Simple Days

The most perfect of Autumnal days.
Sunshine a'plenty, low humidity, and flowers in bloom.

How I'll miss them when they're gone.

Autumn Splendor

We've been experiencing beautiful Autumn weather these past few days, highs in the 80's with low-humidity, it makes for perfect outside chore-doing, or just plain rambling-about weather.

All around town people are decorating with Fall colors, pumpkins, gourds, and pots of colorful chrysanthemums, and down on Main Street Oktoberfest is being celebrated.
It's such a pleasant time of the year ~

"I am rich today with autumn's gold,

All that my covetous hands can hold;

Frost-painted leaves and goldenrod,

A goldfinch on a milkweed pod,

Huge golden pumpkins in the field

With heaps of corn from a bounteous yield,

Golden apples heavy on the trees

Rivaling those of Hesperides,

Golden rays of balmy sunshine spread

Over all like butter on warm bread;

And the harvest moon will this night unfold

The streams running full of molten gold.

Oh, who could find a dearth of bliss

With autumn glory such as this!"

~ Gladys Harp

Gossamer Threads

"The milkweed pods are breaking,

And the bits of silken down

Float off upon the autumn breeze

Across the meadows brown."

~ Cecil Cavendish, The Milkweed

Recycling Nature's Way

Each Year, as Fall comes to an end, I remove the Boston ferns from the front porch.

I buy them from our local farmers co-operative, and with a faithful watering, and the occasional feeding, they grow into huge plants which we enjoy them all season long
They are lush and green, but after the first few hard frosts hit, the leaves turn brown, and I'll transport them to the trees and offer them to the birds as a winter refuge.

I have tried hanging them in a room and watering all winter through, it makes a huge mess, so I've given up, and resigned myself to the fact that each spring as soon as the farmers greenhouse flings open it's doors, I'm there waiting in line .......

Autumn Cottage

Autumn is in the air, and for the past few days we've been led to believe it is already upon us.
Cool mist-filled mornings, and even cooler, crisp-laden 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

Purrfect

Gentle eyes that see so much,

paws that have the quiet touch,

Purrs to signal "all is well"

and show more love than words could tell.

Graceful movements touched with pride,

a calming presence by our side --

A friendship that takes time to grow -

Small wonder why we love them so.

~ Author Unknown ~

View Through My Window

What I'm watching when I should be working ......

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.

Unknown

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)



Daily Ritual

Time to change the teapot from the Summer Pansies back to the Blue Willow design.

I confess to being a tea addict, it's the first thing that passes my lips in a morning and the last thing at night, even going so far as taking a cuppa to bed with me.

I got the addiction honestly, and put it down to all those times we English children were offered milky tea in our bottles as we were growing up.
Yes, they start us at an early age.

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.

~Author Unknown

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.

Early morning the Morning Glories are in bloom, by evening their brief  life is over.

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