Tag Archives: Frosts

1411. Then summer fades and passes and October comes. ~Thomas Wolfe

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Spring flowers are long since gone.
Summer’s bloom hangs limp on every terrace.
The gardener’s feet drag a bit on the dusty path
and the hinge in his back is full of creaks.
~Louise Seymour Jones

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Well October did indeed come and the summer heat dropped about 10 degrees ONLY which does NOT indicate fading as much as frying because the “heat beast” is still breathing his nasty, fiery breath upon us. And most of summer’s bloom is more crunchy than it is limp. So where oh where is my beloved Autumn and it’s divine cooler temps??? Is some grumpy old troll-like curmudgeon holding it back??? We may get a taste of fall tomorrow and the next day but then after those two days we’re going right back up into the high 80’s and low 90’s AGAIN!!! Daily I read blogs about autumn’s splendor and first frosts and see lovely photos of it all. I have waited patiently, well maybe not so patiently since patience is NOT my strong suit, to wake up and find that the colorful leaves and a first frost have at long last arrived here. But alas and alack, zilch, nada, nuttin’ even remotely resembling autumn has been able to penetrate the armor of the Texas “heat monster.” And I know this about Texas because I have lived here over 50 years now. But being the ever-hopeful woman that I am, I keep thinking that just once maybe the “monster” will “shuffle off to Buffalo” when it is supposed too!!! But it won’t and so this is the time of year when I have to make lists reminding me that there is goodness in each and every day even if it’s not “packaged” the way I expect or want it to be. So please allow me to express my envy of those areas where autumn has come as well as vocalize my loud, obnoxious, and whiny ARGHHHHHHHHHH about summer’s lingering and stifling continuance one last time!!!

For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. ~Psalm 32:4 ✝

**Photos taken in her yard by Natalie

1013. I saw old autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening 
to silence. ~Thomas Hood

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After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things.  It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir(way of knowing).
~Wallace Stevens

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O splendid, lusty autumn, you who come with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue, with cooler days and lengthening chilly nights, it is, I’m sad to say, time for you to go. This year’s first frosts have come and gone, migratory birds have vanished over distant horizons, and crops have been harvested from garden and field alike. And all the while your while beauty and bounty “shined unconfined” as your days spread a “common feast for all that live.” Grateful are we to God and thee, o “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” that rains fell in good measure and gusty winds laid abundant, leafy blankets over the ground in protective readiness against winter’s icy blasts.

silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest
-
the end of mere songs
~Michael McClintock

O Lord, I have truly enjoyed listening to nature’s solemn, autumnal hymns once again. And I’ve watched in wonder as leaf upon leaf floated down disrobing the earth. Now I find delight in the millions of shining stars I can see through the bare tree branches, and I know, according to Your promises, that when autumn’s allotted sands of time run out of this year’s hourglass that it’s not an ending. So I’ll go to bed tonight assured that with the arrival of the winter solstice near midnight this evening that the slamming shut of fall’s back door is in reality just a new beginning, a fresh start that will usher in another season, a season of restful silences. Thus at the morrow’s first light, I will rise and begin in earnest to prepare my heart to welcome Your son, Emmanuel, and to rest–to rest, to observe, to listen, and to continue worshiping You.

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

**Image via Pinterest