Abstract Thursday : : Old Vines

To anyone who lives in Sonoma County there would be no mystery about what these are, but I do think they are nicely abstract, especially with just a little bit of tweaking.  Sometime I might do a series of all the different ways that vines are pruned.All the vines have been pruned now  and are ready for a winter's rest. These old ones are head pruned, which means they have no guide wires to to make them grow in horizontal lines. I think they are quite sculptural and I love the way they bled into a virtual stripe at the top of the frame.

It has been trying all month to rain with varying degrees of success. Mostly it has been no sun and a dispiriting drizzle, but today the weather gods finally got their act together and produced a fairly decent rain. I have been sitting by the fire reading the newspaper and knitting a sweater that I started over a year ago. There are recipes for cassoulet and soup in the paper, and it is reported that one of the most virulent flu seasons on record has peaked. But, we are told, the rain is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we need, and they (whoever 'they' are. One pictures a bunch of scientists in white coats instead of witches peering into a cauldron a la Hamlet.) came up with the wrong strains for the flu shot, so homemade chicken soup will probably give us as much immunity against the flu this year as  the flu shots, which we are urged to get anyway. Was that really all one sentence? oh dear....

With all the incomprehensibly dreadful news we are getting on all fronts these days, it seems that the stories with just a little hope in them could be presented a bit more optimistically....