“Instead of going to heaven at last,

I’m going all along.” —Emily Dickinson

There's an exuberance to summer that I find exhilarating.  There is a heightened intensity to everything---the garden joyfully moves from whispering "have patience, I'm growing..." to shouting gleefully "look at me! look at me!"

Modesty gives way to boastful coneflowers taking center stage in my garden, growing by leaps and bounds, the cheerful yellow coreopsis tries to rival the sun, and my daylilies are joyfully reminding us all why we love summer so much.

What's not to love about a beautiful weekend morning, sitting on the deck with a cold glass of iced tea, droplets of condensation running down the glass and plopping onto my bare legs, while a mother cardinal pecks at seeds in my purple salvia and a robin cools off in the now "secret" birdbath?

I hope all of you had a chance to dance in the sunshine, sip a cool drink in the shade and rejoice in a world of beauty this past weekend.  I recently came across this poem by Michael Escoubas, which shows that this poet enjoys his garden as much as I do mine.

Towel and Basin

This morning I plodded in pajamas

and bare toes toting my full water pitcher,

prepared as an offering for my

hanging blue Fan plant. The tall

grass washed my feet as Jesus might.

I was met by a congregation

of glad-handed Hostas greeting

and touching me, choirs of Clematis

robed in purple, jovial Jonquils clad in yellow,

sun-facing Spiderworts, and sweet green Mint

mingled with spicy Oregano, breathing

their fragrances, glistening and glowing

in sunlight and dew.

They danced when they saw me;

asked no questions, made no judgments,

anointed me with dew, toweled my dusty

feet with warm sun, then sent me on

to do for another what they had done for me.

May you have a lovely start to your week!

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!