Wordless Wednesday - Reflections of Autumn

all photos by my daughter Haiku, October 27, 2009 in the late afternoon

Wordless Wednesday - Local Workers

Lingering...

I read this on my box of green tea this morning, "The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboo, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things." ~ Kakuzo Okakura.

This post offers glimpses of some of the beautiful foolishness that we have been lingering in over the past few days. Evanescence is everywhere in spring... In the bouyancy of a kite rising to the blue sky, catkins bursting on willow trees, sunlight sparkling on the water. Even Maude forgets her years and frisks about, bouyant and joyful on a ramble to the lake with Tanka and Haiku.

The afternoon glow brightens everything on a sunny April day, until the beautiful moment when the sun's warmth melts across the western sky.

Kite, Sparkling Lake, Maude - by Haiku
PussyWilllows, Crocus, Sunset - by Aisling
All photos, April 7 - 10, 2009


...

For the birds

Each time I look outside my windows I see birds in these days of early spring. I watch blue jays swoop around boldly as I wash dishes. Turkeys in the front yard distract me as I sit down to the computer to do school work. Normally cheery robins look a bit worried as they hop about on the cold ground, looking as if they weren't counting on there still being snow when they returned to the north. Here are a few images... none of them good, many of them taken through window screens. The focus on several is blurred by the frenzy of falling snow. The flower photos are from yesterday when it was cold but sunnier.

I'd love to stay on line and catch up on blog reading, but I have much to do! We have a birthday in the family this week; my oldest daughter will be 19! Today is our party; just a quiet gathering here at home. I need to finish cleaning, bake a cake, and then my nine year old son is going to make a lazagna for his sister's birthday dinner. Wherever you are, however you're filling your hours, I wish you joy!

all photos by Aisling, April 2 & 3, 2009

Early Evening

I think the January Thaw finally found us, here in the second week of February. It isn't Sunday, but I thought I would share a few photos that I took as I wandered around my fields and gardens. The creek, which I named "The Sometimes Brook" in honor of its habit of being sometimes there, and sometimes not, is flowing rapidly today... under and over ice, in and around little dams made of snow.

I think these tiny shoots (Yes! I have things sprouting here!) are Red Impression Tulips. The front yard is flowing nearly as well as the creek!

I wasn't the only one out in the early evening hours, enjoying the colorful skies and the crisp-fresh air.

The south end of the butterfly garden is still snow-covered, but in the north end, sprouts are pushing through the earth. The first photo is a little wild iris that is often the first thing to bloom in my garden in the spring, proceeding the crocus blooms whose shoots make their appearance in the second photo.

What else is going on beneath the cold soil and a thick layer of spent leaves? Much more than meets the eye, I'm sure! By the way... did you know that lemon thyme smells even fresher and sweeter in February than it does in June?

The lingering snow clearly states that winter is still here, but the air hints at spring, and and the fields are filled with reminders of other seasons.

Though we lost many inches of snow today, snow is in the forecast for later in the week. Before that happens, I'm going to enjoy the remainder of this beautiful, balmy night. Well, not balmy really, but everything is relative! Wherever you are, whatever the weather, I hope you find something beautiful to lift your spirits.

all photos by Aisling, February 10, 2009

Nature & Children

Author Sharon Lovejoy, whom I mentioned in my Monday Muse post, has posted a request for contributions for the book she is currently writing. You can read her request for ideas for nature arts & crafts or adventures here. She is thanking contributors by choosing one idea and awarding it's submitter with a nice little package of prizes, including two of her books and a blank journal with her illustrations. If you are a gardener, a nature lover, or just an interested reader, please visit her blog to read all about it. I just know you'll enjoy your visit to her blog whether you have an idea to submit or not.

photo by Aisling, June 24, 2008 Gertrude Jekyll rose

Sunday Stroll Invitation

Alan Watts said, "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." This is one of the lessons the garden teaches us... if we are paying attention. Each time I step into the garden, something has changed: new shoots are reaching up through the soil, new buds have emerged, and the first petals have fallen away from a flower I've been admiring for days.

If you have time this week to "join the dance" of change in nature, 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 often and try to keep the list updated.

Meet the Locals...

My children have been on spring break for the past week. Today is their last day, so tomorrow we will all be back to our routine. I am substituting for one of the recess attendants. I hope it is a nice day, weather-wise, since I will be outside for several hours! The photos in this post are from Haiku's walks near our home (but not all on our property) during the past few days. The last one was taken from the dining room window this evening. He started moving quickly once he noticed my daughter leaning through the window to take his picture, so it is a bit blurry, but he was a pretty fellow so I'm including it despite the lack of crisp focus.

photos by Haiku, April 2008 1) black-capped chickadee 2) Maudie getting a drink 3) a little raccoon who ventured out of the woods in the afternoon. 4) ring-necked pheasant

Wild Edges...

