"Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

 Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

So full was I of slumber at the moment

In which I had abandoned the true way."

                                from  Inferno Canto 1

                                      Dante, Longfellow's Tran.

Some dour quotes hopefully the birds
will brighten this up.

We had a couple of rarer visitors to the

cabin this year and although the photos

were not great I thought I would post them.

We had lots of White Crowned Sparrows and

the Phoebes are always around keeping an

eye on things. 

" Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer

linked with life, the less man has to do with

aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders,

the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to

visit the night-cloaked deck."

                                                             from Moby Dick

                                                                  Herman Melville

Back at the farm this pine has been dying by

inches for years but it is such a popular roost

it has not been removed.

“Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward

we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights

more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King

Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit

of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the

demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human

hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us

 on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.”

                                                                  from Moby Dick

                                                                           Herman Melville