View From My Window

Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.

~William Cullen Bryant

The Little Home

The Little Home

The little house is not too small
To shelter friends who come to call.
Though low the roof and small its space
It holds the Lord's abounding grace,
And every simple room may be
Endowed with happy memory.

The little house, severely plain,
A wealth of beauty may contain.
Within it those who dwell may find
High faith which makes for peace of mind,
And that sweet understanding which
Can make the poorest cottage rich.

The little house can hold all things
From which the soul's contentment springs.
'Tis not too small for love to grow,
For all the joys that mortals know,
For mirth and song and that delight
Which make the humblest dwelling bright.

Edgar A. Guest

Thoughts Of Home

The Manor Farm

The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills
Ran and sparkled down each side of the road
Under the catkins wagging in the hedge.
But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun;
Nor did I value that thin glilding beam
More than a pretty February thing
Till I came down to the old Manor Farm,
And church and yew-tree opposite, in age
Its equals and in size. The church and yew
And farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness.
The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,
With tiles duskily glowing, entertained
The mid-day sun; and up and down the roof
White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.
Three cart-horses were looking over a gate
Drowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tails
Against a fly, a solitary fly.
The Winter's cheek flushed as if he had drained
Spring, Summer, and Autumn at a draught
And smiled quietly. But 'twas not Winter—
Rather a season of bliss unchangeable
Awakened from farm and church where it had lain
Safe under tile and thatch for ages since
This England, Old already, was called Merry.

~ Edward Thomas 1878-1917

Harvest Moon Picnic

"The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide.
The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf.
The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills...
Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay; ... its time of flowers and even of fruit was over."
~ Charlotte Brontë

A Brief Encounter

We've had spells of wonderful cool evenings.
The kind of weather, that begs you to spend the last few hours of the day, enjoying the outdoors.

The days are noticeably shorter, the flowers are sharing their last blooms, the birds are retiring early to their nests.
Mother Nature's way of slowing down.

The mosquitoes however are in abundance.

Summer's End

"Spring flowers are long since gone.
Summer's bloom hangs limp on every terrace.
The gardener's feet drag a bit on the dusty path and the hinge in his back is full of creaks."-

~Louise Seymour Jones

Changing Seasons

Be clothed within an autumn mist
Of morning’s coolest dew
Look upward to the painted sky
Of season’s rusty hue
Step lightly midst the crunching leaves
That blow ‘pon hearty breeze
Then hunker down and lay their bed
Neath winters snowy freeze.

Be crisp the night with snap of chill
And short of day be warm
The sunset mirrors the changing leaves
As stars of night do form
The fields be tanned with burdened straw
Of summer’s life fulfilled
And autumn’s flowers, days be kissed
With season’s colors willed.

~ Sherry Gail Heim

Morning Mist

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;—
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

~Thomas Hood : Autumn (1798-1845)

Duly Noted

After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word.
And has filed it for reference.

~Charlotte Gray

Shine On Harvest Moon

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 (1807-1882)

A Barrow Full Of Blooms

The First Sergeant (hubby) went shopping to our local DIY store this afternoon, and returned with a truck load of perennials.......
All marked down to one dollar a pot, twenty pots in all, a mixture of white and pink Coneflowers, and garnet colored Coreopsis.
Despite their end of season bedraggled appearance, I was over the moon, and can just imagine how pretty they will look in the beds next year.

Don't you just love a bargain !

We Shall Never Forget

Together we pause to remember the victims,
to grieve with the families and friends of those who died,
and to honor the heroes of that day and each day since,
who have sacrificed to save lives and serve their country.

An Elephant Never Forgets

When I first watched these videos I couldn't stop crying.

First aired in 2000 "The Urban Elephant" brought viewers the touching story of Shirley and Jenny, two crippled elephants reunited at the Elephant Sanctuary in Howenwald, Tennessee.
To learn more about the Elephant Santuary visit here:
The Elephant Sanctuary : Hohenwald Tennessee

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
~Henry David Thoreau

(Please turn off the MIXPOD music player before watching the videos, by scrolling to the bottom of the page, and clicking the LARGE ROUND BUTTON on the MIXPOD player )

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

Autumn Cottage

Autumn is in the air, and for the past three days we've been led to believe it's already upon us.
Cool mist-filled days, and cooler, crisp nights.
The trees are beginning their changing of color, yellows, oranges, and reds.
The songbirds now busily returning to their winter homes.

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.

To Autumn : John Keats 1795-1821

Cooling Rain

A break in the heat
away from the front
no thunder, no lightning,
just rain, warm rain
falling near dusk
falling on eager ground
steaming blacktop
hungry plants
thirsty
turning toward the clouds
cooling, soothing rain
splashing in sudden puddles
catching in open screens
that certain smell
of summer rain

~ Summer Rain : Raymond A Foss

Summer Rain

We had rain today, a gentle-falling rain, the kind where you can use an umbrella without fear of it being turned inside out.
If you listened carefully you could hear the trees and flowers, heaving a big sigh of relief, their roots and foliage drinking in every last drop of moisture.
The temperatures fell, and for the first time in several weeks we enjoyed a tolerable 81degrees.
Oh, how I love days such as this.

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nobody Left To Love Me

Someone always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses left too long abandoned
to turn old and gray.

Weeds pushing apart . . .
Trees gone wild,
Fields taking over
Shredded curtains blowing in the wind.

Beams of weathered wood . . .
No longer able to hold in
The soft heartbeat of Home.

Autumn's Calling

"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.