Autumn

We go for a lovely drive today, taking the camera along

I am not expecting to see so many colourful signs of fall until October, but through a rain spattered windshield and the occasional bit of sunshine Charles and I drive along the Cawston Bench, and then down the back roads around by Ginty's Pond, and he is so patient about stopping and so sharp-eyed about seeing things that I miss, that we ended up snapping almost two hundred pictures.

Here are a few........ other pictures of a wild unsettled sky I have posted 

at Similkameen Skies.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof;  there thou may'st rest,

And tune they jully voice to my fresh pipe;

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lust song of fruit and flowers.

William Blake, To Autumn, 1783

Seasons 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, To Autumn

Death by Silk

Not for the faint hearted....

Caspar and I are just returning from a little stroll down the lane and as we approach the steps we notice (well, I notice, - Caspar is blind) that there is some rather nefarious activity going on around the rain spout at the bottom of the steps.

I slip Caspar into the house, grab the camera and come back out to watch the action.

Here is the villain, - a big orange spider who I think might be a Kittalog, or some kind of

 an Orb spider.

You will note that he is busy at his work, - blowing out silk and  reeling out a line with which he intends to secure his victim.  He has already caught one of the frightened grasshopper's front feet making it difficult for him to do anything except squirm and pull, trying to escape.

The spider beats his chest a bit and does a kind of war dance that closely resembles a Haka, I think.

The battles begins in earnest.....terribly one-sided I must admit

My sympathies are with the poor carefree grasshopper who never in a million minutes while he rubbed his legs together, making merry music, dreamed that such a fate awaited him.  Things have reached a stage where even if I were to deprive the spider of lunch 

the grasshopper will not live to sing again.

I leave the big orange spider victorious, and go in to make lunch.  When I look again there is only the husk of the erstwhile idler to remind me of the carefree summer days he whiled away the hours, all the time thinking it was the ant that was putting him to shame when really it was the big orange spider that was planning his downfall.

A sad tale, but there, it's only Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Here endeth the biology lesson for the day, with a Requiem for the Grasshopper.

O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear

of some well-filled oaten beard,

Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear

Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;

And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire

To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plats of his beams,

And all these merry days mak'st merry men,

Thyself, and melancholy streams.

The Grasshopper - an excerpt

by Richard Lovelace

ABC Wednesday

I is for Istanbul

I am listening to Istanbul

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed

At first there is a gentle breeze

and the leaves on the trees

Softly sway,

Out there, far away,

The bells of the water carriers unceasingly ring,

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent,  my eyes closed.

Then suddenly birds fly,

Flocks of birds, high up, with a hue and cry,

While the nets are drawn in the fishing grounds

And a woman's feet begin to dabble in the water.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

Orhan Veli Kanik

For more interesting I's visit here, at ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbit and her helpers.

September 13th, 2010

Just some pretty pictures....

Not much to post about tonight, but despite the showery weather and cloudy skies here are some nice pictures of the sky, the garden, the hills...and some gorgeous Nectarines that Sid, our #3 son, brought up the hill for us to enjoy.  We had some at dinner and they were yummy......I am thinking pie! As I pass by them on my way to the kitchen the peachy fragrance is beautiful and mouth watering!

The sky tonight was quite interesting - talking to us about showery weather tomorrow, probably.

 

Not nearly as spectacular as the two lovely rainbows that have sprung from dark skies to show us where the pot of gold lies on the Cawston Bench.

Wednesday evening's rainbow, which I have already posted to my new blog 'Similkameen Skies' (see sidebar)

And another vivid shaft on Sunday evening.

Sunday morning at breakfast we spotted what we first thought were mountain goats on the toe of K mountain, but with the spy glass turned out to be three large bouquets of helium balloons tied with scarlet ribbon, escaped from some gay celebration and floating to and fro amongst the rocks and trees and meadow.  Unfortunately I was not successful in getting a clear picture, but here is where they were frolicking....

The little white blobs are really the balloons.  We left them partying and went to church.

By the time we got home none of them were as exuberant as they had been,

and they wafted lower and lower, some of them eventually

ending up entwined around the power lines. 

 I am sure they did have a story to tell.

In the garden a few summer flowers mix with the asters and yellow daisies. 

but the peony leaves are showing their fall colours along with the scarlet maple.

Welcome to Autumn.

September Ramblings

September 10th - a third of the way through this most favoured of months, and this morning the sun is shining and from where I sit I can see the autumn breeze is blowing gently through the tops of the trees.

I have just finished playing the morning Scott Joplin concert that accompanies Charles as he gets ready to go out and start the morning's activities, - this morning he is painting the door frame I watched him prepare yesterday on the new table saw.  Am I any help watching?  Well, I can go-fer things and pick up dropped objects, and I say the occasional prayer when it is important for things to go 'just right'.  And I'm company....company now and then is important!

Yesterday afternoon I picked up two friends and we went for tea, - well it turned out to be coffee and spring rolls as we went to the Thai Restaurant which is lovely and clean and quiet, but they don't serve a traditional tea and biscuit kind of thing.

Both of my friends have family at night, but during the day they are more or less alone, and neither is driving any more.  Listening to them talk I realized what a blessing the companionship of an extended marriage bestows on us...

Ah, I see the painter at the window,  paint brush in hand, - I am off to lend my expertise and what little advice the go-fer is permitted to offer.

