bright wings of autumn
flutter, lighting on the last
sweet sips of summer
~ Barbara Rodgers
(By the Sea)
bright wings of autumn
Tag: gardens
strawberry fields
Wondering Rose, this post is for you! I remember when someone visiting the museum where you work asked, “Where’s the museum?” even though he was already in the museum. I was sympathetic to the poor man as it is usually me who gets confused when overwhelmed by crowds, but when we visited our daughter and her boyfriend in New York over the weekend it was my husband who wasn’t keeping up with our guides for the day.
1.28.12 ~ New York, New York
I wanted to see Strawberry Fields, a garden in Central Park that is dedicated to the memory of musician John Lennon. Larisa & Dima led the way into the garden from our first subway stop and there were plenty of signs indicating that we were indeed at the memorial. But Tim was lagging behind and decided to ask a busy gardener, “Where is Strawberry Fields?”
“Never heard of it,” the gardener replied, smiling. But then he pointed over to where Larisa & Dima were standing, a few feet away. It made me wonder how often the good-natured gardener (above photo) has to field such questions! It’s all right, though, the snowdrops surrounding the Cornelian cherry tree (below) seem to be confused as well. They do not usually come up until near the end of February, but our winter has been so mild who could blame them for thinking spring is on the way?
photos by Timothy Rodgers
curiosity and wonder
While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind.
~ Sigurd Olson
(Listening Point)
harvest moon
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~ Carl Sandburg
(Under the Harvest Moon)
summer tales and dreams
Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.
~ William Shakespeare
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
gathering kindness
I hope to have gathered
To repay your kindness
The willow leaves
Scattered in the garden.
~ Matsuo Bashō
(The Narrow Road to the Deep North: And Other Travel Sketches)
at the herb farm
Last weekend we took a ride out to The Salem Herbfarm. It was a hot and humid day so we didn’t last too long. Took a few pictures and bought a moonflower and a bamboo pole for it to climb on. Fortunately the weather has cooled off for now, after a wild evening of violent thunderstorms, which produced devastating tornadoes in Springfield and Monson, Massachusetts…
This weekend Tim has been working from home and a kind of lethargy has set in, in spite of the delightful weather. This past week I got a lot of work done on my garden and the living room. Janet and I are making plans…
No more house centipede sightings and yesterday I finally got up the nerve to sit on the couch again…
Reading a fascinating book: A Time for Everything by Karl Ove Knausgård. It’s an unusual piece of historical fiction, based loosely on the lives of characters from the Bible. But it gets into their heads and reinterprets the ways Cain or Noah, for example, might have experienced Biblical events. The author’s descriptions of the natural world of pre-flood times are detailed and vivid. The book is supposed to examine the nature of angels, too, but I’m only a little less than half way through.
virus two
After more than a week of concentrated and intense work on our family history and my garden, I sat down yesterday to catch up on this neglected blog and to visit the blogs of my friends. First I took my turns on Scrabble on Facebook, though, and while playing had my laptop attacked by another virus – apparently the same one (or similar to the one) that infected it when I was playing Scrabble back in March. In spite of my faithfully installing every virus protection update sent to me.
Tech Support (Tim) worked on the situation yesterday and more this morning and then decided to take my laptop to work with him. I’m using his computer for now, again with no access to my word or picture files! But I do have some quote/painting posts scheduled ahead of time that will appear now and then. Feeling a little lost and disconnected…
Typhoid fever! A school child in Connecticut has come down with typhoid fever. Wonder how he or she got it? Hope he or she will be all right…
Decorated for Midsummer this morning…
cat cataracts
Tim took a picture of my new tulips (above) yesterday. I suppose I might have planted them a little closer together…
5.2.11 ~ Woodbridge, Virginia
This sweet little cat is Meems. She used to be named Tibby, but after she gave birth to Tibette her family started calling her Mommy. (And Tibette became known as Baby.) But Mommy’s favorite human, our niece Erica, calls her Meems. She is a Munchkin (breed) who was born in Italy about fifteen years ago, if memory serves. She was a stray who adopted the family we just went to visit, and she was pregnant with Baby when the family moved from Italy back home to Virginia. Baby is not a Munchkin, however, and is larger than her mother!
So Meems is still sweet and petite but is now elderly and suffering with cataracts, it would seem. She dislikes cameras so the only way I could get her to hold her head up was to scratch her chin with one hand and hold the camera with the other. 🙂 She keeps pretty much to herself, so I was startled to find her eye looking like this because my sister Beverly’s cat, Bernie, has the same problem. And it is supposedly rare. But Meems’s vet thinks hers was caused by an injury, and Bernie’s vet thinks his are caused by a virus.
7.29.10 ~ Storrs, Connecticut
Cataracts are not as common in cats as they are in dogs; in fact, they are very rare. Most cataracts in the cat develop secondary to inflammation within the eye, from trauma, or some other eye problem. Rarely, cataracts in the cat may be inherited, may arise with abnormal development of the lens, or may occur in association with nutritional abnormalities in the young cat.
~ PetDoc
It seems to me cats, like people, are living longer than they did when I was a child. Long enough to be plagued with more of the infirmities of old age.