Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

I Love Seagulls

One of the best things about living so close to the coast?  Birds of the water, like these seagulls.

Galveston is home to laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls and herring gulls.

I love seagulls.  I know some people find them irritating, but I've always thought they interesting: so sleek, handsome, chatty.  On a recent trip to Galveston, it seemed like there were fewer gulls than I had remembered.  But I loved seeing them wheel and dive, looking for food.  The warm water was full of fingerling mullet and the seagulls competed with pelicans for lunch.

Seagulls have a life expectancy of more than 20 years!

My favorite characters in the movie Nemo were the seagulls -- it seemed like the film's creators got the personality of the seagulls just right.

"Keep working on love."

And I have to confide:  there's a small, secret part of me that still remembers Richard Bach's novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull, with a sentimental fondness.  Smaller, more secret part?  I used to own the Neil Diamond soundtrack album.  Now there's someone who loves seagulls!

7 comments:

  1. Showing our age. I remember loving that Neil Diamond music ;>)

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  2. Well, I owned the novella and the soundtrack, too! (I may still have it, buried somewhere.) I always enjoy sea gulls when I go to the beach. I took photos of them when I went to Orange beach this past January. Now I look at those photos and wonder how many survived the oil spill.

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  3. Thanks for the comment on my blog. I have read where certain hostas can do well in Texas - saw it on GardenWeb's hosta forum, but did a search just now and could not find it. Here is the link:

    http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/hosta/

    Then there is a Texas state page where hostas are discussed. You may be able to post a question there and find out which one's are better for your area.

    http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/txgard/

    Then, I found a thread about Texas garden bloggers which I don't know about you, but I find others in my area who blog interesting like Deb.

    http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/txgard/msg1013270531265.html?38

    See ya,
    Jeff

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  4. Thank you Jeff! I'll see if I can find a better hosta for my area.
    I'll touch base later,
    Elizabeth

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  5. What's not to love about seagulls? :)
    I think they are cuter than crows. Crows kind of freak me out.

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  6. hi! found your blog from a comment on may dreams gardens. just had to comment on this seagull post. still have the book, still have the album. lol. i'm sure both put a favorable slant to our experience of those birds.

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  7. I was just telling the Chief Engineer here -- there are more of us Jonathan Livingston Seagulls than he could ever imagine!

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