The power went off unexpectedly on the entire west side of our town last night---no storms or transformer explosions.  One minute I was working on my blog, the next minute we had no lights.  This morning's news is reporting a "curious raccoon" climbed into a power substation, triggering the outage.  Poor little guy!

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantom-wise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

~~

Lewis Carroll

 

The Wild Flower's Song

The green leaves among,
I heard a Wild Flower
Singing a song.

'I slept in the earth
In the silent night,
I murmured my fears
And I felt delight.

'In the morning I went
As rosy as morn,
To seek for new joy;
But oh! met with scorn.' 

~~William Blake

 

 The Flowers

 All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames--
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.
~~Robert Louis Stevenson 
 

Another perfect weekend in my beloved Door County!  Campfires, cherry pies, acres of wild flowers, s'mores, a vast evening sky filled with a million twinkling stars, and amazing sunrises over the water...

from Sunrise Along Shore

Athwart the harbor lingers yet
The ashen gleam of breaking day,
And where the guardian cliffs are set
The noiseless shadows steal away;
But all the winnowed eastern sky
Is flushed with many a tender hue,
And spears of light are smiting through
The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly.

— L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables

And to make the weekend even more special, we were joined by my daughter and son-in-law.  We spent time on the beach and enjoyed another great family musical production under the stars at Northern Sky Theater.

I was delighted that they were able to join us but I must confess (and I really hope I don't sound too petty!) there seemed to be a generational difference in our weekend experience.  My husband and I camped.  My daughter and her husband glamped.  As in glamping... a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping.

And what, you may ask, does this really mean at our nice little campsite?  For starters,  I pride myself on being cheap thrifty so our camping comforter is the one we bought the first year we were married and proudly displayed on our water bed.  Yes, I admit it--we owned a water bed.  This blanket is so old it's vintage!  My daughter, however, proudly displayed a beautiful new blanket with matching pillows. 

 

 Do you see what is next to the bed?  End tables!  Actually small plastic chests for their clothes, which also handily serve as small tables for their oh-so-cute lanterns with battery operated candles.  Let me tell you, it made the little overhead light in my tent look rather pedestrian.

And did you notice the cute little bicycle clock?  Honestly....

 I thought I was ingenious to think of putting small chairs inside our tent so that we can read or relax during stormy weather.  

My daughter, meanwhile, glamped in her shiny new hammock.

I packed our lunches in our picnic basket--the one I gave my parents as a gift when I was in college.  I thought the idea of picnic basket was so terribly romantic.  I'm sure my dad wondered what the heck I was thinking--going fishing at the lake just required a sandwich wrapped in wax paper, not a proper basket~~

My daughter, meanwhile, showed off her pretty new wedding gift...

 I boiled water for instant coffee in our old reliable camp stove that has served us well for thirty some years...

 But must confess I had serious camper-envy over their shiny new one!!

And the glamp/camp wars continued...my Coleman lantern looked pretty dinky next to their bigger and brighter one...

But as Tevye is fond of pointing out to his wife in Fiddler on the Roof, "it's a new world, Golde."  I guess the great outdoors is big enough to accomodate both campers and glampers, because in the end we both want the same thing...time outside to renew our spirits and refresh our souls.  And I'm happy to report that is exactly what all four of us did!

 

Have a beautiful day!!

Here we goat again...

On my last visit to Door County, I couldn't help but notice that something was in abundance, namely...goats.  A lot of goats!

It reminded me of one of my college professors, who almost everyone morning in our 8 a.m. music history class, would stroll in clutching an extra large cup of coffee, proclaiming "...as J.S. Bach said, bring me a large bowl of coffee before I turn into a goat."

You have goat to be kidding me...

Sorry, these puns may have goat out of hand...

And since all of these signs were in Sister Bay, near the harbor, we just may need a bigger goat...

Oops, I meant boat!

Hmmm, I may have goat too far at this point...

But really, what's more adorable than goats on a Scandinavian restaurant rooftop??

And while you might find this hard to believe, it took awhile to find a goat poem for this post!  This is an excerpt from The Last Goat in Bergen County, by Joe Salerno.  You can find the entire poem here.  If you would like to read more from this poet, his family has built a very nice website where you can read more about his work and discover some really great poetry.  (you can find this website here.)

The Last Goat in Bergen County

~~Joe Salerno

Oh master of humbleness

Master of the ancient "baaaaa",

Companion of Plato and Jesus,

Eater of boots and tin cans,

Is this how you end up--

On a little hilltop 

amidst the rush hour traffic,

standing undignified like a god

in long underwear locked out of heaven?

Each day, driving past, I watch your stringy wisdom beard

blowing in the breeze of passing cars,

wondering what you may be thinking, 

hobbling around in the snow and rain and heat.

Dream on, old knobby knees, dream on,

And in your goat dreams recall those brighter days of Arcady 

and those ancient nights of lust and fluted music,

when shepherds slept undaunted on the hills 

and the mad god Pan, ugly as sin,

shook the endless woods with noisy dancing.

And at this point I have run out of puns, and will simply wish you a wonderful Wednesday!

Proud to be an American...glimpses from Door County

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I'd had to start again
Just my children and my wife

I thank my lucky stars
To be living here today
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can't take that away

From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee,
across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea,

From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA,
Well, there's pride in every American heart,
and it's time to stand and say:

 I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A. 

He loves me...

He loves me not...

Fortunately, I know it's the first statement, not the second!  And when I go camping with my husband, I am always so grateful for his patience while I stop to take pictures, and then some more pictures, and then one more picture....

He has the patience of a saint, as I walk through the woods in the state park and the small villages that are nestled in by the harbors, stopping every few seconds to take another photo.  And of course, poems and ideas are running through my brain all the while...who knew writing a blog could be so much fun?

I thought you might enjoy a few glimpses of what was in bloom so far north--the flowers were stunning in the sunlight!  I particularly enjoyed seeing the peonies in bloom, as mine are long gone.

Here's a sweet little poem by William Butler Yeats, who probably penned it while walking through a field strewn with flowers like this one...

Down by the salley gardens
      my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
      with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
      as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
      with her would not agree.

In a field by the river
      my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
      she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
      as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
      and now am full of tears.

Have a wonderful day!

“Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man.”
~~Henry Beston, The Outermost House

When my husband and I visited Cape Cod two years ago I was introduced to an truly wonderful book by American writer/naturalist Henry Beston.  The Outermost House chronicles his time on the wild and windswept shores of Cape Cod in the 1920s.  While of course evocative of Thoreau's Walden Pond, I enjoyed this book more--the writing is warmer, somehow more elemental and poetic.  The following quotes from this book seem so aligned with my experiences in Door County...

It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live.”

"Touch the earth, love the earth, honor the earth, her plains, her valleys, her seas.  Rest your soul in her solitary places."

For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and the dawn seen over the ocean from the beach. 

“We lose a great deal, I think, when we lose this sense and feeling for the sun. When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on natures's sustaining and poetic spirit.”

“Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?”

“The world to-day is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dunes these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year.”

Have a wonderful day, my friends!

Good morning!  A photo heavy post today, as I'm still a bit tired from the weekend.  Perfect weather--beautiful views--and yummy cherry pie.  What more could a girl ask for?!  I'm sharing William Stafford's poem "How to Regain Your Soul" today--I read it last week and thought it would be perfect after a visit to Door County.  I hope you enjoy it!

Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoon

that one place where the valley floor opens out. You will see

the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows

come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are

shafts of sunlight hitting the river and a deep

long purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way

when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,

when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance

by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly, anything

could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon

and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.