Tag Archives: Summer

191. Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life. ~Hal Borland

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The hush comes with the deepening of Autumn;
but it comes gradually.
Our ears are attuned to it, day by quieter day.
But even now, if one awakens in the deep darkness
of the small hours, one can hear it;
a foretaste of Winter silence.
~Hal Borland

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One day recently as we pulled out of the garage to go to lunch, we saw this, the clearly  defined, back edge of a line of thunderstorms.  While I was taking shots of the scene, it occurred to me that in a much slower progression that’s the way all of nature’s phenomena pass over the earth during the course of a year.  Sunny days come and go, hot and cold periods come and go, flowers come and go, fruitings and harvests come and go–in other words the Lord’s good provisions are always in a never-ending flux of comings and goings.  Autumn then, as Hal Borland suggests in another excerpt, is indeed a summing up of what’s happened throughout a year’s trip around the sun, and thankfully it only takes away what the gardener holds dear a little bit at a time.  We may not be too many steps away from winter, but given earth’s history of unfailing continuance neither are we too many steps away from spring.  So to recall an old familiar adage, all’s well that ends well, and autumn does indeed end a year splendidly well.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.  His love endures forever.   ~Psalm 135:1   ✝

187. The gardener’s feet drag a bit on the dusty path and the hinge in the back is full of creaks. ~Louise Seymour Jones

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Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence or of sound,
Some spirits begotten of spring and summer dreams.
~Adapted excerpt from Laman Blanchard

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Birds that annually flee our area before winter arrives have already headed out on their migratory treks to warmer havens.  Thus, the number of avian guests in my yard is considerably smaller, and those that are still here have let up on their frantically busy doings in the garden.  The remainder of my “flock,” like me, are sometimes content to just perch a bit in idle watchfulness.  But despite our combined and periodic lethargy, the birds and I continue to greet our days with delight and a kind of expectancy even though we know old man Winter has left his arctic haunts and is headed down our way.

But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster.  -1 Kings 5:4   ✝

179. November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear. ~Sir Walter Scott

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Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence of sound,
Some spirits begotten of a summer dream.
~Laman Blanchard

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The first Sunday of November had been running out like slow, thick molasses as deepening autumn’s shades of gray hung on it like a shroud.  Even the flocks of busying birds and the foraging squirrels succumbed, as did I, to the hypnotic laziness of the day’s dark, engulfing gloom.  However, things became a little livelier for a time late in the day when the cement on the patio became a dance floor filled with tiny rain-drop dancers jitterbugging to the short-lived “drippy” rhythms.  After the rainy spell light broke briefly through the clouds, and it was enough to highlight a few colorful leaves and a potted petunia.  Together those two sights interjected a touch of color while the wrought-iron furniture that glistened in the light added a bit of beaded elegance to the drab scene.  How sweetly even a token display of earth’s delights can thrill this observer!

Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God.  ~Job 22:26  ✝

173. I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. ~Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence
on the mind of taste and tenderness,
that season which has drawn from every poet,
worthy of being read,
some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.
~Jane Austen

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While the summer sun reigned high in the heavens, the trailing vines of Cucurbita inched along the ground.  Its flowers were pollinated, and then its fruits began to grow.  Tendrils on the vines helped anchor the rambler and protect them from the wind.  The leaves of the vines absorbed energy from the sun to spur the growth of the fruits, and the stems worked like umbilical cords to bring nutrients to the fruits while the thin and shiny outer layer of the fruits protected them from insects and disease.  As summer wound down, the ripening gourds began turning a spectacular color of orange, at least the traditional ones.  Then after the autumnal equinox, north winds venturing out of their haunts moved southward.  Along the way they gathered a fair measure of clouds; rain from the clouds greened the landscape; days became noticeably shorter; temperatures dropped below previous three digit highs; skies regained deeper hues; dawns became chillier; and the inimitable pumpkin, having been nipped off its vine, appeared on roadside stands and in grocery stores.  How I love Octobers and the whole autumn experience; hardly a day goes by that I don’t turn my eyes upward in praise, drop to my knees in thanksgiving, and wish I could throw my arms in adoration around  the Lord of all Creation!

