Tag Archives: Poetry

Oh the Sweet Smell…

…of Lavender

Lavender and Clement Robinson
(Handefull of Pleasant Delites, 1584)

Lavender is for lovers true,

Which evermore be faine;

Desiring always for to have

Some pleasure for their paine:

And when that they obtained have

The love that they require,

Then have they all their perfect joie,

And quenched is the fire.

Next weekend is the Lavender Festival in Sequim on the Kitsap Penninsula. I’m thinking about going and checking out the fields early on Friday with hopes of taking our summer visitors there the week after the festival. I’ve never been and would like to know what to expect before I haul a car full of visitors over there. I’d also like to inquire about how long the fields are full before they are cut back.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Outdoor Wednesday ~ The Path That Leads to Nowhere

The Path That Leads to Nowhere

There’s a Path that leads to Nowhere
In a meadow that I know,
Where an inland river rises
And the stream is still and slow;
There it wanders under willows
And beneath the silver green
Of the birches’ silent shadows
Where the early violets lean.

Other pathways lead to Somewhere,
But the one I love so well
Had no end and no beginning-
Just the beauty of the dell,
Just the wildflowers and the lilies
Yellow striped as adder’s tongue
Seem to satisfy my pathway
As it winds their sweets among.

There I go to meet the Springtime,
When the meadow is aglow,
Marigolds amid the marshes,
And the stream is still and slow;
There I find my fair oasis,
And with carefree feet I tread
For the pathway leads to Nowhere,
And the blue is overhead.

All the ways that lead to Somewhere
Echo with the hurrying feet
Of the Struggling and the Striving,
But the way I find so sweet
Bids me dream and bids me linger-
Joy and Beauty are its goal;
On the path that leads to Nowhere
I have sometimes found my soul.

~ Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

For more Outdoor Posts be sure and visit our great hostess Susan at A Southern Day Dreamer later today or tomorrow. Yep I’m up early and no it really isn’t Wednesday yet  I’m just trying to confuse you :0)

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom…

Mother Knows

Nobody knows of the work it takes
To keep the house together,
Nobody knows of the steps it takes-
Nobody knows but mother.
Nobody listens to childish woes,
Which kisses only smother;
Nobody’s pained by the naughty blows-
Nobody, only mother.

Nobody knows of the sleepless care
Bestowed on baby brother;
Nobody knows of the tender prayer-
Nobody knows but mother.
Nobody knows the lessons taught
Of loving one another,
Nobody knows of the patience sought-
Nobody, only mother.

Nobody knows the anxious fears
Lest darlings may not weather
Storms of life in coming years-
Nobody knows but mother.
Nobody knows of the tears that start,
The grief she gladly smothers;
Nobody knows of the breaking heart-
Nobody, only mother.

Nobody clings to the wayward child,
Though scorned by every other,
Leads it so gently from pathways wild-
Nobody can but mother.
Nobody knows of the hourly prayer
For him, our erring brother,
Pride of her heart, so pure and fair-
Nobody, only mother.

ht: Poem from Moral Lessons of Yesteryear

To all the mom’s out there who come by here I wish for you a wonderful Mother’s Day filled with thanksgiving to God for giving you the privilege of being a Mom.

I posted this last year and decided to post it again. I’ll be posting more photos from our actual Mother’s Day get-together later after the festivities this afternoon. Blessings…

May

It’s branches are arrayed in gold
It’s boughs the sight in winter greet.
With hues as bright, with leaves as green
As summer scatters on the scene.

*   *    *    *    *    *

An angel mid the woods of May
Embroidered it with radiance gay-
That gossamer with gold bedight-
Those fires of God – those gems of light.

~from the Welsh of Dafydd ap Gwillym

Outdoor Wednesday ~ “To Market, to Market”

I’m a little late in joining in for Outdoor Wednesday this week hosted by Susan at A Southern Day Dreamer but better late than never.

