Banksy in Oz? An 87-person house in Maui, a new book of poetry coming, sculpture show in March 2024, and much, much more!

Banksy has been formally invited to Wise Acres.

The barn at Wise Acres was built in 1894 and has been waiting for a Banksy ever since…

 A group representing the guerilla paint-and-fly-by-night artist asked for venues and Wise Acres responded immediately with a strong entry; the 1894 barn as canvas. Hey, if the KC Royals can move downtown and the Chiefs can consider North KC, why not a Banksy in Resume Speed, Kansas?

 We offered free parking, 24-hour pump water access, lighting apparatus for night stencil and graffiti work, and an open-gate policy for throng access for Banksy worshippers. Beat that, Downtown KC. And it won’t cost the town council a cent. (What town council?) Slight charge for selfies. More on this as it occurs.

  Maui Strong, Maui Generous.

Home to an extended ohana of up to 87 people at one time…

Of the many reports coming out of Maui, the warm spirit of aloha persists. Not the watered-down oft-uttered aloha greeting, but the essence, the core deal. It’s *”…the foundation of Hawaiian values. Love, affection, generosity, speaking from the heart, patience, and listening are some of its many meanings. In the present, “alo” means to share. “Ha” means breath, or life energy.” It’s extremely expressive to Hawaiians, and contains many permutations for a language that depends on only 13 letters. Aloha is what will reinvigorate the island, honor the lost, and welcome visitors once again. Typifying that spirit is this one story of many that brings the meaning of Aloha home (link).

*The above italicized excerpt in the text to right of photo is from The Homey Hawaiian blog at (link).

The view from Kaanapali…enchanting

I was fortunate to experience aloha in spades back when I was attempting to buy a small agency on the island in the early eighties. Very good friends, extended ohana in fact, discovered I was staying at The Pioneer Inn, and demanded that I come to Kaanapali Plantation during my frequent visits. Years later, one of them gifted us a condo there for the length of our honeymoon when Freddie and I were married on Maui at Kihei. An NBA star wanted to buy that condo but was told it was in use at that time; he indicated it was now or never. He was told, “Never, then. It’s in use.” Had I known, we’d have vacated it for the sale. (Never was not okay with him. He waited and did buy it.) The island is forever part of me, and those wonderful friends, though passed away, are aloha memories we cherish. What lovely times those were. Full of life and positive energy and friendships.

I recommend Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc. to anyone interested in helping mitigate the drastic needs Maui is suffering at present, and well into the future. It’s an island institution knowledgeable with Maui emergency demands; vetted and trusted, it’s the organization Freddie and I use.

 

G-Sculpture show coming March 5th to April 14th, Overland Park!

When the gallery I’d been showing at closed, unceremoniously and with zero warning, it put me into a bit of a funk. Some pieces I’d started remained unfinished and sketched pieces stayed on paper. Overland Park Arts to the rescue—and what a rescue! Tomahawk Ridge Community Center is the place; plenty of parking, a large open area where the sculpture can be viewed close up or from a comfortable distance, and a great expanse of wall space for hanging pieces. Easily accessed at 119th and Lowell it’s just a couple of blocks from the Blue Valley Parkway.

Red, reaching for a fly. He lives in AZ…

Prior experience with the OP arts people, at the Arboretum, was quite good. Some of my horses were placed in a shady glen and they found homes in Florida, L.A. and Scottsdale, AZ. And they won some jury awards. I’m planning a small horse or two for the 2024 Tomahawk show, probably no taller than four feet at the back, so possibly house-sized or garden-placed, we’ll see. Crows, too, as gallery-goers seem to like them. And a new direction; lit pieces with unusual lighting components. Neon, LED, retro bulbs. Abstract weird lamps if you will. And poetry pieces. More soon. Mark those calendars, please!

And this: gallery venue, non-gallery prices, reflecting no gallery commission taken. (Now showing: quite a nice selection of plein air paintings. Freddie and I took a stroll through during the Labor Day holiday and loved the show.)

