Friday at lunch I walked down to the pond in the Research Park.

Lots of fall colour, ducks and some dogs out for a walk. A man

was walking three dogs a Rottweiler, a Border Collie mix and a rather

chubby older dog While the other two moved along at a good pace the

older dog followed slowly, no leash required, it's man did touch

it regularly. Its attention seemed totally focused on keeping up.

Finally when the other two stopped to sniff and watch ducks it

forged ahead. On finding itself in the lead it stopped and waited.

I thought it had a sweet face.

"Well, there is time left -

fields everywhere invite you into them

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?"

Quickly then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches

                                               Mary Oliver

I found this beetle last week in the parking lot

at work. I am always surprised to find aquatic

beetles in areas some distance from water. Twice

I have found Giant Water Bugs, a creature I first

encountered in the pages of Annie Dillard's

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek a couple of blocks from

my office. I assume they mistake the dark asphalt

for water. This was considerably smaller than the

Giant Water Bug Lethocerus americanus.

I have identified it as a Mid-Sized Diving Beetle

Colymbetes sculptilis

If I am mistaken please let me know.

" Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery,

like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face

of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view,

look at the whole landscape, really see it... "

 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

                         Annie Dillard

Autumn

Fall Wind

Pods of summer crowd around the door;

I take them in the autumn of my hands.

Last night I heard the first cold wind outside:

the wind blew soft, and yet I shiver twice:

Once for thin walls, once for the sound of time.

                                   William Stafford

This morning we had impressive clouds

the colour seems a bit more dramatic

than I remember but I did not do much

editing. They did not signify extreme

weather, we had a cloudy morning and

a warm mild afternoon.

I am working on cloud identification

I think these are cumulus but I would

welcome a correction if you disagree.

Kathie from http://kathiesbirds.blogspot.com/

has suggested these are mammatus clouds

and they certainly look like them. Thanks Kathie 

"Never alone

While over unending sky

Clouds move for ever.

Calling them beautiful

Humanity is in love with creatures of mist."

                                          Cloud

                                              Kathleen Raine

I had not be filling my birdbaths as much since

we filled the pond which is very popular with the

small birds. However within a few minutes of

cleaning it out a magpie had bathed and was

primping in the tree.

 

" Whose voices carry on the wind: they send

their rambling dactyls through the morning air

with the dark fret-and-flutter of wings,

a cry feathered between syllables,"

Bedrock

                    David Solway

"Sometimes I have the feeling that words lead a

private existence of their own, apart from us,

and that when we speak or write,

especially in moments of strong emotion,

we do little more than hitch a ride on some

obliging syllable or accommodating phrase. "

Poetry as Isotope:

The Hidden Life of Words

           Eric Ormsby

Last weekend it was time to check out the

garden. Fall is here but a few plants are holding

on. The Hollyhock is in it's glory.

There was a lone Geranium.

But the Coral Bells were beautiful. I am always

fascinated at how an insect's colours so often seems

to compliment the flower it appears on no matter

where I see it.

"Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude."

The Garden

Andrew Marvell

I posted earlier about how happy I was to have

attracted a Blue Jay to my backyard feeders.

I thought it only fair to show the cast of

characters who have had the even tenor of their

days shattered by a noisy blue jerk.



"This is the treacherous month when autumn days

With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.

Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts

Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze

Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,

And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts, "

Autumn Sonnet

Helen Hunt Jackson

In my youth in Ontario I really enjoyed two of the

common feeder birds Blue Jays and Northern Cardinals.

Okay I liked flashy. We do not get Northern Cardinals

here and while we normally have Blue Jays in the

neighbourhood they are not as obvious as they are in

Ontario. I suspect the large numbers of Magpies and

possibly the Crows push the them down in the pecking

order. To see if I could attract them I put out a peanut

feeder with a home made squirrel shield. The squirrels

still get some nuts but it prevents them from actually

chewing the feeders apart as they do with other plastic

feeders.  The sparrows, finches, nuthatches and squirrels

enjoy the peanuts but while I saw a jay check it out a week

ago they did not come. I filled the feeder and went out of

town for a couple of days. When I got back the feeder

 was empty and yesterday I saw why, success. I also

noticed the jay seemed to be able to to take four or five

peanuts at once. So our yard is a more colourful and  much

noisy place.

This also gives me a chance to revisit a poem

I enjoy and one that influenced several quotes

etc. used in my blogs.

" Forked sticks upon the air,

Half-dead trees, where two

Blue jays shriek the summer sky

To a deaf world, their blue

The only water here.

The sun is axeman among dry

Slashing: he would clear

Kindling from these rocky hills:

The logos as belated pioneer,

One cry with the fanatic jay. ..,"

                          Blue Jay in Haliburton

                               D.G. Jones

I believe this is Canadian Buffaloberry ~ Shepherdia canadensis

" Plains tribes believed that when the berries were ripe,

the buffalo were fat enough to hunt "

Plants of Alberta

Royer/Dickinson

" Our berries picked,

the mushrooms gathered,

each of us hides

in his heart a small piece

of this summer,

as mice store their roots

in a place

known only to them. "

                    Poem

                   John Haines

Again these photos were taken a couple of weeks ago in the

Research Park. As I have mentioned before, this has been a

real dragonfly summer for me I have seen them everywhere

in huge numbers.

Feel free to correct id's.

Variable Darner ~ Aeshna interrupta

Darners are apparently an important

food source for young Merlins.

Bugs of Alberta

Acorn/Sheldon

Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk ~ Sympetrum internum

 " Flecked with heraldic gold,

what winged thing has landed

on my drying foot?"

If I Knew the Names of Everything

Brian Bartlett

In visting my favorite blogs today I was reminded of

these lines from one of my favorite poems, that is one of the

joys of blogs. While I may no longer be green and carefree,

I hope to remain open to the beauty of these words.

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
     About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
       The night above the dingle starry,
         Time let me hail and climb
       Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
     And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
     And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
         Trail with daisies and barley
       Down the rivers of the windfall light.

     And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
     About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
       In the sun that is young once only,
         Time let me play and be
       Golden in the mercy of his means,
     And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
     Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
         And the sabbath rang slowly
       In the pebbles of the holy streams."

                                   Fern Hill

                                                    Dylan Thomas