Friday, September 27, 2024

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)
 

Monday, September 23, 2024

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

Saturday, September 21, 2024

Goodbye Sweet Summer

      

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

 ~Sarah Helen Power Whitman

 
 
 
 
 
 










 

 
 




 

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

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

Friday, September 13, 2024

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.
 
 

Saturday, September 7, 2024

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.



 

Sunday, September 1, 2024

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