Fifth poetry book in the works—might come out in 2023

The cover is two popsicle sticks on white. One has title. Back is some red-orange stuff including a mashed kid’s cowboy hat. The popsicle sticks are from two that I ate.

It’s called “The Taste of Red-Orange” and it has a publisher. It’s 81 pages now and could go as is, but I’d like to have 100 poems in it. Some of the work has been published in literary magazines, and more of it is awaiting acceptance/rejection, a long process. Some lit mags take six months or more to get back to you. I designed a cover and back and that is in finished art now, so we’re nearing the end of the process. This is what kept me going during the sculpture hiccup when I was just too pissed to weld anything. But it did give me some ideas that will appear in the sculpture show, one of which has a 1949 Ford grille and a long panel of rusty sheet metal that will lean against a wall, and, probably have a lighting component as well. The poetry is slopping over into the sculpture and so is some photography I’m contemplating. Bad Craziness, as David Ludwigs used to say. Which, of course, meant fun.

Books, of course. And where they lead.

Hold Still, by Sally Mann. Still Pictures by Janet Malcolm. An “In Focus” book about a 19th-century photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. A pile of others. And the two pictured here; the William Eggleston MoMA show, and The Dyer book. Something has led me to read about photographers whose work I’ve loved over the years; Weston, Lange, Avedon, Evans, Gedney, on and on. Oddly, I read several Dyer and Malcolm books for the writing, the essays—but so many of the essays of both these fine writers were about photographers and their work as shown in museums and galleries. The connection here is this: Ever the tyro (dilettante?) when asked what I wanted for my birthday, I pointed out a Canon Rebel with various lenses and attachments. And I got it.

Why do such a thing? Well, like the 90-year-old lady who took up elk hunting, when asked why: “Nobody told me I couldn’t.” And the lifetime I spent as an art director/CD developing an “eye.” It may come to nothing, but it’ll sure be fun.

I’ll end this with a poem from The Taste of Red-Orange.

Photos with Current

A snapshot is just a snapshot / A result of an unfeeling machine / and a machine operator. / “Smile” the operator says. / The result is one of millions. / Landfillions. / Even if the snapshot gets / 28 “likes” and a “stunning” there may be no current / especially if it is self-taken.

But the current between subject / and taker, unmistakable in a Hido / an Evans, Lange or Avedon. They / give the machine life. / Current. / An ontology — a humming / circuit completed by subject, taker, viewer. / Alex Soth. Robert Frank. / It’ll zap your ass tomorrow / or in a hundred years.

###

I aspire. I may miss by miles but what the heck. And that, as they say, is that. (Thanks for the fantastic birthday gift(s) Canon, cupcakes, Artforum, etc.) xxoo G

The Atomic Issue: I connect with a nuclear shirttail relative, a bit about Oppie, Tony Benett, the KC Haboob, much more. Well, maybe not MUCH more.

As the bomb’s birthday rolls around I won’t belabor the point that my stepfather worked on the Manhattan Project—I wrote a piece titled “Trinity” that covers some of that. Like most of us he was good and bad and we got along well enough until after my mother’s death in 1979. He remarried and the less said about that, the better. But he had a fine, interesting family and they are well worth mentioning.

Me in Pop’s pith helmet, creel, bait can…

 During the World War Two years I lived with his father and mother in Winchester, Kentucky and St. Joseph, Louisiana. His father, who I called Pop, was an Episcopal minister, inventor, science enthusiast, grower of exotic orchids who managed to have a small greenhouse wherever we lived, a maker of fine bookbindings, an artist and illuminator of text. His accent was very British (he was from London) and I recall that his parishioners liked to hear him speak. So did I. I was fascinated with Pop, his side ventures, and his marvelous dogs: a Scotty named Meg, and two Irish Setters, Champagne and Red.

