1280. October inherits summer’s hand-me-downs… ~Rachel Peden

I know the year is slowly dying…
Ah, ‘tis then I love to wander,
Wander idly and alone,
Listening to the solemn music
Of sweet nature’s undertone…
~Excerpted lines from a poem by
Mortimer Crane Brown

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Though October grows long in the tooth
a measure of summer’s steamy heat lingers on
and so the dance of sweet glories of the morn waltzes on

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The full, harvest moon has come and gone
but the sultry high humidity of August yet remains
thus dance on still the satiny, white glories of the evening

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Morning’s are cooler, some even quite crisp
but afternoons revive September’s persistent misery
keeping at bay the last dance of all the glories in the garden fair

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The grass is showing patches not quite as green
though it’s not dead enough to slow the hum of mowers
near arbors and trellises where scramble high the twining vines

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The promise of autumn rain has not been fulfilled so far
which keeps the gardener’s feet scuffling along the dusty paths
but it has yet to halt the dance of the morning glories and moonflowers

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The sun’s trek from east to west across the yard continues
and days grow shorter and more golden as November draws nigh
but still the flowering vines dance perkily along the chain-link fence lines

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Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. ~James 5:7  ✝

**All the photos taken by me in my yard today

1084. A hush is over everything…the world is waiting for the spring. ~Sara Teasdale

Springtime is the land awakening.
The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Lewis Grizzard

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Don’t flowers put on their
Prettiness each spring and
Go to it with
Everything they’ve got?
Who Would criticize the bed of
Yellow tulips or the blue Hyacinths?

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So put a
Bracelet on your
Ankle with a
Bell on it and make a
Little music for
The earth beneath your foot, or

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Wear a hat with hot-colored
Ribbons for the
Pleasure of the
Leaves and the clouds, or at least
A ring with a gleaming
Stone for your finger…
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Mary Oliver

He makes winds His messengers… ~Excerpt from Psalm 104:4  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collages created by Natalie

812. And sure enough even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough. ~William Faulkner

You can become blind by
seeing each day as a similar one.
Each day is a different one,
each day brings a miracle of its own.
~Paulo Coelho

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I’ve always been delighted
at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start,
with perhaps a bit of magic waiting
somewhere behind the morning.
~J. B. Priestley

And waiting did come to an end, this day was a different kind of one, and there was magic waiting behind the morning. However, it wasn’t until after much waitng that such as what you see in the photo appeared in my yard, for I had had to plant three passion flower vines before one would survive much less bloom. I know not why the first two vines didn’t make it, but alas and sadly they did not.  But determined as I was not to give up I put yet another one in the ground last year, and that one not only survived but actually continued putting on new growth well into autumn. When it died down to the ground as these vines do in winter, I waited and as spring approached watched to see if it was going to make a come back and sure enough it did. The waiting finally ended a week ago when I spied its first two blooms. Then today another of these rather exotic blossoms is prettily perched atop the back fence. So here’s to waiting, morning’s magic, and miracles!

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8  ✝

230. He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter… ~John Burroughs

Nature looks dead in winter because
her life is gathered into her heart.
She withers the plant down to the root
that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together
within her inmost home to prepare them
for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.
~Hugh Macmillan

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This time of year there’s a separateness in the garden which I rather like, but I’ve heard others say that they detest the bleak lifelessness of winter.  When asked why, they’ll tell me it’s because it fills them with a sense of loneliness or it speaks too strongly of death.  I, on the other hand, find a comforting orderliness in its realm because I can see the garden’s defining lines again after they’d been blurred or even obliterated in some cases by summer’s reckless, spreading abandon.   And when I’m out working in the winter garden as I was today, I don’t feel any sense of sadness; the feeling I get is more of a silent, but willing withdrawal–a retreat back to a trusted, reviving source.  It seems to me that the barren remains stand self-assuredly in an awareness of Creation’s ever-faithful, annual renewal and somehow understands winter’s lesson of waiting with expectancy and hope.

As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.  ~ Genesis 8:22  ✝