Autumn, Music and Tea

I’ve been working on a couple of entries/projects:

– I’ve taken a good number of pictures at the local preserve, and hope to take some more today or tomorrow. Leaves are peaking here now, and even on an overcast day some of the oranges and yellows glow of their own accord, as though some of the sap of Telperion and Laurelin flowed through the veins of the leaves. Unfortunately any picture I get that comes close to approximating the way the leaves look appears to have been Photoshopped. I probably have a hundred or so pictures that need to be sorted through, resized, and cropped. I’m hoping to get better pictures of the red fox I’ve seen in the preserve, so I keep returning, which means I keep taking more pictures. At some point I’m going to have to say “enough” and just post something.

– Roseanne Cash just released “The List”, a CD that takes a handful of songs from a list of 100 songs her father, Johnny Cash, gave her as “essential” to know if you wanted to sing country/folk/blues. Listening to the CD, I started musing about what 100 songs would be on my own personal essential to understand the Salamander “top 100” list. This of course led me to beginning to try and list those songs. I’ve got thirty songs that are (probably) definitely on the list, with the remaining seventy still going through debate and attrition. When I finalize this work in progress it will probably end up being at least one, if not multiple entries.

Otherwise, things remain the same, only more so. I’ve taken to hanging out at the local tea room I mentioned in an earlier entry. They have an excellent brand of Russian Caravan (free refills on your pot), real Devonshire cream, and free WiFi. The owner there has taken a liking to me, and encourages me to hang around until closing if I want, provided they aren’t too busy. I’ve closed the place out (at 4:30 in the afternoon) a handful of times now. The owner has also taken me back to the tea larder and given me a quick rundown of the teas they have and the differences between them. I’m not an herbal tea kinda gal, nor am I fond of most fruit-flavored or flowal-aroma teas, so I was skeptical at first, but even among the black, green and white teas there are some big differences. I can now tell the difference between Irish and English breakfast, I know what to look for to differentiate between the Morgan blend and the Russian Caravan, and I can look at loose leaf tea and tell the freshness and quality. I feel certain there will be future entries on this as well.