Pop poured me lead soldiers in his detached shed full of books and scientific equipment, and we painted them in regimental colors. Microscopes, beakers, Bunsen Burners, piles of books and tins of English snacks took up table space. Coleman bought a patent of his. He made guest books for the DuPonts.

Pamela Bumsted in Los Alamos, next to an E = MC2 petroglyph said to have been carved by Enrico Fermi…

Pam in Pop’s pith helmet, with his pipe…

 A living relative, Pop’s granddaughter, and I have been in contact over the years; she, like my stepfather, attended college at an earlier age than most. I suspect that their family is riddled with genius genes (or IQ isotopes?). I would need an interpreter to understand her CV, so, in quite broad terms, she’s an anthropologist with a PhD. Pamela Bumsted is my step-cousin and she has been employed as a journalist, a Forest Service archaeologist, a coffeehouse manager, been on Mayors’ committees, lived with an indigenous Fijian family who collaborated with her on biocultural fieldwork, lived and worked in New Zealand, the Arctic, California, New England, the midwest, Pueblo communities, Eskimo villages, “bush” Alaska, several rural New Mexico spots and points west.

I asked her if she’d seen either the Oppenheimer or Barbie films, and she said no, but, “I met Prostitute Barbie coming out of the apartment building at 5:15 AM as the dog and I were returning from its bathroom break. Thigh-high, very pink suede leather boots with 4 inch soles and stiletto heels; very long, very platinum blonde wig; and I don't remember much else except she was polite, offering to leave the door open for me but as she was swaying so much I suggested she leave first.”

 A book I thoroughly enjoyed and will be reading again if I can find it.

Acid West, essays by Joshua Wheeler, is one of my favorites and I may have to buy it again. At the time the book came out in 2018, Wheeler was teaching at LSU. His book is worth reading just for the Trinity essay. As the Amazon description reads, “Early on July 16, 1945, Joshua Wheeler's great grandfather awoke to a flash, and then a long rumble: the world's first atomic blast filled the horizon north of his ranch in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Out on the range, the cattle had been bleached white by the fallout. Acid West, Wheeler's stunning debut collection of essays, is full of these mutated cows: vestiges of the Old West that have been transformed, suddenly and irrevocably, by innovation.” You can order it here. Guy can write!

  And a couple of Oppenheimer books, because, of course.

I’m halfway through 109 East Palace by Jennet Conant, and it’s a different perspective on the Manhattan Project; from the town side (Santa Fe) though there’s plenty about The Hill, as well. Then, American Prometheus, (the Pulitzer winner from which the Nolan-directed film was adapted) is an Oppie opus I’ve been intending to read; hefty and intimidating at a doorstopping 721 pages. I’ll be reading it in small bites.

They called them dust storms in the 30’s but now they’re Haboobs.

This is KC’s haboob, mid afternoon that day. Think it’ll storm?

And Kansas City got one back in mid-July, right before a big storm knocked out power to over 200,000 KC residents. It was a week before power was restored to the entire city and energy teams from neighboring states had to lend many hands. The whole thing was preceded by an ominous wind loaded with detritus, farm dirt, flying pigs (I’m conjecturing here) and newspapers that would wind around your head and stop up your glottal orifices. It was a bitch. Or, as they say in the desert regions, haboob. Apparently, meteorologists have adopted the term, as they have hook echoes and kelvin scales. Weather in the midwest is getting weirder just like everywhere else. By degrees. By leaps and bounds. And nuclear testing probably accelerated it. (Note: just last night, another big storm knocked out power for some 80,000 Kansas Citians. As of this morning Evergy has restored power to about 60,000.)

When a good man dies, it’s cause for reflection.

Side B is “I’ll Live My Life For You”

There seem to be fewer and fewer of them, especially as era-defining as Tony Bennett. The news feeds and breathless media are so intensely engaged in character demolition, they don’t know quite what to do or say about someone whose whole long life was a positive object lesson in humility, talent, kindness and a calm sort of deep cool.

