’t leave any residual aptitude for game.   My younger one sunk my fleet yesterday morning and the older one sent me to Davy Jones’ Locker late last night.  Presumably there are some geometric guessing patterns and anchorage arrays that are more or less likely to see you through like Admiral Nimitz but mere intuition wasn’t of much use to me.

Indeed.  She just dined, again. 

Saw eleven new species on my ride just now.  Just want to add them to record as the names are so cool, in print:  Sensitive Fern, Hairy Sweet Cicely, Catchweed Bedstraw, Broad-leaved Goldenrod, Black Maple, American Elm, Slippery Elm, Chokecherry, Norway Maple, Alder Buckthorn. Will I now have the mnemonic chops to point that out on my next walk with someone?  "Oh that?  Let me see, yes, that's Alder Buckthorn."  Now that the leaves have begun to fully unfold themselves, it has suddenly become easier to identify trees rather than just ground plants.

Friday, 05/08/20