“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty 

in the world we find.” 

Terry Tempest Williams

Another Sunday at the pond.

Before we are off on our great adventure.

"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. 

Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! 

There's so little hope for advancement."

 Snoopy

Sunday at the pond

" It was indeed a time between, one second

their thoughts all brambled airedale, the next

all silken slumbering cat."

 

from Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

 

 

 

 

 

"A dragonfly reconnoiters.

Mosquitoes sense new summer flesh."

 

from Song for the Indian River Man

Rienzi Crusz

 

 

 

 

"He's give anything to be there

crossing time as if it were

a landscape he dreamed, a garden"

 

      from Gardens

         Lorna Crozier

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,

places to play in and pray in where nature may   

heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul"

                                                                                     

                                    John Muir

I have combined the photos from two trips to

a duck pond in the park. The ducks are quite tame

a lot of people seem to be feeding them. Even

thought it is not really a good idea to get them so

accustomed to people you can get close enough

to really see the beautiful patterns of the feathers.

The raccoons here are also quite tame one year

on a quiet evening Helen and I sat on a bench

we saw one then another until a small group of

raccoons sat in a semi circle in front of the bench

like family dogs. This raccoon came down because

a young man was feeding the ducks once the raccoon

finished some bread the fellow produced an egg from

his pocket, from the egg shells scattered around it

seems they are old friends.

Mallard

 

I had never appreciated the lovely colours and

beautiful feather patterns of the Coot until now.

Lesser Scaup, male and female

Common Merganser

American Wigeon

" Hold your hands out over the earth

as over a flame "

        from  The Outermost House

Henry Beston

"The snow came down last night like moths

Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,

Covered the town with simple cloths."

                      from   First Snow in Alsace

                                Richard Wilbur

We are poised now between fall and winter 

slipping between the two with the same ease

with which we chose between a jacket for a 

walk or a winter coat. Thursday I wore my parka for

a lunch time walk to the pond in the Research

Park.

As always there were ducks.

The following quote comes from a poem

I found on my favorite poetry website

Poetry Daily a new poem every day

there are also great articles.

 

"Snow has sentimentalized the world,
left it sugar-coated, a baked Alaska
conjured from the palest of vanilla ice creams,
the purest of swan's egg whites,
its mushy, too-sweet-to-be-wholesome look
topped with a confection of candied trees—
bare-branched candelabras—holly waxing
eloquent with berries in a citric winter dusk. "

 

from Snow

                                   Dennis O'Driscoll

“The world is big and I want to have a

good look at it before it gets dark.”

                                     John Muir

I went to the pond by the office last week.

Before work and again a lunch, the usual gang

was there.But there was also an unexpected addition,

I have never seem a shore bird there before.

Spotted Sandpiper

These American Wigeons came a considerable distance

across the pond when I sat down waiting for a handout

I suspect. The odd thing was the male had his eyes closed

a lot of the time. At this point he has just bumped into her

and a received a look in response.

As always the Mallards put on a show.

"I heard the spring wind whisper

Above the brushwood fire,

"The world is made forever

Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,

The primal urge of things;

I am the whirl of star dust,

I am the lift of wings."

from

          

 Earth Voices

                        Bliss Carmen

"For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a

world older and more complete than ours, they move

finished and complete, gifted with the extension

of the senses we have lost or never attained,

living by voices we shall never hear. They are not

brethren, they are not underlings: they are other

nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life

and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of

the earth."

                         The Outermost House

                                  Henry Beston