It was no surprise when Bennett succumbed at 96 to Alzheimer’s but it was a sharply felt loss to many who had grown up listening to him. We just assumed he’d always be there, and, in a way, he will be.

Here he performs a 1938 favorite, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which he often sang when entertaining troops in Europe after serving in the Battle of the Bulge. It was written the year I was born, and it has withstood the test of time a little bit better than I. He was also an accomplished painter. He was, in the parlance, something else. R.I.P. sir.
 

And, in closing, some Pop Art…

In paragraph two, at the start of this blog, I alluded to my step-grandfather, the Reverend William F. Bumsted, with whom I lived during the war years. I knew him as “Pop” and a multi-talented man. I mentioned he had made a guest book for the DuPonts; well, here’s one he made for his son, (who I also mentioned, as my stepfather) and his son’s wife, my mother, in 1941. The last entry in this handsome book is around Christmas in 1973, when I guess the house parties and penchant for visitors and guests had slowed somewhat, or, at least their heralding had. Anyway, Pop’s art lives on in the Wise Acres bookshelves.

Have a great August, hopefully cooler than July has been, and may we all avoid the haboobs and various other subastral or maybe even cosmic disturbances. Cheers and good stuff at you, G

 

Upkeep in the Outback, Other Good Paint, Music, Books, Vermont 2X to offset The Long Hot Summer, and More.

Time to paint the propane tank and the barn. Big doin’s at Wise Acres.

We chose Sherwin Williams pastel Relish and Vigorous Violet. (Kate Middleton must have Kansas spies; she showed up at Wimbledon in the same colors.) Like Thoreau said, If you have to have a propane tank, jazz it up a little. Hey, we could’ve gone full Barbie but restrained ourselves. The barn is…barn red. Got a glass block wall regrouted, and replaced some boards on the deck that we didn’t want to fall through. Upkeep Downhome.

 Power to the people. Please.

This was the common scene all over KC Saturday, July 15th. Many are still without power.

A really big storm Friday left 186,000 Kansas Citians with no power. As of July17 thousands were still without power. It tried to come out here but stopped short of John Brown’s home town about ten miles down the road and we just got a nice soaking rain out of it.

But we have a hole card, just in case; a 26kw standby generator that powers everything in 15 seconds from an underground line to the prettied-up pastel propane tank. It will run for eight days on that 1000 gallon tank.

 Let’s talk about more paint.

Here’s a paint story that might interest gallery-goers; I love this guy’s writing. It’s about an art opening in East L.A. titled “Let’s Talk About Paint” by Sage Vaughn. I’ll be looking for more writing by Mr. Vaughn in the future. And the art by Joshua Petker is pretty nice too. Don’t know whose supine form that is, above, but talking about paint can be enervating.

 

I’ll see your Long Hot Summer and raise you two Moonlight in Vermonts.

Combat July mugginess with cool. These scenes from LHS show cool Paul Newman heating up the screen with (your choice) Orson Welles or Joanne Woodward. Then cool off with Jo Stafford or The Aaron Diehl Quartet or both.

 Jo Stafford trained as an opera singer in her preteen years but when the Depression hit, she said. “There weren’t many jobs open for opera singers.” So she chose pop and jazz. And Paul Newman’s “self-aware” tell-a-lot book is a NYT bestseller.

 

So nice to meet these people—good teachers…

I keep looking for the next Joan Didion without success. But Janet Malcolm and Joan have been mentioned in the same sentence. In fact Geoff Dyer’s book (on left in right hand photo) does just that. On page 22 he’s talking about brainy, ambitious Vassar girls, one of whom seems to appear in a photo on page 20 and “whose lives were chronicled by Mary McCarthy in The Group. As such she is a role model for the later masters—mistresses, rather—of discreet reportage such as Joan Didion and Janet Malcolm.”

I’m only on page 32 of this book, so can’t recommend Otherwise Known As The Human Condition yet but it’s showing much promise.

