With the grass growing an inch per day, it is cutting time once again. We have a lovely crop of dandelions, and yesterday as we set out for a small adventure, our maple tree had dropped a lot of its flowering buds on the driveway. It looked just like this:
Our small adventure began with Deb visiting a local bank, sealing her control over her mom's banking. It took over four weeks to get everything straight, but now she can pay her mom's bills etc. in a much easier fashion. Next we moved along to Harrow, a nearby farming town, which has a store with excellent bird seed choices. I am stocked up now for two weeks. We feed everything from ducks to sparrows, with jays, cardinals, redwing blackbirds, pigeons, grackles, and even goldfinches.
Next I dropped Deb off at the long term care facility, where she would visit her mom for two hours. That is in Kingsville, which happens to have a lovely public park not far from downtown, on beautiful Lake Erie. I spent much of the time there, reading in the car on a bluff overlooking the lake and wandering the lake shore and garden pathways of the park. Here are some photos I took on Friday afternoon.
I picked up Deb at 2 pm, and we drove to a segment of the county-wide hike and bike trail, to search the woods for wildflowers. We saw a lot of the tiny spring beauties, but the forest was too wet to properly enter. Deb also spotted some honeysuckle and a wild geranium, along with a few jack-in-the-pulpits. But alas, it was not a very good expedition compared to other years. We do know a few hot spots where we can see many species, but have not yet been there. Soon, I hope. Once the forest canopy grows in, the flowers disappear.
We had a quiet Beltane celebration at home. A wood fire, music supplied by Brian Eno, Beethoven, and Rameau, and some movie watching. Speaking of which....
My two choices for last week include another Fassbinder film, and another early one starring Marlene Dietrich. Both films share a similar theme; women who cannot think properly where men in their lives are concerned. In Fassbinder's Martha, a tragic heroine if there ever was one is bullied and dominated by her new sadistic husband, after having been cowed by her father all her life. One of Fassbinder's Douglas Sirk influenced films, Martha is just as despicable as her controlling husband. Her complete and utter helplessness is well shown in one scene in particular, where she tries to run away from home in long, very tight skirt. She runs as fast as she can, falling down, getting up and continuing on. Her husband, watching from the open door, does not even bother to chase her, but watches with perplexity as she runs away. It is a frustrating film to watch, and certainly not a very likeable film.
Dietrich, in her 1930 film Morocco, stars with Adolphe Menjou and Gary Cooper in an exotic romantic drama. Marlene is loved by Menjou, but she loves Cooper, who doesn't love her (much). No where near as good as the later Shanghai Express, the film is still fun to watch. Gary Cooper gives an amazing performance, as does Dietrich, and the script is superb, very short and to the point. No words are wasted. Worth a look, but it has now left Criterion.
Mapman Mike
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