Remember, you can click on photos to enlarge.
New Art:
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| re-do of neighbor's yard, oil on 6 x 4 panel |
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| 8 x 10 Oil on canvas from Amsterdam visit, my first bicycle! |
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| 6 x 4 oil on panel, Amsterdam canal scene |
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| another 10 x 8 oil on canvas of windmills in Zandaam |
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rock pile in repair waste yard outside of Cologne Cathedral
6 x 4 oil on panel |
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Watercolor pencil of scene outside living room
about 8 x 8 on watercolor paper |
Humor:
Not funny but interesting, some of it makes sense, the rest is strange indeed.
Our wildlife:
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| From morning walk at one of our lakes |
Listening To:
Radio Paradise is a wonderful, eclectic online station. You can go directly to their site, or I listen on my Sonos Radio. You can check out the songs, albums, lyrics, etc.
River Cruise:
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| Our Felicity Avalon |
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| On the Rhine River, interesting architecture |
Eltville: "The City of Wine" 8:15 AM wine walk...three stops. A little early for us, but we sampled.
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| Collage of town, winery, etc. |
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| 8:15 AM tasting |
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| Interesting auto, notice wicker seats |
Engers: We were treated to a free, private concert in a former palace, Villa Musica School with Elisabeth Gebhardt, a 25 year old multi-award winning violinist and her Russian pianist accompanist. Just beautiful music and setting, I have attached a short sample of her playing, Jules Massenet's Meditation if I have it correct.
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| Our tour as we entered the venue for the concert |
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| From the balcony |
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| Anyone know how to make a video work in the blog? |
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| Click on to make it readable |
Frankfurt: New and old, European Union's financial center, airport nearly as busy as Atlanta, about 15 million passenger annually.
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| Old Town center |
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| Cathedral |
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| The new |
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| The restored |
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| Rebuilt "in the style" of the pre-war structures |
The Weather:
From time-to-time I am asked about the summer heat here. As I have said, it is not has hot as Saint Louis, Kansas City, Dallas, etc. And the humidity seems to fluctuate hourly rather than just sit at 90 degrees like a wet blanket, maybe because of the constant Gulf breeze. So, I researched the record high and low and found a few interesting numbers. First, the low, which surprised me the most. 24 degrees in December and 27 in January and February. My thought is that with all of the brutal winters we endured in the Midwest - remember the 30 days when it never went above freezing in the mid 80's? Ohio and some other states ran out of heating oil. Nothing melted. With all of the cold snaps over, say 125 years, you would think that on at least one occasion the cold would have seeped down into this area. But not, let's keep it that way.
Regarding the heat, my surprise is not the records or the months, but how many years it has been since the records were set. 103 in June, 1981 (37 years and counting); 101 in July and 100 in August, both 1942 (76 years !); in fact, the most recent high record temperature was for the month of January and set 15 years ago, 2003. So there you have it.
End:
Now that the Rhine River cruise is documented, will provide another blog soon, I have about six oils in process. Want to finish them. As always, love to hear from you, whether you like, what you like/don't like, etc.