May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.  Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.  ~Psalm 67:5-6  ✝

167. God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. ~James M. Barrie

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I arise today
blessed by all things.
~John O’Donohue

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The English poet, William Blake, once penned that all “the daughters of the year shall dance” in autumn and “sing the lusty song of fruit and flowers.”  I think it might be hard to find a much lustier song or livelier a dance than what the beauties above are lending to October’s opus.  As a part of the process of summer’s “slow disrobing” and the “summing up” before year’s end, their ordained and impassioned performances are undeniably spreading a magnificent and long lasting “common feast for all that live.”  From this rich banquet, the berries will remain on winter’s menu for birds who fly not elsewhere for warmer refuge.  The seeds in the lower right corner produced from flowers like the pink and blue morning glories will foster faith and hope for we mortals as they carry the promise of spring through winter’s cold and dark dominion.  The scarlet spots in the throat of the yellow Canna will bleed thoughts of Christ into our awareness as we look forward to celebrating His birth in deep December.  And the scent and sight of the inimitable rose will take its usual place in memory whilst not in bloom.

I will perpetuate Your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise You for ever and ever.  ~Psalm 9:6  ✝

166. Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning…. ~Wallace Stegner

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The foliage had been losing its freshness through the month of August,
and here and there a yellow leaf showed itself like a first gray hair…
September dressed herself in showy dahlias and
splendid marigolds and starry zinnias.
October, the extravagant sister, ordered an immense amount of
the most gorgeous forest tapestry to make glorious her grand spectacle.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from Oliver Wendell Holmes

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The first leafy sign of autumn appeared on the Dogwood today, and it triggered a flood of “color” musings in my mind.  Chestnut and chocolate!  What’s not to love about a season that clears off summer’s calamities, piles delectable hues back on nature’s palette, and calls for a pot of hot chocolate?  Lemon and lime!  Grasses, flowers, fruits, berries, and even a beastie or two weave fabulous garlands in the sacred temple bound by earth and sky.  Maroon and mahogany!  Chilling winds induce chemical changes in leaves that conjure up magic shows on woody altars in earth’s forests.  Mauve and mulberry!  The leaves on maples, oaks, dogwoods, pears, persimmons, and other trees give birth to colorful, parchment-like jewels that will one day snap off, swirl in little eddies, and play like children upon the ground.  Orange and ochre!  Pumpkins made to squat on porches or bales of hay tickle the fancy of mortal tongues anxiously awaiting fall feasts and winter banquets.  Red and russet!  Roses, asters, and Maximilian sunflowers invoke a breath of spring not stifled by summer’s heat to keep the year’s last child in colorful array.  Sable and sapphire!  Skies often shrouded by gauzy, gray clouds are swept clear by northerly winds as cold fronts advance.  On such days a spectacular brilliance can be seen on the brows of morn followed by daylight hours drenched in deep, dreamy shades of blue.  Sterling and pewter!  Plumed grasses shift and sigh in authorship of haunting, autumnal hymns.  Ah, how lovely are the many colors of autumn and the Holy One who made them!

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

164. Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. ~George Eliot

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Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

**I was hoping you could see that the morning glory below, heavy with dew after the rain, was an awesome, pink delight to behold, but the image is too smalll here for you to see its alluring sparkle.

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Northerly winds in the night blew our gray, rain-bearing clouds away, and the day dawned under a fresh, China blue sky.  Layers of dust that had been blowing in on southerly winds for weeks were washed away, sent back to the soil from whence they came.  As a result heaven’s dome along with the landscape looked sparkling clean and pristine.  In the day’s early light growing green things shined greener, new growth pushed up on rose canes, seedlings appeared in soil once parched and cracked by summer’s fiendish assaults.   Wildlife, though always smaller in number in October, flew, crawled, and buzzed with renewed energy and enthusiasm in the aftermath of the recent slow, soaking rains.  And so with a bit of an almost frosty nip in the air, this day evolved into our first quintessential, autumn day.  How, then, on such a day, could the early call to venture out in the yard, camera in hand, have been ignored?  Or how could it have been a surprise that the vignettes I found were so exquisite that all I could muster, with eyes blurred by joyful tears, was praise for the Holy One whose presence amidst the glory was sweetly palpable?

