hanging garden of bottle gourds

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9.25.16 ~ Holmberg Orchards ~ Gales Ferry, Connecticut

As we wandered around a corn maze on a perfect autumn day, we came upon an enchanting gourd tunnel.

Gourds are natural born climbers. They seek out anything they can reach to climb closer to the sun. They grow so quickly it can become a daily task to move the vines away from some places you don’t want them to climb on. And once a tendril gets itself wound around a hold nothing short of breaking the tendril off the vine will get the little curlicue to let go. Not even the death of the vine will loosen their grip much.
~ Karen Hundt-Brown
(American Gourd Society)

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9.25.16 ~ Holmberg Orchards ~ Gales Ferry, Connecticut

While I looked, my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life: in that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah’s gourd.
~ Charlotte Brontë
(Villette)

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9.25.16 ~ Holmberg Orchards ~ Gales Ferry, Connecticut

Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers)

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9.25.16 ~ Holmberg Orchards ~ Gales Ferry, Connecticut

midsummer magic

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6.25.16 ~ we celebrated the summer solstice on Saturday
good friends, good food and good fun…
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6.25.16 ~ bald eagle
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6.25.16 ~ gray catbird
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6.25.16 ~ downy woodpecker
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6.25.16 ~ downy woodpecker taking off
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6.25.16 ~ petunias
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6.25.16 ~ daylily
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6.25.16 ~ foxglove
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6.25.16 ~ daylily
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6.25.16 ~ fairy light
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as close as I could get to this doe before she stomped her forefeet at me
~ I backed off so she could graze in peace…
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6.25.16 ~ chipmunk
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6.25.16 ~ so many orbs on a magical night
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6.25.16 ~ after a long day of fun in the sun,
a fire to enjoy under a clear sky full of shimmering stars,
with fireflies glowing in the surrounding trees,
and fairy lights sparkling near the grass…