"...SO BEAUTIFUL AS SPRING -"

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. — Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

"Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

How lovely to find a poem in the public domain at Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, especially such a beauty as "Spring".

"...and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;"

Exquisite.

The song thrush is not native to our habitat, but below is a spring scene from the vine on our fence from a few years ago, which shows baby mockingbirds who think our rustling of the leaves to take a peek is a parent arriving to feed them and prepare themselves with mouths wide open.



Image of the song thrush eggs from Wikipedia.

DUNVEGAN CASTLE AND GARDENS - ISLE OF SKYE

Dunvegan Castle is a castle a mile and a half to the North of Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, situated off the west coast of Scotland. It is the seat of the MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of the Clan MacLeod. Dunvegan Castle is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the stronghold of the chiefs of the clan for nearly 800 years. Originally designed to keep people out, it was first opened to visitors in 1933. Since then, the castle is consistently ranked as one of Scotland's premier visitor attractions. Over the years, the castle has been visited by Sir Walter Scott, Dr Johnson, Queen Elizabeth II and the Japanese Emperor Akihito.

And also by Grandmère Mimi and Cathy.



Below are pictures of the lovely castle gardens, which were laid out in the 18th century, no doubt at great cost and effort to make them look as natural as possible. The walk through the gardens was the highlight of my visit to the castle.



The bridge and waterfall.



The waterfall up close.



Monkey puzzle tree.



Daylilies? (amyj says that the flowers are Asiatic lilies.)



More flowers...


...and more flowers. (Penny tells me these lovelies are lacecap hydrangeas.)



...and more flowers, including blue hydrangeas...



And a birdie, a sea gull with pink legs and feet. (susan s. tells me the speckled bird is probably a juvenile.)



The sea gull's mate?

All this on the beautiful Isle of Skye.

Text and top photo of Dunvegan Castle from Wikipedia. The other pictures are mine.

STILL WAITING AND PRAYING....

From the Thibodaux Daily Comet:

A man accused of killing a priest more than 18 years ago was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday for intimidating a witness while serving time in the Lafourche Parish jail.

Derrick Odomes, 32, is accused of bludgeoning the Rev. Hunter Horgan to death in August 1992 inside the rectory of St. John's Episcopal Church in Thibodaux. Odomes was 14 at the time of the priest's death. He was arrested and charged with the killing in September 2007, though a judge ruled last year that he can't be sentenced if convicted because of his age at the time of Horgan's death.

Odomes was convicted of witness intimidation in late January following allegations that Odomes exposed himself to Haley Burkett, a Lafourche Parish jail guard, resulting in Odomes being charged with obscenity.

Burkett told the jury that Odomes threatened her in March 2010, months after she filed the obscenity charge, telling her he would come after her after he got out of jail.

“The victim was put in an untenable position and was unable to do her job by threat of violence,” said District Judge John Leblanc before handing down the five-year sentence.

Leblanc said his decision was the “only appropriate sentence” because of Odomes' “utter disregard for the circumstances” of his imprisonment.

When people speak of closure, I have to wonder if there is any such thing. That the authorities were able to determine from DNA evidence that Odomes is quite likely the alleged murderer of Fr Hunter Horgan all these many years ago, was a relief to the members of the church and to the entire community. But there is certainly no closure, at least so far as I am concerned. I'm relieved that an alleged murderer is off the streets, but the news keeps coming in. There will be a trial for the murder for which the alleged killer cannot be sentenced. There will very likely be appeal after appeal before the case comes to a resolution.

While the judge's ruling rules out prison time on the murder charge, Odomes has five prior felony convictions and two outstanding felony charges — theft and obscenity — that could land him in jail for decades.

So we wait. And in the meantime, I pray for all who love Fr Horgan, and I pray for Derrick Odomes, and I pray that justice will be done.

WAXING CRESCENT MOON

Thin-sliced moon rises
Moving slenderly upward
Higher and higher

Image from Wikipedia Commons.

TOP 10 UNITED STATES DESTINATIONS

1. New York City, New York

2. Honolulu, Hawaii

3. San Francisco, California

4. Las Vegas, Nevada

5. Lahaina, Hawaii

6. Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

7. New Orleans, Louisiana

8. San Diego, California

9. Sedona, Arizona

10. Seattle, Washington

See the entire list of the top 25 most popular places visited in the US at TripAdvisor.

EL CINCO DE MAYO - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GAYLE!

Today is my beloved sister Gayle's birthday. She died five years ago on April 27. We celebrated her life in a memorial service on her birthday, May 5, 2006. After the service, we had a quiet gathering of friends and family. Later that evening, we had a not-so-quiet gathering, in other words, a party. Gayle loved parties, so it was fitting.

She also loved that she shared her birthday with the Mexican celebration. Of course! Another occasion for a party.

¡Viva México! ¡Viva El Cinco de Mayo!

Viva Gayle! May we meet in the kingdom!

Friends of Gayle set up The Dillenkoffer Endowment to provide scholarship grants to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teens. If you'd like to make a donation, click the link or click on the plaque on the right sidebar.

We know that it's not easy to come out as a teenager. The consequences, at worst, can be nothing less than deadly. I greatly admire all the young men and women who have the courage to step forward and claim their identities in the face of the difficulties.

UPDATE: Here are the names of the winners this year:

$5K winner-Clay Stacy - St. Louis, MO
$3K winner-Kyla Kiefer - Perryville, MO
$1K winner-Jessie Doggendorf - Dittmer, MO
$1K winner-Hayley Gilchrist - Wichita, KS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?"

Minnesota State Rep Steve Simon

Watch the video of Rep Simon's full statement on pending legislation in Minnesota to ban marriage equality at The Friends of Jake. It's great.

Unfortunately, the legislation is likely to pass with Republican majorities in both houses.

A CERTAIN JUSTICE

Stolen from Padre Mickey. I don't know who did the shop job, but, if I find out, I will give credit.

As I said at Padre Mickey's:

"Mission Accomplished" was surely one of Bush's most embarrassing moments. As others, especially the press, fawned over Bush in his flight suit, I laughed. It was one of the most ridiculous performances I had ever seen. (Lightly edited)

I was wrong to laugh. It wasn't and isn't funny to the service members and civilians who have been killed or maimed since Bush's day of "triumph", nor is it funny to their loved ones. The wars go on, so the picture isn't true today, either. Still, I see a certain justice in the photoshop.

UPDATE: Image from BartCop.

THE BISHOP'S CHAPLAIN

Click on the cartoon for the larger view.

From Cartoon Church.

GET RID OF NON-SCIENCE IN LOUISIANA SCIENCE CLASSES

Support for the effort to repeal Louisiana's anti-evolution law is mounting. The American Institute for Biological Sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the Louisiana Science Teachers Association, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the Society for the Study of Evolution together with the Society of Systematic Biologists and the American Society of Naturalists have all endorsed Louisiana's Senate Bill 70, which if enacted would repeal Louisiana Revised Statutes 17.285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008. All of these statements are posted at the Louisiana Coalition for Science's website.

That should be enough to get the attention of the legislators who passed the stupid bill, but who can tell?

A real hero in the fight for repeal of the bill is Zack Kopplin, a high school student from Baton Rouge. His website is Repeal Creationism.

The Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 should be renamed to the Louisiana Non-Science Education Act. The law disgraces and embarrasses all but the ignorant amongst us.

The text of the act may be found here.

D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.

And the above statement from the text is nothing more than a load of BS.