The other book, Forty-one False Starts by Janet Malcolm is one I can and will recommend, having just finished it. The magic of Didion’s prose is not in it, but some pretty damn good writing and reportage is. It’s my second Malcolm book, and there will be others. Probably all of them.

Sculpture. The last word (for this blog).

There’s a barn-load of it out here. If you would, mention it to those who might be interested. Since it’s a barn and not a gallery pieces will be priced appropriately. There are still some works in the storage facility of the gallery but I will be trying to get those to Wise Acres sooner than later. And a new show is in the works; all I can say for now is Overland Park, in the spring of 2024. Possibly solo, possibly paired with a painter. In a very accessible facility. My fingers are crossed, making it tough to weld and to read, for that matter. Stay tuned. And visit www.wisesculpture.com

And send positive thoughts to those without power. We’ve been there (for 12 days in dead of winter) and it’s depressing and dangerous. Knock on a senior’s door. Maybe there’s a way to help. Chain saw, ice chest, a meal. Thank you.

Photo by Andrea DeLong

The Unabomber, a Dymaxion, Books, Phoebe the Yodelin’ Cowgirl, Sculpture for Sale, and more.

(The above looks like some kind of art installation in a gallery, doesn’t it? Well, shudder, it ain’t. It’s the Unabomber’s actual cabin in an FBI warehouse. That door is one few would want to open. More here) Photo, Richard Barnes

The Ides of June.

The morning of my tooth extraction, my computer crashed. I wasn’t in a great mood as I was going to lose a part of me that I’d had for 84 years, albeit a small part. I rebooted and did all the things one does when tech fails. Nothing worked.

Finally I noticed it had gone to an alternate source in the night (or tried to, then it just went blooey) and quit cursing Elon—not Starlink’s fault. This time. Once the Musk henchpeople updated software with no warning; blood pressure shot up all around offline rural Kansas and words dropped and bounced and shattered the morning calm.

Some households are still affected because those words were picked up by small children. Ever notice how they rarely remember to say “thank you” or “excuse me” but delight in repeating “What the effety eff effing %$##&*?”

Anyway June. An unstable month hereabouts. Pop-up rains and hailstorms.

Photo source: Lord Jim

Speaking of instability, the unabomber died. Suicide. Another monstrous experiment of that set of initials that dreamed up MK-Ultra. I didn’t know that until I read this Counterpunch article; Unabomber, Troubled Life of a CIA Mind Control Victim. Scary stuff, if true, and Counterpunch, a left-leaning publication of few minced words generally vets its stuff well enough.

The article says, at one point,“It is an extraordinary occurrence for someone to enter Harvard at the age of 16, [as did Kaczynski] pursue a career as a mathematics professor, and then abruptly abandon everything to become a terrorist.” Then it makes its claim. Uncontested, so far. It also mentions “the deep state” which I had thought was pretty much a province of the right.

On to lighter stuff. Koons Balloons in June and the wobbly Dymaxion car of Bucky Fuller. I pair them because they seem a bit alike to me, bulbous and smooth. Though Koons’s sculpture never harmed anyone other than a stray driver crashing into one of them. Which reminds me of a Henny Youngman joke; he was in Las Vegas, driving under the influence, careened into the fountain at Caesar’s. He sat there for a moment, then shouted “No wax!”

Here's a link to how Koons makes these 3-ton balloon things. And here’s one to an amusing article that takes the instability theme one notch further: We drive Buckminster Fuller's terrifying Dymaxion car (so you don't have to)

Books!  Just finished these two and found them quite interesting. Kubrick by Michael Herr; I dug it up by looking for anything by Herr (his Dispatches war correspondence was the very best of that genre and I’ve missed his genius over the years) and was happy to find this compelling account of a 20-year friendship with the complicated filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, in which he sets some misconceptions straight. It’s not Dispatches but it’s pretty good.

Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist And The Murderer begins this way: ‘Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” And she never lets off the gas pedal from there, in this riveting book about a convicted murderer’s (Jeffrey MacDonald’s) lawsuit against a journalist (Joe McGinnis) he felt scammed and misrepresented him.

This book caused me to buy yet another Malcolm book that I’m reading now: Forty-One False Starts, Essays on Artists and Writers; I’ll probably read a lot of her books in the future.

I tune into Public TV’s Woodsongs whenever I can—always a pleasure, always—though their roots are bluegrass, they feature everything and anything they deem good music; it’s where I discovered Victor Wooten who jazz fans know as a virtuoso, and now, Phoebe The Yodelin’ Cowgirl. Prepare to be enchanted; the smile, the attitude, the easygoing sense of self and acceptance of her wide-ranging musical talent at such a young age. Here’s another link that explains some of her feelings on the matter.

Photo by Andrea DeLong

And do check out some of the 50 or 60 pieces of sculpture for sale at Wise Acres—40% off gallery prices, and sometimes more. The gallery closed, relinquishing their storage facilities. Here’s one. Or just go to “sculpture” over to your left. Many are shown there.

Happy Juneteenth. See you in July. xo G

 

  

 

 

 

 

Setbacks, startups, safe houses and speak-easys. Plus books and the owls of Wise Acres. Oh, and the Preakness.

Friday, May 19. What a great day to blog to friends; misting, gray, deliciously cool, an atypical Kansas day, more like Sault St. Marie. Here at Wise Haus (seen above) coffee is good and it rained last night after I put out fertilizer and grass seed. First, the setback and a possible startup.

Welcome to the May blog from Wise Acres, not so much the May Wise sculpture show in the Crossroads; that dog no longer hunts. I was apprised of that quite late in the game in a bit of an untidy tiding. Sort of like, oh there won’t be a gallery, don’t tell anyone yet.

Better times at the popular gallery…

This was a jolt to me as I was preparing for the May First Friday show and had bought a lot of lighting accessories; some 20 of the pieces were to be lit in unusual ways, all to be lit at once on the gallery floor. LEDs, neon, programmable color/music lights, even bug zappers for the odd unexpected snap crackle pop of a wayward fly.

I tried to inquire multiple times and ways about wall sizes as I was going to install mylar reflective sheeting, and also needed to know outlet locations and capacity. No answer. Ever. Odd to be ghosted by someone whose interests ostensibly coincided with mine in an artist/gallerist relationship.

Long sad story considerably shortened: the gallerist whose dream had started at The Hilliard Gallery in the Plaza (he worked there and later acquired the name and rights) did everything he could to keep the place going, aided by his artist-wife. It was named KC’s favorite several times, as well as Missouri’s favorite, and one of the top galleries in the U.S. So it’s not for lack of trying and pretty superhuman effort that this giant tree fell in the forest and nobody heard it.

 What went wrong?

The pandemic. The razor-slim profit line of a gallery. A barely sustainable space vs. art business model dependent on the whims of a public more interested in the catered openings than the carefully curated pieces on display. Lack of Chelsea white cube big name artists. And so on. Was it fun while it lasted? Sure. For everyone but the guy who spent half his life making it work, and his artists.

Enough. What of the future?

Artists will art; it’s what they, we, do. I now have a barn full of sculpture I made, painstakingly. I will offer these pieces. No free food and wine. Maybe a Dr. Pepper. It’s a barn, not a gallery. The prices will be way better than a gallery. More on that as I get it together. Hey, one door closes, two more open. And the gallery may go online as a more streamlined service.

Books I’m reading and re-reading. (Links in bold italics)

L to R: Amy Hempel, Joshua Cohen, Renata Adler, James Salter…

Take Salter, what a spell-weaving dark magician. He wrote Downhill Racer, great cult movie with Robert Redford. I would recommend Solo Faces to start reading Salter, then Light Years. Then the rest; bewitching, all. I’m re-reading his Last Night stories, and getting that first-read thump all over again.

