I gave myself a little more time to write my blog today, figuring I deserved some recreation time on Saturday after working all week, but I didn't count on feeling vaguely guilty all day because I hadn't written my post yet!  I guess I need to follow Longfellow's exhortation to "let us then be up and doing" a little more closely and sit down to write early in the morning, even on the weekends.  I hope everyone has had a pleasant day, filled with enjoyable activities that set the weekend apart from the busy work week.  While I certainly didn't set the world on fire today, I thoroughly enjoyed the book I finished (an interesting mystery by Barbara Michaels, Vanish with the Rose, that featured old roses and made me want to run right out to a nursery), went to a movie (Total Recall, my husband's pick), and tried two new recipes for supper (mango salsa and baked herbed tomatoes).  Not a bad Saturday!

My mother mentioned on the phone this morning that she had put up applesauce from her apple tree, and it reminded me of a poem that I first encountered in freshman English Literature and have loved ever since.  You can find the full poem at http://www.potw.org/archive/potw279.html, if you would like to read more.

To Autumn

John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mossed cottage-treees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

Wth a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.



Apple tree at Robert Frost Farm, New Hampshire