On a walk thru the neighbourhood

"Caught                              

           pressed into words

                                                made crazy with colour"

       from MOMENTS ARE MONUMENTS

           by Phyllis Webb

The Farm in Summer

I have put together some wintery posts for the next couple of weeks while they see to my cataracts. 

But before that let's have see summer for everyone that is just a wee bit tired of the snow and cold, the flowers in Helen's mom's garden at the farm, one of my favourite places. 

And another favourite, a farmey (sp)  poem.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

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.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

"Summer girls they sure are fun 

Get so golden in the sun"

from Summer Girls

as sung by Blue Rodeo

Faded flowers and the last of the summer girls

at a family BBQ Tuesday night.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade."

from The Lake Isle of Innisfree

by William Butler Yeats

"Then he started to write another poem

a short time before death, 

about drinking wine again in the village —

He was working on the poem when they buried him, 

so that half a line protruded from the earth

                                 in wind and weather's hearing —

With sunlight touching the first young syllables, 

the last ones flowering from a dark coffin: 

                      "marketplace the in/drink more One"

from Lu Yu

by Al Purdy

Calgary Flood June 2013

A you may have seen on the news Calgary has experienced 

a severe flood in the last few days. While we have had

a wet June and a record rainfall in the city Thursday and 

Friday the main problem was even heavier rains in the 

mountains  feeding the Bow and Elbow rivers as they flow 

towards Calgary. This has caused great great damage and 

some deaths in the small communities along the rivers. In 

Calgary some 60,000 - 100,000 people have been evacuated 

from the neighborhoods along the river and downtown will 

probably be closed for several days to dry out the powers 

transformers. Helen and I are fine our home is in a higher area

 and we did not even lose power. While I do have photos of the

 flood I think I will instead offer some photos taken in our 

yard earlier in the week when the rain was just the rain..

In the rain a young dog eats grass. The old dog well...,

This osprey surveys the flood.

"Here, where the world is quiet;

         Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds' and spent waves' riot

         In doubtful dreams of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest-time and mowing,

         A sleepy world of streams."

                            from The Garden of Proserpine

                                                    Algernon Charles Swinburne

    

      

"The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings,

facing outwards like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in

intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle

awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape:

or breaking into seeminly meaningless gyrations, while

partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern

to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps,

to control the steps of the dance.” 

from A Question Of Upbringing: 

A Dance to the Music of Time

Anthony Powell

Autumn is here, meaning the garden is almost done

but there is still time for a few last looks.

A seasonal dance.

A  few moments to bask in the warm winds

and golden light.

"the distant pounding of centaurs' hoofs dying away,

as the last note of their conch trumpeted out over hyperborean seas.

Even the formal measure of the Seasons seemed suspended in the

wintery silence. "

from Hearing Secret Harmonies:

A Dance to the Music of Time

Anthony Powell

Some more photos from our July trip to

the farm and cabin. I was watching a program

featuring a entomologist in India. He said each

child goes through an insect phase and mine never 

ended. Mine has not ended, I want to know

the name and habits of every insect and plant I see.

Something I saw when I did not have my camera was

beautiful metallic green Dogbane Beetles. The sight 

of them reassured me that when I can spend more

time at the cabin boredom should not be a problem.

My identifications are based on my best guess, feel

free to correct me.

"The butterfly counts not months 

but moments, and has time enough."

Rabindranath Tagore

White Clover

Fritillary not sure which kind?

Wild Vetch

Common Wood Nymph

Vetch?

Pearl Crescent

Clover?

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail with bits missing.

"Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?"

Dante Alighieri

"No one can tell me,

 Nobody knows,

Where the wind comes from,

Where the wind goes."

from

Wind on the Hill

      A.A. Milne

"She cleared the garden of its weeds

And planted several thousand seeds.

Small creatures picked the flowers at dawn

And danced with them about the lawn.

Until they all, down to the least,

Where eaten by a monstrous beast."

                              From The Eleventh Episode

                                            by Raddory Gewe

                                                   ( Edward Gorey )

Even though we are back in Calgary this week

my thoughts often return to our cabin especially 

as I have hundreds of photos to go through. 

We started the cabin last summer but it was only

at the end of this trip that we ( my wife and I ) spent 

one night there instead of returning to the farm. 

We have made

some vague plans about what we would do with

the 80 acres but we have concentrated largely on

the cabin. The night we stayed there we sat in the 

screened porch constructed by my brother in law 

Brian ( thanks Brian without you and Ralph this would 

not have been possible). As it was not yet screened

we had a mosquito coil however we shared it with

a family of Barn Swallows so that was just as well.

One conclusion I came to was since the area directly

to the side of the porch had housed large number

of Garter Snakes the first year,  all sitting on the rocks

pushed up by the construction I would build a large

rock garden there. The area in front and to the right

of the cabin actually has a large meadow which is

one reason we picked this spot. It was covered with

wildflowers, Bee balm, Roses, Thistles, Vetch and 

Daises among others and with the flowers came birds

often in pairs either perched around the edges on the
poplars or perched on the flowers themselves. It was 

then we agreed that with the exception of a path/firebreak

right by the cabin the meadow and hopefully the 

flowers and birds would remain with no interference

from us. Okay I might add feeders. The following 

pictures we taken that evening or early the next morning.

If I misidentify someone please let me know.

" In all the world no place was mine

because I was driven like the other things.

But then I found the tumbleweed secret,

bounding along saying, "Where is my home?"

And the voices began to come at night,

warning. "We're lost-don't be like us."

                          Arrival

                                                 William Stafford

Eastern Phoebe

Savannah Sparrow

While I did not see any brown streaking I think

these are Yellow Warblers

Cedar Waxwing

American Goldfinch

Add caption

Purple Finch

" I waited for my life to start

for years, standing at bus stops

looking into the curved distance

thinking each bus was the wrong bus;"

                                Waiting for My Life

                                           Linda Pastan

"I heard the flowers in the breeze make conversation with the trees
Believed to leave reality behind me
With my commitments in a mess my sleep has gone away depressed
In a world of fantasy you’ll find me.

I’m just sitting watching flowers in the rain
Feel the power of the rain making the garden grow,
I’m just sitting watching flowers in the rain
Feel the power of the rain keeping me cool"

                                        Flowers in the Rain

                                                     Electric Light Orchestra

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience,

everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature,

is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”

                                                                                  May Sarton

This weekend we weeded and set up the fountain

in the pond. We are trying to introduce for native

plants around the pond so this weekend we added

some small native columbines and shooting stars.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core. "

The Lake Isle of Innifree

       William Butler Yeats