Amy Hempel. I’m reading her 2007 Collected Stories (a NYT ten best of that year) for the first time and it is just (good) surprise after surprise, page after page. It’s Highly Recommended. Then, Joshua Cohen’s lengthily titled The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, a Pulitzer winner—I’m not far enough in to pimp it or pass on it, but it’s becoming a bit more amusing and interesting with each page—this guy Cohen is good.

Finally I’m re-reading Renata Adler’s Speedboat, “One of the defining books of the70’s!” which I read forty years ago and can’t remember a word of. I looked all over for this book (I know I have it) and kept seeing references to it, so I ordered it which will now guarantee I’ll find my other copy. It’s kind of fragmented, which the critics gushed about (“experimental!”) but, so far, I’m not saying it should be on anyone’s shelf. It’s not bad, it may even be a classic. And I’ve got two.

You may have noted the Border’s bookmarks; I loved that store. Comfortable, well-stocked, and they let me leave my own bookmarks on their counter. Here’s my newest version of those.

Night Train Cold Beer, Ruined Days, Resume Speed, Scattered Cranes, Horses See Ghosts, I Was In The Vicinity, and, latest, Chickens One Day Feathers The Next…available here.

Speak-easys & Safe houses

In paleolithic times, or about that many years ago, I worked in Milwaukee at an ad agency that had Harley-Davidson. I was on police bikes, and worked my way up to the consumer scooters. Anyway, a bunch of us used to meet at a popular bar known as The Safe House. The doorway opened up onto a closet-sized room with an old 1920’s telephone switchboard and, if you looked hard enough, instructions on how to enter. A password would do. Or a little dance like wide receivers perform in the end zone. Whatever means got you in, you were on camera, and it was seen by all patrons. I recalled this when I saw this marvelous Moss & Fog pictorial on a Shanghai speak-easy “secret” entrance. (link)

The owls of Wise Acres

We’re owl-friendly and they like it here; several generations have called it home, and an inherited memory seems to reside in the family tree. One owl used to follow Freddie on walks and it landed behind me as I was passing the barn and walked along behind me for a bit. Probably for a meal; I had left it a mouse a few days before. I also plucked its kid out of the bushes and placed the fledgling in a safe place. Twice. One time the owl was close enough to touch and I spoke to it, “Teach this kid to fly, okay?” Anyway, it slept in a front yard tree, amid the racket of mowing and dogs barking, etc. (Freddie took this photo, right, of that owl sleeping)

Yesterday, F found a big (ten inch) owl feather in the driveway, and I found a similar one in the front yard, probably from a fledgling of a year or so ago, now fully grown.

They were like notes, billets-doux, from a good friend and they said, “We’re around, we’re just a little less outgoing than our forfeathers were, but we think Wise Acres is a hoot.”

Last and least; The Preakness

I bet a Benjamin on the Derby every year, my only gamble, and if it’s not all gone I bet the rest on the next two legs of The Triple Crown. Last year I won big enough that if I lose it all for ten years I’m still playing with house money. So, the 2023 Derby; I only got $40 back from the $100 bet and that will go $3 across the board ($9) on Mage (Derby winner), $3 across the board ($9) on First Mission, $3 across the board ($9) on National Treasure, and a $12 trifecta box combination of 3-8-1 (all Mage, Mission and Treasure). Total bet, $39. Let’s see if I get any back to bet on The Belmont Stakes. Right now there are only eight horses running.*

Riders up. Happy rest of May. See you in June. G

*(Sat. update on Preakness bet; Mission scratched so only 7 in field today. Changed Mission and box trifecta to Red Route #5)
(After-race update: got two out of three but now end up with a paltry $27.94 to bet on Belmont. Almost—the box trifecta would have made me a hundredaire. Oh well. Good to see Baffert back btw—he’s a staple, like hats and bubbly.)