Salt Box Houses

 Primitive New England saltbox houses.
I do seem to have a soft spot for them.

Season's End

The first time I laid eyes on this incredible English landscape painting, was in my hometown museum, I was smitten.

Depicting the ordinary, mundane chores of a gardener, at seasons end.

It reminded me of watching my grandfather, as he put his garden to rest after a successful growing season,  piles of now-spent rhubarb leaves, and endless stacks of  withered flowers.

I couldn't have been more than four years old at the time, but what an impression those days left on my early life.

A season ending, to begin again anew in just a few short months.

 

 

                                                                     Evening_Brockham

 

               Edward Wilkins Waite  (14 April 1854 – 1924)

 

Early Autumn Days

Summer Days have not yet took their leave.

The most perfect of Autumnal days today, blue skies and sunshine galore.
Our rainfall has been little to none for an entire month, many of the trees have already lost their brown leaves prematurely.
The air conditioner continues to hum....

 

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells."

~ John Keats

Goodbye Sweet Summer

      

       " When summer gathers up her robes of glory, and like a dream of beauty glides away. "

 ~Sarah Helen Power Whitman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shine On Harvest Moon

The Harvest Moon brightened up the night sky as soon as the sun set.

For several days before and after the full moon, the moon hangs in the sky like a great, glowing lantern and prolongs the light far after sunset. It rises about the time the sun sets, but more importantly, at this time of year, instead of rising at its normal average of 40 minutes later each day, the moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night.
This results in an abundance of bright moonlight early in the evening, which was a traditional aide to farmers and crews harvesting their summer-grown crops. Hence, the name "Harvest" Moon. 

Simply magical !

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

September Days

There is a stillness in the air, a slowing-down of sorts.

Nights are closing in fast, and darkness falls before the clock strikes seven thirty..

Candlelight glows.

 

 

Autumn Is Calling

Despite sultry August days, subtle signs of changing seasons are all around.

Summer days are noticeably shorter. There is a cooler rush to the evening air.
Down on  main street the shopkeepers are displaying their Autumn wares, and the feel of changing seasons is afoot.
The Summer's Gold Lantana blooms heartily,  as if it knows Summer's loveliest smile, is fleeting.



 

September

" September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours,
But in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn.                                                      The cricket chirps in the noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life.
The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms of the aftermath,
And their shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the song birds,
Now silent or departed."-

~ September Days : Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont

The Dog Days Of Summer

Dog Days defines a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress. The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, was somehow responsible for the hot weather.

Either way, we seem to have hit that mark.

As with most of the country we are under a heat advisory for the next week, 97 degrees and 115 degrees plus with the humidity factor figured in.
If you can avoid staying outside especially for long periods of time, then it is best to do so.

Even the birds have taken to their nests...……

By The Light Of The Silvery Moon

                           

                      

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Silver : Walter de la Mare