July 26 - Stay of Ex-Vacation

The book blog is provisionally finished (there will be refinements along the line, certainly, beginning next semester), grades are done and will all be turned in by Wednesday, current and respective back issue of 21st-Century Music will be dealt with next week, and ready for tomorrow's Mice and Men -- so, time for a walk, but first, to the in-town branch of the local library (a first), to check on the CD collection, since have gone through main branch's holdings.



Visit to Joe's, then down Buck Avenue, past stately, plump houses



and tall palms,



through Jamison Canyon,



down North Kelly Road (with the only sign of the past few weeks' widespread fires),



ultimately back to Dry Creek Canyon on the west side of Napa Valley (past the Wine Guy, of course



and the turn-off from Route 29 at Oak Knoll Crossroad -- with its views of Stag's Leap),



hugging the eastern wall,



providing an opportunity for self-reflection,



as houses derelict,



abandoned,



pixie-ish lurk in the shadows,



near a stump gate,



an unlikely juxtaposition of steed and sign (a fiery filly?),



a stark driveway,



and dishy electronic accoutrements.



The upper reaches of the Canyon by the crossroad opens up,



near a ramshackle barn



(with a ladder still-life,



an uncertain upper end,



a quixotic sign,



dilapidated quonset hut,



and framed lawnmower),



an oak savanna,



curved branches,



and a prominent pale house.



The sun sets on willows,



a firestation at the crossroads,



patterns of russett, tan, and gray.



There's nothing to do but get back in the car,



head down the Oakville Grade,



over the Yountville Crossroad,



to Stag's Leap, leaping home to prepare for publication Mice and Men Act V Scene 2 F page 9.

May 15 - The Canyons of the Mind

Exploring the canyons of the mind in the morning, a final theory holiday,



producing the woodwind parts for Block Four of Camino Real,



Harriet and I head to Napa on this brilliant day (apparently finally reaching 100 degrees), back to Dry Creek Canyon, for a surprisingly cooler walk south between an east face of chaparal slopes and a western one of deep green conifers.



Heading downhill, near a canyon-niche row of tires,



at a brisk clip (law abidingly under 25mph), past madrone,



and a westside house



with a patterned roof.


Careful not to linger,



by horizontal limbs,



the trees close in,


opening to a tawny lawn.


watched over by a sunny eastside spread,


and a dinosaurian-macabre bird of prey -- preening,


posing,



spreading its portentous pneumatic purveyors (to my pretentious prose).



Trees with outstretched arms,


an eastside house with a happy-face front door and tall eucalyptus,


political signs



before a moony cliff,


oak grasslands and suspicious summits,



dapples of sun and shade


lead back to back to stately cypress by the creek crossing.



Downslope on Oakville Grade to the Napa Valley near Yountville



(with views north of vineyards and Mt. St. Helena),



we dine by the windows



at Brix,



with its views north



of a distant Mt. St. Helena,


east to intimate vineyards



with a turreted castellated edifice on high,



and west to cool rural vantages.



Closer to home, light poles



and storage units cast de Chirico shadows away from the setting sun in the Vaca Mountains.