To market, to market to buy a fat pig;
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

Dear and I decided to walk to the Farmer’s Market that our hometown has every Saturday in Old Town Camarillo from 8:00 to Noon. As we set out we passed these tumbleweeds that are taking over the sidewalk. What a fun sight to see tumbleweeds tumbling through town when they dry up and the wind blows. Brings back some childhood memories for me.

It was a drizzly morning. The drizzle does not deter Dear and I from walking because of our years in the Seattle area. We do everything in the rain up there and most of the time without an umbrella!

A rare thing to see raindrops on the vegetation in Southern California.

Our walk to the Market is convoluted because we are separated from the main part of town by the railroad tracks that run up the coast of California. We have to jog and go over an overpass built for people to get to the train station. Here’s Dear sporting his new Tilley hat!

 

See the church across the freeway? That’s where we are headed.

We make it to Ventura Blvd. which is the main street through Old Town Camarillo.

Great timing as we approach the market.

We’re hoping to find some red and white flowers for the dinner we’re having for my brother’s birthday later on this day.

 

Success! On the way back I had to snap these shots of St. Mary Magdalen Church. A landmark in Camarillo which was built by the Camarillo Family.

 

 

The sun is getting brighter as we approach home. The Santa Monica Mountains are camaflouged today by these great clouds.

 

Just enough sun for Dear to spot this great spider web on the tumbleweed we pass on the way home!

For more Outdoor shots visit Susan at A Southern Day Dreamer!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

The Beach at Dawn

Welcome to the 2nd Outdoor Wednesday hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer. This past weekend Dear and I spent a lot of time on several different beaches in California. These dawn photos are taken at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura, California on Saturday morning.

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,

Walkers with the sun and morning,

We are not afraid of night,

Nor days of gloom,

Nor darkness–

Being walkers with the sun and morning.

– Langston Hughes

Visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer to view more Outdoor Wednesday posts.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New

Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New
~Alfred Tennyson 1850

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweet manners, purer laws.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

I’m chiming in early to wish you all a Very Happy New Year filled with all good things from above! See y’all on Friday!

ABC Wednesday ~ Lovely, Lovely October

L is for Lovely, Lovely October

 

Lovely, lovely October

Ere, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on.

~ William Cullen Bryant

 

The top collage is October in our neighborhoods in the state of Washington in the Northwest. The bottom collage is October in our neighborhoods in Southern California in the Southwest. I choose to praise God for the beauty of October in both. What a wonderful world He created for us to enjoy.

Visit the ABC Wednesday Blog and see more posts on the Letter L.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site. All my photos that I stored and uploaded from that site are now big ugly black and grey boxes with a message to pay big bucks to get them restored to my blog. It will take me a long time to restore thousands of posts.

Happy Fall Everyone!

 

Before September slips away…

“The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.”
–   John Updike, September

Happy 65th Wedding Anniversary Mom and Pop!

From The Old-Time Family

We were eight around the table in those happy days back then.
Eight that cleaned our plates of pot-pie [blintzes] and then passed them up again;
Eight that needed shoes and stockings, eight to wash and put to bed,
And with mighty little money in the purse, as I have said,
But with all the care we brought them, and through all the days of stress,
I never heard my father or my mother wish for less.

~ Edgar A. Guest

These are the 8 Bagdanov siblings from oldest to youngest. Kathy, Vera, Fred, Ellen, Tim, Steve, Lana and Leonard

Now here’s a funny discovery we found out from my father this past weekend. It seems all these years they’ve been celebrating the wrong day as their anniversary. My parents were both from a peasant background. They both with their families escaped out of Russia into Iran in their pre-teens. They did not have great record keeping. There are no birth certificates or wedding licenses for them. They chose a birthday when they entered the U.S.A. They knew they were both born in the Spring. They chose September 13th as a wedding date because they thought they remembered that their wedding coincided with a Jewish holiday in September. Come to find out from a date they found on the baby picture of their first daughter who died at the age of 2 that they could not have been married in September but it was probably July just after harvest in Iran. Most of their friends got married this time of year after all the work was completed. Our first sister Kathy was born in April so they know they were married well before September 13th! Yes, strange but true, after they lost their first Kathy they named their second daughter Kathy, too.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!