This is my 100th post. In honor of that event, and in keeping with an interesting conversation at Green Inventions Central recently about letting native species grow on property edges, I've decided to list 100 things that live and grow in the wild edges on our three and a half acres of land. These are the things that would be here whether we were here or not, not things I have purchased or brought in. Further, this is just a quick "off the top of my head" list. There are other things that should be on this list, but either a)I don't know what it they are called b) I totally forgot about them while making this list or c) I thought of them when the list was filled. The living creatures noted here have either walked over, crawled through or flown above our land in the years that we have lived here, some of them frequently, though not all actually make their home on our property. Our wild edges truly do provide habitat for a fascinating variety of living things, helping in a small way to sustain biodiversity.

50 Rooted Things:

1) red clover 2) ajuga 3) field daisies 4)blue-eyed grass 5) buttercups 6) boneset 7) wild strawberries 8) cattails 9) jewelweed 10) red-twig dogwood 11) multiflora rose 12) Russian olive 13) autumn olive 14) wild apple 15) maple trees 16) chicory 17) blueweed 18) black-eyed Susans, 19) campion 20) yellow clover 21) dandelions 22) mallow 23) St. John's wort 24) fern 25) trout-lily 26) Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot) 27) yarrow 28) evening primrose 29) goat's beard 30) self-heal 31) horsetail 32) wild mint 33) willow 34) white pine 35) ash 36) spotted knapweed (star thistle) 37) mullein 38) golden rod 39) New England aster 40) wild mustard 41) milkweed 42) joe-pye weed 43) violets 44) bull thistle 45) shepherds purse 46) raspberries 47) wild grapes 48)birch trees 49) smoothish hawkweed 50) orange hawkweed

50 wild creatures:

51) painted turtles 52) snapping turtles 53) ring-neck pheasant 54) red fox 55) coyote 56) Bald Eagle 57) kestrel 58) hawk 59) robin 60) Eastern blue bird 61) blue heron 62) sandhill crane 63) mallards 64) frogs 65) toads 66) dragonflies 67) damselflies 68) monarch butterflies 69) yellow swallowtails 70) blue swallowtails 71) Pandoras Sphinx Moth 72) seagull 73) killdeer 74) meadowlark 75) quail 76) whitetail deer 77) opossum 78) rabbit 79) praying mantis 80) walking stick 81) lady bug 82) mosquito 83) goldenrod and other spiders 84) flies 85) honeybees 86) yellow jackets 87) wasps 88) bumblebees 89) ruby-throated hummingbird 90) red spider mites 91) ants 92) garter snakes 93) moles 94) mice 95)cardinal 96)bob-o-link 97)grouse 98)bats 99) wild geese 100) fireflies

Also, really quickly, my little nod to Poetry Thursday. Just a few lines I wrote several years ago, about June (that includes two of the plants species in my wild edges list!)

June

Courtship in the meadow has begun;
blue-eyed grass winks at the sky,
and buttercups flirt with the sun.

poetry by Aisling

photos by Aisling 1) Blue-eyed grass, 5/19/2007 2) buttercups 6/3/2007

A Walk in the Birch Woods...

Good friends of ours have a campground set up on their "Back 40" complete with playground equipment for the children, a kitchen tent, and scenic trails through the woods. This weekend, Limerick and the boys camped there. Haiku and I had several other commitments, so we came and went. This afternoon, we stopped in long enough to take a walk in the birch woods. Tanka walked with us, but Sijo stayed at camp to try out the hammock.

There wasn't much blooming today in the woods. I didn't find a secret bower overflowing with trillium as I had hoped, but there were the tiniest wild violets I'd ever seen, strawberries blooming in the footpaths, and leaves unfurling in tender shades of green, red and gold. We stepped over mossy rocks and around fallen logs peppered with woodpecker holes. I hope I can carry the quiet of that walk with me through the upcoming week, which looks as if it will be as busy as the last.

photos (except #3) by Aisling 1) Sunlight through the birch leaves; 2) tiny woodland violets 3) Maple leaves unfurling (by Haiku) 4) birchlog with woodpecker holes

He sang to me in the garden...

photo by Aisling, bumblebee on grape hyacinth (muscari), April 29, 2007

To Wander at Will...

Our neighbor's acreage is no longer the thriving dairy farm it once was. Part of it has been subdivided, into large plots of several acres each; our home sits on one of those sites. A few acres of the land is now rented by another farmer where he grows and bales hay for his livestock. Some of it sits, uncultivated and covered with forest and swamp, providing a quiet sanctuary for mosses and mushrooms and wild creatures. Fortunately, our neighbors are good people, and we have their permission to wander their rolling hills and forested acres at will. Today, Haiku and I walked to the braided tree at the forest's heart, and along a trail to the little lake at the edge of the woods.

A photo journal of our meandering walk follows. Some of the photos are better than others, but whether clear or slightly unfocused, they will give you a glimpse of what we saw as the early evening air chilled our skin and the sun slid slowly down the western horizon.

photos: 1) sunlight streaming in at the forest's edge 2)a stream at the trail head 3) three intertwined trees 4) a bit of winter lingers in nature's own ceremonial bowl atop a mossy stump 5) a blade of grass growing through a shelf mushroom 6)several shelf mushrooms like Japanese fans across a fallen log 7) emerging leaves of Dutchmen's Breeches, an ephemeral wildflower 8) a stump with a gorgeous soft mossy "hair-do" 9) And the trail goes on...

All photos by Aisling, April 15, 2007