Skywatch Friday

A picture from the past.

A summer sky in the Similkameen.

More sky pictures from around the world here, at Skywatch Friday.

The Colours of Spring

It is late in the afternoon when I suggest to Charles that we make a foray into Spring and discover how the season progresses down the Valley (where it is a smidgen earlier and where the buttercups and yellowbells first dot the hills).

We turn left at the end of the lane, on to the highway, but at the first opportunity we take a side road that follows the river to Cawston.

We round the corner by the park, where a forsythia bush is glowing in the afternoon sun,

and take the road down to Ginty's Pond.

The sun catches the disintegrating bullrushes with a luminous glow

as if they were held from below as fairy flares.

The road is lined with scarlet willow

until we come to an open patch of meadow on the left,

where the sap is rising sweetly in the shrubs

that border the pond.

As we turn at the end of the road the hills across the river

fold green above us.

and an old gnarled evergreen dominates the pasture beneath it

More gloriously vibrant shrubs align the

bullrushes that clog the water

Great tall trees in the midst of dressing themselves in Spring's tender greenery

and then a radiant grove of birch, smooth as satin

and intertwined with red willow

A last glimpse of the brilliant new growth in the pond

and two nesting Teals

and we turn and follow the road to the Upper Bench

where the peach trees are promising an imminent show of pink blossoms

and the hills are green and verdant.

As we drive through the orchards blocks of apricot trees

are blooming tentatively in the face of a late spring frost.

We go the long way home and stop to watch the calves below us

where the fields are green and the creek snakes along the edge

We turn back to the highway, crossing a small bridge that spans the creek.

The willows that follow its course are as spectacular today

as they were in all their fall finery, and the dried grasses whisper in the spring breeze.

We come home to happy hour and the gold of daffodils

and a lovely hour of piano music provided by

our oldest son, who followed us up the lane!

And full of awe at the stirrings of life and the beauty

that accompanies it.

ABC Wednesday

J is for Jabberwocky.

The poem

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Glossary for this 'glorious nonsense' poem which Lewis Carroll included in his tale of Alice, "Through the Looking Glass" can be found here. and more wonderful interpretations of the splendid letter 'J' can be found here at ABC Wednesday, hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt and her kind helpers.