Father’s day always brings memories of my dad, who I always referred to as Pop! He was a caring and compassionate person who showed love not only to his family, but to everyone he met. He died at the age of seventy, back before heart bypass surgery was happening. Although it has been so many years, I still miss him.
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
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Photos of may students in my early years of teaching. Since then times have changed and our focus seems to be on test results rather than well rounded students. Perhaps this will change as the cycle goes round and round.
For a wonderful example of what real learning can be, check out Forest Kids Learning. It is a fabulous program that does a wonderful job of hand-on learning!
https://www.facebook.com/ForestKidsCanada/
With the economy booming in our area, more and more trees are being cleared to make room for new housing developments. There is no attempt to save the existing trees. Everything is stripped to bare ground, ground up and hauled away. Giant machines turn fifty year old trees into wood chips in a matter of minutes.
What happens when we remove so many trees from our environment? Wildlife gets condensed into smaller and smaller areas. Birds lose their annual nesting locations, and more and more deer are killed by the on slot of cars brought on by development. There appears to be little or no effort to create better highways to accomodate the increased vehicles. We wonder why climate change is bringing warmer weather. Could it be that we take little thought for the tree we are so eager to discard.
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
This post was inspired by one done by Kym Gordon Moore discussing the same subject.
https://frombehindthepen.wordpress.com/2019/06/13/attack-of-the-wild/
“Where were you when the earth was plastic?” This is what God asked Job, in answer to Job’s complaint about his woes and sorrow. Obviously this is more of a paraphrase than a quote. I love to think about the time when the earth was in its formative years. The beauty of geological time is written in the rock layers all around us. I can’t imagine the tremendous forces that lifted and bent these rocks. Once mud on the ocean floor, these rocks are now part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Fossils tell of a very different time. I have broken open rocks and found perfect fossils in them. I have cracked geodes open to find amethyst crystals that grew as lava cooled millions of years ago. So when you complain about your situations in life, I ask, “Where were you when the earth was plastic?”
Photos: Dwight L. Roth – taken at the Linville Falls in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina
I am posting this for open link night on d’Verse Poets Pub.
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Photo: Terry Showalter
Terry came upon this pair while logging in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. There were two Timber Rattlers wrapped up together. With his smartphone, he was able to get this great photo, and then get on with his work. Terry gave me permission to use this photo in my blog.
Rust eats through the skin
Truck tells stories of the past
Now just an antique
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
A few years ago we waited while my mother-in-law was coming to the end of her life. I wrote a poem at that time called Waiting to Die, which was a combination of what I felt about life and what was actually taking place. Today, I have condensed those thoughts into a Ghazal for d’Verse Poets Pub. The Ghazal is from an ancient Arabic poety that writes in couplets of the same length. They end in each couplet with the same or similar words. It us usually about love, life, or pain. This is my second attempt at a Ghazal.
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
I finished painting these scenes today on an old saw from Habitat Restore. Both scenes are on one saw; one scene on each side. This is a fun way to repurpose old saws that would otherwise be discarded.
Age has a way of drawing us closer to the mirror******************
Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Today at d’verse Amaya asked us to think about music that touches our soul and brings tears to our eyes! I have been a lover of country music since I was a teenager. Traditional Country Music has always been embedded in the lives of the listeners. Listening to it is often like watching a reality show. Vince Gill gained fame in the early 1990s, and his song Go Rest High on that Mountain touches my soul like no other. He finished it after the death of his brother a couple of years earlier.
The clip above is from the funeral of George Jones, where he sings his classic song with Patty Loveless. George Jones, a veteran of Classic Country Music, was a close friend of Vince. As you listen, you can’t help but get caught up in the intense emotion flowing from this song. It is truly one of the great songs of our time.
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This is the official version of the song:
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