Here are our very first red tomatoes not stolen by the squirrels. By comparison, Elspeth and Tim have already picked over twenty pounds.
Saw two operas Thursday night
Sneaked over to the opposition last night to see two Puccini operas done by Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival at the new opera house in Manassas. See below to hear the most famous aria from the second opera, Gianni Schicchi.
Of the two, I liked the first one the best: Il Tabarro (the cloak), a love story tragedy with a grisly ending. The set was most of the front part of a cargo ship, moored at a dock on the Seine. It was very well done, and I enjoyed all aspects of it. None of the music was familiar to me, but I could see the supertitles screen and I had read the synopsis, so I was able to follow the story well. Here’s a clip from Il Tabarro on the Castleton Festival website.
Intermission must have been a good half hour, so it had to be around 10pm before the second one started, and I’d been up since 4am. This was in the new Hylton Performing Arts Center at the Manassas campus of George Mason University, only 45 minutes’ drive from home. My first thought was that I’d got the worst seat in the house, but it was good in parts. I did have to hang onto the rail most of the way through the first opera for fear of falling four storeys into the orchestra pit. On the other hand, disregarding the altitude, nobody was closer to the action except the conductor (LM himself). I could see his score, although as my new glasses have not yet arrived, I couldn’t recognize the printing as music. My seat was a real chair, very comfortable, not bolted to the floor, and quite private, being hidden from the rest of the audience by a pillar. I guess that’s why it was box seating.
But that comfort began to be a bit of a problem about a half hour into Gianni Schicchi and I caught myself dozing off more than once. There are a lot more characters in this one, and I wasn’t able to keep them straight nor keep up with the supertitles. This is a farce about greed, performed in I suppose fifties dress, and I found it too silly. I did not sleep through that famous aria though. You can hear Kiri te Kanawa sing that on YouTube: O mio babbino caro
Mayapple, aka Mandrake
This is the fruit of one of the woodland plants seen in bloom Easter Saturday as below. Although it was trampled and left lying flat on the path by the dogs weeks ago, the fruit itself has remained green and possibly continues to grow. 
Thanks to Nick for providing the identification. I’m renaming this post from “unnamed fruit”. References: altnature.com,
Wikipedia
Tall phlox
Balloon flower
Balloon flower, in the triangle garden, partly hidden by the now lush Cherokee Princess dogwood.
Crape myrtle
Crape myrtle, just planted, 27″ tall. We’ve wanted one of these for ages, but didn’t know where to put it. After we bought this one, we still didn’t know, as we don’t have many spots likely to give it the full days of sun. Maybe this’ll do.
Stargazer lily
You know they’re in bloom the moment you open the front door. Reference: Wikipedia
Erin’s Honda Fit with kayak
Photo by Sheara via cell phone
Black snake down
This poor guy got thoroughly tangled in the plastic net we had put around the tomatoes. I was able to free him after about ten minutes of snipping, but he got in a shot at me before I could get another of him. We don’t know how long he was stuck, but think it had to be less than 24 hours. There were tight loops around him in lots of places, and I’m pretty sure I got them all cut off. Some were very constricting around his mid-section, and there may have been some damage to his skin there — or it might just have been ruffled scales. I was trying to see when he zapped me.
Went berry picking Friday
At Westmoreland Berry Farm in the Northern Neck, about an hour east of Fredericksburg. After picking our raspberries and blueberries, we enjoyed ice cream on the porch, looking west from the rocking chairs overlooking the fields. That’s white plastic for strawberries beyond the picnic tables. I think the occasional sparkle through the distant trees may be the river. Below, location A, with map showing Rappahannock River estuary and state route 3 upper right.
A bit more on the Northern Neck:
Bodies of water, from right to left and counter-clockwise, are Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River, and Rappahannock River. The Northern Neck is the rural and somewhat remote peninsular between the Potomac and the Rappahannock, first visited (as a prisoner of the Powhatans) by John Smith in 1607. It has 1,100 miles of coastline, no cities, many small farms, and a growing number of vineyards.