Bright Blue Weekend

Friday was cloudy, but this weekend was bright and blue. From behind the trees—which are just starting to turn—you can see part of Smith Mountain. Our upper hayfield on Polecat Creek Farm didn't produce much hay this fall, but it nevertheless looks "green and fair."


The following poem is appropriate for this time of the year:

October's Bright Blue Weather

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

~Helen Hunt Jackson
(1831-1885)

Down in the bottoms, the goldenrod died faster than usual this year. Few of its yellow flowers remain. The springs and the creeks—nobody in rural Virginia calls a creek a "brook"—are definitely low.

One of the "lovely wayside things" I noticed this morning was a couple of turkeys crossing the road. If you click to enlarge the picture and look carefully at the middle of the road, you can see one:


October is nearly half over. Where did it go?

~