Friday, October 23, 2009

"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 ;)

11 comments:

  1. Lovely drawings all -- but oh, how I miss Wooly Bears! When I was a kid, we used to place them in the center of a circle and "race" them to the edge. They came in horse colors: sorrel, black, palamino and pinto, so that's what we pretended them to be!

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  2. Thanks Christie- I will have to suggest that to my kids for next time :)

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  3. Beautiful work and I love the poems!
    I accidentally raked a woolly bear. I don't know if I hurt it, but when I gave it to Sierra, she said it bit her. I'm sure I was the one it was mad at. I never knew they bit.

    Peace and Laughter,
    Cristina

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  4. Thanks Cristina :) Poor woolly bear- although your story made me laugh :) I can never even figure out which way round they are!

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  5. I especially like the wooly bears!

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  6. The color scheme here are fantastic! It really feels like autumn, and looking at them helps to imagine it's breezing cool and leaves are all over the sides of the roads, and people walking in winter wear. Lovely pictures!

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  7. LOL Thanks Alex :) It's Virginia though, so we're still walking around in short sleeves :)

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  8. Great series! I especially love the wooly bear.

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  9. Love your compositions. Lovely art and poems.

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  10. Oh the last one is my favorite. I love acorns.

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