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.  Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of his works with songs of joy.  ~Psalm 107:21-22  ✝

160. There is a harmony in autumn, and a lustre in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen as if it could not be, as if it had not been. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Thy bounty shines
in autumn unconfined
and spreads a common feast
for all that live.
~James Thomson, Scottish poet and playwright

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What a striking, bright orange butterfly this one is that’s feasting on the Creator’s festive autumnal altar!  The Gulf Fritillary, a medium to large butterfly, is a long-wing species that’s an attention grabber wherever it graces the air.  It’s commonly seen in open country as well as in parks and gardens where it flutters joyfully from flower to flower.  Back and forth over perfumed beds, it comes and goes, kissing blossoms and drinking their sweet.  Though October is almost half gone, the days are yet warm enough for this and other winged children of the sun, to roam and sup on nature’s choicest flowers.  And how fair is the air filled with their glory!

Sing to God, sing in praise of His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before Him–His name is the Lord.  ~Psalm 68:4  ✝

157. September days had the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings was a prophetic breath of autumn. ~Rowland E. Robinson

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the air is different today
the wind sings with a new tone
sighing of changes coming. .  .
~Rhawk, Alban Elfed

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“Summer, barbarous in beauty,” came to a welcomed end here sooner than usual after the circle of equal light and night of the equinox.  Now autumn’s harbingers, the Maximilian sunflowers, the Spider lilies, and the Oxblood lilies have all fulfilled their prophesies.  So as I tear October’s days off the calendar, I’m starting to reflect on what I’ve accomplished and learned on my most recent trip around the sun even though the annual time coin of life is not yet completely spent.  With the feverish fret of summer’s torrid temperatures gone at last, the milder weather of the year’s last child is such that I can enjoy that endeavor by rocking and ruminating on my porch, sauntering and snappingto pics in the yard, or by finding a “perch” upon which to sit where I can take in and enjoy fall’s burgeoning spectacle.  For it is in the hushed glory of the year’s waning days, the comforting peace born of its inherent mellowness, and the enthrallment of the Lord’s abiding grace that my cup is filled to overflowing again and again.

For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.  ~Deuteronomy 16:15b  ✝

149. It would be worthwhile having a cultivated garden if only to see what autumn does to it. ~Alfred Austin, British poet laureate

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Lord, it is time.
The summer was very big.
Lay thy shadow on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go loose.
~Ranier Maria Rilke

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The beauty in the photo above, like the summer sun, is the color of gold.  And her petals have slightly wavy edges that seem to mimic the summer’s waves of heat that lead up to her appearance in the garden where she winks at people passing by with her long, wispy eyelash-like stamen.  In Latin the word “stamen” means “thread of the warp,” and it was Emerson who birthed the idea that “days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and future time.”  Apparently what he said ‘tis true since these threads of the warp are definitely forerunners of the future.  When they appear in the garden, hurricane season has begun and autumn is drawing near.  But who is she, this fair maiden dressed so elegantly in gold?  She and others like her are called Golden Spider Lilies, Naked Lilies, Surprise Lilies, Golden Hurricane Lilies, and/or Lycoris.  But whatever one calls them, they’re always dressed in their rich, apricot-yellow-orange finery, and their blooms which appear late in the summer after their leaves have disappeared create a lovely sweeping quality in the garden.  The official name of the species is Lycoris aurea, and it originated in China where it is known as “Hudixiao” (Suddenly The Soil Shines).  But she is not an only child; for she has an amazing sibling, Lycoris radiata, the Red Spider Lily.

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Now look again at the yellow one.  I deliberately blurred the outer edges of the photograph so the heart she was forming in the middle was more noticeable.

Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in Heaven above and on earth below.  There is no other.  ~Deuteronomy 4:39  ✝