Year of the Horse Rabbit

 

Today I worked from home, and when Travalon and I went for a walk at lunch, our Year of the Horse Rabbit had arrived! This all started when Travalon's mom died, and they asked what I wanted of hers. I said the stuffed green dragon on her dresser, but nobody could find it. (To be fair, they did give me a couple of rosaries and a beautiful Waterford crystal harp pin Travalon had brought back from Ireland for her years earlier.) I did a google search for a stuffed green dragon and couldn't find the one my MIL had, but I found a much cuter one, for the Year of the Dragon. This company called Plushie Dreadful makes all sorts of rabbits, often for disorders, and they are doing a series of Chinese Zodiac rabbits. Last year they did a snake rabbit, which is NOT CUTE, but I hadn't seen their horse rabbit, so I went to their website and it was sold out. We got put on a waiting list, and today she arrived!

Question: what would a horse rabbit look like?

Answer: cutest mule ever! With the character for "horse" on her chest! And earrings!! Squee! I named her Jenny because that is what a female mule is called, and anyway she looks like a Jenny. Here is a shot of her more from the side.

She has a little heart on her other hip, so maybe I should have taken her from that angle.

On my walks around the neighborhood, I saw beautiful, fragrant flowers.

The birch tree flowers are neither fragrant nor beautiful, but they're kind of cool-looking.

Ma Hat sent me a photo of the beautiful urn containing Pa Hat's ashes.

Yesterday I forgot to post this photo. There is a Jack in the Pulpit growing near my building on campus, and when I found it, there were two this year!

Travalon went to the wood duck ponds again today. He saw wood ducks (natch), a great blue heron, a green heron, mallards, and turtles. No sign of the blue-winged teals or the female hooded merganser, or the beavers that one rando told us lived in the ponds. That would be something to see!

My blogging may possibly be somewhat sporadic for the next few days. My aunt and uncle from Colorado are visiting, but tonight they're tired and we are going to see the comedian Charlie Behrens. I will try to blog about our adventures when I get a chance, but we do like to jam in the evenings. Stay tuned... (oops, no pun intended!)

Famous Hat

In Memoriam: Pa Hat - The Rainbow over the Railyard

 

This morning I got to work just as Ma Hat called to tell me that Pa Hat had died at 4:30 this morning. I tried to get some work done but gave up and went home, and then Travalon, Kathbert (who is also now Kayhu), and I had lunch at Silk Road. Kayhu's falafal was so visually appealing:

All the food was delicious; I had a chicken kebab, and Travalon had lamb chops. Then the three of us took a walk in the Arboretum, where the magnolias, crabapples, and lilacs are all blooming, so fragrance is coming at you from every direction. Kayhu said my description of it as a "scent cathedral" is pretty apt. Here are some photos. The first one is from my phone, and the others are from Travalon's good camera.

We walked back to the boardwalk where Travalon had proposed to me, but we only saw one trillium and a couple of large yellow flowers that Kayhu thought might be invasive. We couldn't find the Teal Pond, where maybe there were teals, but as you can see, Travalon got some shots of turkeys. Also, earlier today he went back to the ponds on Wheeler Road and got some shots of wood ducks and a great blue heron.

After we brought Kayhu home, Travalon and I drove down to Janesville to see the roundhouse. We stopped at a park so we could take a bio-break, and while it hadn't been raining when I went into the restroom, it was raining very hard when I emerged, so I got soaked running to the car. Then it seemed to stop, so we got out and explored the roundhouse, which had lots of tracks running by it (but we never saw a train moving on any of them). Here are some photos.

It began to rain again, but the sun was still shining, so (you can see where this is going) we looked to the east and saw a vibrant rainbow! At one point there was a second rainbow over it, and then that went away but the main rainbow had a mirror image underneath it. The first three are from my phone, and the rest are from Travalon's good camera.

Here's a video:

Then we hurried back to Madison so I could go to Moldy Jam tonight. I brought the mandolin and found a good way to learn new tunes was to play the chords the first time through, then after I'd heard the others playing the melody, I could play it. The fiddler next to me did put the music up for a few tunes, but that was only marginally helpful because they didn't necessarily play exactly what was written. I told them Pa Hat had died this morning, and they said, "Tell us about him." I said he was proud of his Scottish heritage, so we played "Flowers of Edinburgh." Boy, I thought I knew that tune, but not their version! I also had an insight that hadn't occurred to me before: you can easily tell a tune is in the Dorian mode if the opening chord is a minor key but the key signature is the major key before that, so an A Dorian mode starts with a A minor chord but the key signature is G major, or E Dorian mode starts with an E minor chord, but the key signature looks like D major. Wow! So simple! I think it might be the same for Mixolydian but with major keys, like the opening chord is A major but the key signature is G major. I'll have to look into this more. My drumming buddy was intrigued by my talk of modes and said, "We need to discuss this over a beer sometime." Good idea - I still owe her a beer.

Famous Hat