Later, - do not think, fair reader, that this togetherness is always sunshine, light and merry cooperation.  Charles came early to leadership with his Lancaster crew - it has been a talent that has stood him in good stead in everything he has been involved with, and not one that he relinquishes easily.  I, being a first born, am not always fit for my role as apprentice, even though half the time I am not sure just what is going on! On the whole we usually survive the work at hand, still speaking.....

September gathers itself up into a shawl of treasures and spills out, one by one, new beginnings, new enthusiasms, a return to well loved activities, - and so this morning Charles went off to the singing group that provides for him not just the music that he loves but the companionship that he missed during the summer months when Wednesdays mornings held no promise beyond the little list of things to be accomplished....

And I?  What do I do with the two or three hours when I am alone with my own little list?  Oh, I indulge myself shamelessly.   Always to music.   There are things to be accomplished, things to be enjoyed, things that are especially set aside for Wednesday mornings....even when they are household chores they are things that I would not usually tackle without uninterrupted time.  A shelf of books to go through, some time spent in the garden, some mending, or if I'm really indulging myself an hour at the loom.

This morning I was tidying the music cupboard and  came across a taped Bell Concert; a Memorial for a former director of our choir which we performed in 1994.  After I had put together an apple crisp and popped it into the oven I sat down with my knitting, slid the tape into the player and enjoyed an hour watching and listening to old familiar pieces, some of which are still in our repertoire, but some that we no longer have enough ringers to play.  We played ensemble with another choir from Kelowna, and I was amazed at how profession it all sounded as we rang with great energy and aplomb "The Heavens are Telling" - a long and joyously complicated piece with a wonderful piano accompaniment. I sighed when it was all over, for times past and for lost energies.

But then I picked up a book of quotes and found this excerpt by an unknown author....

Eternal God, I thank you that I am growing old. 

 It is a privilege that many have been denied....  

Spare us the self-pity that shrivels the soul....

and grant us daily some moments living on tiptoe,

 lured by the eternal city... 

and I felt pretty lucky to have had this experience and

the chance to relive it.....

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is H

H is for HINKY PINKY and this choice for the letter H takes me away back to when our family was young and word games were fun and challenging.

In case you haven't ever had a passion for Hinky Pinky a word of explanation.  A hinky pinky is a clue, definition or riddle, the answer to which is a pair of rhyming words.

For instance, the clue is 'a Norseman on wheels' and the answer could be 'biking Viking'.

The phrase 'hinky pinky' is part of the clue and indicates that the words in the answer will contain two syllables.

The words in a HINK PINK contain only one syllable, and the words in a HINKETY PINKETY contain three syllables, so that if you say to someone, "I have a hinkety pinkety for an evil clergyman, the answer could be a 'sinister minister'.

Or, this is a hink pink for an apian patellae, and after considerable thought you might answer 'bee's knees'
A hinky pinky that describes a moody person from the East could be a 'tempermental oriental' and if the definition is Zeus's wrath, what better answer than 'frightening lightening'.

A great word game for children to increase their vocabularies and stir their imaginations, and an entertaining way for adults to while away the time when doing dishes or standing in a queue or waiting for a bus, or during a boring lecture or sermon or any other dismal litany....

Can you come up with a hink pink for contents of an air conditioned Fort Knox (easy, easy...)

Or what is a hinky pinky for a simple machine that is very smart?  Or a hink pink for a married rodent?

What is a hinkety pinkety for a head made out of radioactive elements?

For more entertaining H's visit ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her team of helpers.

A birthday party, old friends and happy hunting grounds....

A golden dawning of the day and Charles was up early to catch a gorgeous sunrise, while I lazed in bed.

We had plans for the day.  Another friend had reached the venerable age of eighty five and her children had made arrangements for a birthday luncheon, to which we had been invited.

A beautiful morning, and Charles and I set off to pick up two very dear friends with whom we have shared a lifetime of experiences.

We were all young together, planting orchards on a dusty sagebrush benchland under a Veteran's Land Project in 1951, - having families, tending vegetables until the orchards came into production., all of us facing the same predicaments economically, but full of enthusiasm and a tremendous feeling of companionship.  Lovely parties in half finished houses, so many evenings of bridge, dances in the Community Hall and each of us part of a wonderful spirit in that decade after the war.

Now, alas, there are few of the veterans left, and their wives cling together as we all grow older and we lunch and reminisce.  Charles is only one of a very few who are left from all those wonderful, brave young men who planted the Cawston Bench, and we share him and cherish him and he is kind and charming to us all.  And I hope we give him some comfort in a loneliness he feels, having lost all the friends who have gone before him....

We dined al fresco on wonderful seafood quiches and salads and Barefoot bubbly wine, and when, in mid afternoon, we had talked ourselves out,  happy and replete we took the long way home along the roads of memory.  The Veteran's project, which was named Fairview Heights, is now farmed mainly by East Indians, but as we passed the very modern orchards with mini trees and sophisticated sprinkler systems,  in our minds' eyes we saw the Benchland as it was when we transformed it from hot sageland to cooling orchards, and we heard the voices of our children as they roamed the hills and rode the trails on bicycles and horses, were little trojans in the orchards and grew up in the most wonderful country way.

Do you remember?  Do you remember?  What a lovely drive it was through shrouds of tangled memory as we drove from one end to the other, and beyond into the lower valley.

Many Happy Returns of a lovely Day Glenys