“Anne reveled in the world of color about her.
“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill–several thrills?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
I love Alice in Wonderland. I loved it as a child, I loved it more as a teenager in the 60’s with Grace Slick singing White Rabbit. I loved reading it out loud; as opposed to Winnie the Pooh, who I abhorred. Curiously, today just happened to be an “Alice” day
It was a treat listening to Exposing the curious world of Alice in Wonderland on the Sunday Edition with Michael Enright on CBC.
Interestingly “After the Bible and Shakespeare, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the most widely quoted book in the Western world. It has been translated into at least 174 languages.”
Michael interviewed, Alice’s granddaughter and David Day the Canadian author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Decoded. It was fascinating.
What was even greater fun was that I was listening in my car on the way to the flea market. My first find there was “The Annotated Alice” 1960 edition. I bought it for a dollar.
I remember playing my first computer game on our brand new Apple 2e in 1983. It was Fahrenheit 451 and to move through the game you had to quote Alice In Wonderland. My daughter was much better at it then I was. I would kill to have that game again. (keep going to flea markets)
My daughter, granddaughter, and I have quite a few versions of Alice in Wonderland. We love collecting new or old editions with different illustrators. The blog Brain Pickings has a post on the best illustrated versions. I just ordered this one .
And oh…..I am not late….I am on Oxford time, a pun from from the book. Love it.
Tagged baby horse, bees, catnip, end of summer, pekin duck, sunshine
“Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.”
Robert Browning
Yes it is fall. It doesn’t hit you, it is very sneaky. The bumblers are hanging tightly to the last of the bee balm. So cold they are some times motionless. I have to touch them and breathe on them to get them going. Smoke is coming from the neighbors stacks; the sweet smell of burning fir or birch. Mist hovers over the lake in the morning and a sneaky frost covered the car windows this week. Not a killing frost just a light sparkling announcement card that winter is coming. That’s the problem with fall. It is a downward spiral of decay that it sugarcoats itself in brilliant colours, is respite from blazing hot summer days, and offers a reward of harvest before throwing us knee-deep into winter.
I have written before on how much I love trees and the relationship I have with them. I always find it sad when we lose or have fall more on our property. We lose them to disease and a combination of disease and weather.
This summer we felled three trees. One from a lightning strike, and two from disease. When a tree falls it makes a horrendous thump. Here, nothing goes to waste. Branches cut and mulched, the tree bucked for fire wood.
Fall is all about preparation. Hay, straw and feed in the barn. Frost blankets to get the most from our vegetable garden. Cutting back of the perennial garden, thinking about how we can change it or make it better next year. Fall has an element of hope in it.
With my twice weekly walkabout in search of errant thistle I was surprised by these lovely white flowers and the beautiful coloured lichens and moss.
Tagged bees, fall, forestry, lichen, pine beatle, sustainability, trees
Amazed With Mystery 