Monday Muse - Inspiration

Replacing our old dial-up connection with wireless a few months ago has changed my internet experience considerably. Netflix has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of that change. I hardly watch any television and our local video store's selection of offerings does not match my viewing taste. How nice that I now have almost everything to choose from.

Recently I watched a documentary called A Man Named Pearl. This man, a topiary gardener, is truly inspiring, and even if I were not a gardener, I would have found him fascinating. If you have a few minutes and have not heard anything about this movie, you might enjoy watching the trailer I've linked to below. There is also a website about this inspiring gentleman here.

Sunday Stroll - Changing Skies

With heavy clouds above my me and lush green grass beneath my feet, I walked through my garden this afternoon. Tiny hard pellets of snow had fallen just a minutes earlier. You can see them on the porch in the photo below, and falling in streaks of white near the pond in the photo after that.

This cosmos, the tallest in the patch, towers above my head. There are still many unopened blossoms. I hope that those blooms, and the little white hollyhock in the next photo, have time to unfurl before cold weather stops the long slow parade of blooms that I have been enjoying since early spring.

For now, the trend in the garden is toward yellow, silver, pale apricot, and more and more bare patches of earth. Here are some glimpses of the garden trail, starting at the south trail-head and leaving at the north-west end in the newer section of the garden where the cosmos are blooming.

There are a lot of brown leaves and dying vines in the vegetable, and very few actual vegetables remaining. There are still a few cantalopes and acorn squash amid the orange and green pumpkins. I hope those dead-looking vines still nourish our pumpkins until they are fully ripe... maybe just in time for Halloween.

As is so often the case in October, the skies have changed every few moments today. The frenzy of snowflakes was followed by mellow sparkling sunshine for a while. Later, a chorus of clouds and frosty air ran through the hills singing softly of shorter days and longer nights. At their urging, I made a warm, filling dinner of corn chowder and dill biscuits. The sun is shining again, just in time to set beautifully into the little lake down the hill. Wherever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you warmth and happiness.

all photos by Aisling, 10/11/2009

Sunday Stroll Invitation

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. ~Faith Baldwin

And isn't the great dressmaker busy in these first weeks of October? Color is transforming the landscape... not only in the garden... but everywhere one turns. I am hoping for fine weather today, but am not really expecting it. I hope to sneak into the garden to photograph my flowers at least one more time before the snow strips the color from the blossoms and presses the leaves and stalks against the earth. How is the weather in your corner of the world?

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, and if your weather allows, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as I can and try to keep the list updated.

Look who's strolling:
Heather at Heather's Homemaking
Christiane at Spiraling
Margaret at Periodic Pearls
Cloudhands at Uncarved Block
Me here at the Quiet Country House

Snowflakes in the Rain...

color in the trees
gray clouds roll across the sky
snowflakes in the rain

~ a haiku, by Aisling, 10/10/20

It is a cold rainy day on my northern hilltop. There are snowflakes in the rain. While stocking up on canned goods for my pantry at a local market, I tucked two boxes of spring-flowering bulbs into my cart. Where my tall cosmos are currently bowing down to the wind and rain, still in brilliant colorful bloom, I will have wild pink tulips and “butterfly” daffodils in the spring.

I also tucked in the ingredients for mulled cider, an autumn essential in our home. The only season missing in my cart was summer… Autumn was there in the cider, winter in the canned goods for cooking in a season without fresh garden bounty, and spring in the humble brown bulbs. Let’s call my produce a little reminder of summer…. salad greens and baby spinach, damson plums, a lemon and a two sweet oranges.

As I write this, I am sitting in the coffee house where my oldest daughter is employed. I’m sipping a delicious dark chocolate, soy café au lait, and watching the wind toss the corn stalks tied to the lamp posts on Main Street in the village. I have three exams to study for, and have materials with me to do so, but my mind keeps turning to other things. It is autumn after all and turning is the story of the season… Leaves turn to amber, gold, and crimson… Families turn up the thermostat, or throw a log on the fire… We turn our lives inward, to home and hearth and tradition, as the rain turns to snow.

photos by my daughter Haiku, 10/10/2009

Poetry Thursday - Home

Home

a poetic ramble

New shores,
Same skies.

Different flavors,
New aromas,
Water, food, and air to breath,
Same needs.

Unfamiliar traditions,
like prayer flags on Tibetan wind,
Catching the eye
But comfort, reassurance, connection,

The reasons for tradition,
Are not unfamiliar at all.

New sounds on the fickle breeze,
But the same tide,
From the same moon,
Rolls the deeply connected seas.

New hills,
New roads,
And unfamiliar words…
Same sweet, irreplaceable Earth.

~ by Aisling, October 8, 2009
Photos by Haiku from her trip to Turkey, August 2009

Sunday Stroll - Successive Octobers

The photo above shows some yellow mums that bloomed in October 2008, and below you see the billowing clouds in an October 2007 sky. The last photo from October 2006, my first October as a blogger, shows the effects of an early cold snap. I am still without a camera, and did not have one to borrow today. Even if I had one to borrow, the wind and rains might have slowed me down! I was in and out a few times today, but spent time indoors in my own kitchen and at a lovely baby shower for a young woman who used to babysit my daughters "back in the day." She is expecting her own first child, another little girl. Now, my mulled cider is warming in the crock pot and the house is smelling good!

Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you comfort and joy!

Sunday Stroll Invitation

Even though I never posted any photos here, I walked last Sunday with my daughter. We took our photos on her camera, and I have just not had the opportunity to load those photos onto my computer. It has been a busy week; homecoming week in our high school and a lot of activity going on in the community. This morning, cold autumn rain is falling and I wonder if the skies will clear later in the day. I have the ingredients in the kitchen for hot mulled cider and a big pot of vegetarian chili. In my quiet corner of the world, it actually seems like a really good day for staying indoors!

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, and if your weather allows, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as I can and try to keep the list updated.

Look who's strolling today:

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

Cloudhands at Uncarved Block

Christiane at Spiraling

Me here at the Quiet Country House