"October"

Since I came to Virginia, my impression of October has changed.  In Englad I tended to think of it as cool and wet.  Here, I think of it as bright blue skies and harvest colours!

October's Bright Blue Weather

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

The view while I waited for my meal in Aunt Sarah's :)

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

A so called 'hardy orange'- not a citrus, but edible.  We have oodles of them- which means it will probably appear again since I am not satisfied with this particular effort ;)

When Gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

Decorated with leaf prints- which came out a lot better than the pictures.  Those were watercolour pencils, and the more I tried to correct the flaws, the muddier they got :(

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

Woolly Bears are all over the place- supposedly predicting the weather.  In our case they were posing for pictures ;)

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

And the latest EDM #246- picked up on our nature walk today :)  I love autumnal colours ;)  My first choice for something October would be my birthday- but it has been and gone so I can't draw it now (the cake was delicious too ;)).  This is my second choice ;)