Christmas in September

I have spent almost the entire day playing except for the time it took to cook breakfast and supper; I didn't eat lunch but did fix my husband a sandwich.

I had decided today was the day that I was going to move the new scanner to this computer. I was afraid it would be an ordeal as a lot of things seem to happen to us that happens to no one else. Instead, it went rather easy. Then when I got it installed, I decided to do some slides and the first box I picked up were Christmas-y ones from around town in the year 1995. the above is one of my favorites.

From the road...

I have been trying for weeks to get a good picture of a grasshopper...including yesterday morn. We were out in the country and grasshoppers were everywhere. That is until I would try to get close to one, and it was as if they would disappear from the face of the earth. So I would focus on something else, and soon I would notice the hoppers being around again. Still no luck.

After one such stop, I got in the Rav and got buckled in only to notice this fellow on the windshield. I took a picture or two, and we continued on. He stayed with us. For several miles in fact. I finally thought to get this close-up before I buckled in on one of the stops. I think he flew away before we stopped again.

As for the top two photos, we pulled up to a stop sign and Roger says look; at the base of the stop sign someone had planted these hollyhocks. Even though it was the middle of the day, they made for some fair shots.

September is here!

The following is a poem our mom always repeated in the fall, and I have followed suit. At least with the first stanza or two. It is one of two favorite fall poems...when I worked at the orchard this went round and round and round in my head. I almost drove myself crazy!

SEPTEMBER

by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

HE golden-rod is yellow;

The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down.




The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

Its hidden silk has spun.




The sedges flaunt their harvest,

In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook.




From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes' sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

With yellow butterflies.




By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,

And autumn's best of cheer.




But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.




'T is a thing which I remember;

To name it thrills me yet:

One day of one September

I never can forget.