Bronte Weather Blog

Bronte geeks, take note - this Bronte weather project blog just started here this fall. The Yorkshire weather is all over their writings and in their blood, it's just a part of them, ...almost it's own character in each of their respective books. I am so enamored of the Yorkshire wilderness and environment this will almost see me through not being there in person, at least for now. Link up, readers!

Photo by Rebecca Chesney

The Winter Birds Have Arrived

It's one of the best things about fall/winter, the changing of the guard in the bird world that happens each year. There are always little rare beauties that take over the bleak duty of midwinter. You never see their variety any other time of the year, and why they choose to spend the winter in such circumstances I will never know. But I am so glad, so grateful they do. Their frames grace the sky with much needed company as the season wanes on. Welcome one and all.

Edited to add this, which I came across several days after writing this post:

"The Snow Birds" by Ben Burroughs, from Sketches, 1965

"I watched a flock of snow birds engaged in finding food,
And I must here and now admit they had great fortitude,
They perched upon the frozen earth as though it were velvet plush,
And when one spied a crust of bread, they all joined in the rush.
High flying are these feathered friends, they come with winter's cold,
And fill the air with lusty song, each time their wings unfold.
Where they hide out when storms invade, is really beyond me,
For there is little shelter in a bony, leafless tree.
They love the freezing temperatures, this no one can deny,
They're migratory Eskimos that love a hazy sky,
But when the springtime comes again, snow birds will fly away,
To head for lands where icy frost, is ready to display."

Judge a Book By Its Cover

Judge a book by its cover.

These for example are gorgeous, and I'd probably buy them just for the covers, 

even though, "Wuthering Heights," is not my favorite read. 

They bookend the words so warmly and agreeably you think of them,

not as dust jackets or covers, but as cosys.
If teapots can have cosys, surely books can.

There Stepped a Stately Raven

"There stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore" Poe

Photo from "The Victorian Era" site

Happy Halloween!

Putting Down Your Thoughts

My current writing journals and scratch notes covers

There is something to be said about writing the old-fashioned way;

Sitting outside with a pencil and paper, putting down your thoughts as they flow. 

You reconsider things like this when all your computer data is lost, and you have no backup. 

Imagine. Create.Write. Backup.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man 

that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
William Makepeace Thackeray

We Can't All Live at Walden Pond

Photo from Walden Pond State Reservation

We can't all live at Walden Pond, yet we find glimpses of it in the daily living. Riding a motorcycle at night when the world is at its height of stillness. Gathering up pieces of fall from backyard trees for the sheer beauty of doing it. Dipping your foot in a body of water no matter how small. Knowing when you meet the eyes of those little companions whose footfalls shadow yours, whether feline or canine, that they see the world through senses we may not know, like the woodland creatures do.
Moments that take you there, if only briefly, to the pond, to what it must be like to actually hear nature when you sit outside, not nature backed up by airplanes buzzing by, or neighbors mowing overgrown lawns. These glimpses of simplicity and just being that come our way are telling us something. They speak of what's real and what's important. They pierce to the soul, healing frazzled spirits desperate for the pond and what it represents.

I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

October 15, 2011

Raven Thoughts

"But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

~Edgar Allan Poe 

Whether read by day or night,

that midnight raven nevermore will take his flight.

~Bookishkind

Gathered Words

 Poe, Austen, Bronte, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson --

One word is all it takes, their names alone are enough for me.

Yet..., pull the harvest from the shelf...

 ...The gathered words are the ones I like best. ~Bookishkind

But words are things, 

and a small drop of ink, 

falling like dew, 

upon a thought.

~~Lord Byron

First Fall

The very first leaf of fall.
I love how each glows from behind,
Though they are all the same first leaf.

A little halo, grounded by it's gentle journey.

Digesting New Words

 Just discovered some new-to-me words that I am still digesting. They are so wonderfully filling!

So delicate each leaf
So mighty your bough
Branches bend humbly
Yet strength be your vow
Waters in libation
Winds in embrace
Under your majesty
Beneath I in place
Seasons of change
Sun, moon a distant star
Listen I to all the secrets
Whispers near and far.

Rose Marie Raccioppi

Wee Hours

 I find the wee hours of the night to be my cup of tea. It's quiet. Walden Pond kind of quiet. You can think, and the only thing that stirs are the thoughts inside your own head.
On the contrary, the early hours of the day always catch up with me undesirably, unfortunately. They come too soon, and I always greet them with the annoyance of one who should know better, since she's squandered sleep to the wee ones.
Yet this cycle goes on, over and over, night after night. And dreadful morning after morning. I seek out the luxury and discipline of a good night's sleep with good intentions. Somehow, it rarely finds me.

Look Up

 There is one last amazing frontier remaining, where new discoveries emerge constantly. It's not the tundra, and it's not the deep. Just look up, it's right there. Last night a dark dragon stood in the evening sky. Today a wide patch of blue forms a bluefish from the white, parting clouds. Tomorrow it will look very different. There might be colors on the horizon, or streaks of gray. The paintbrush will be dipped and refreshed with new paints and textures, constantly, -- layers of them. Leaving discoveries wide open to anyone who cares to trek the adventure. I almost hope for streaks of gray that just say September. Embrace September.

Some Glad Morning

I admit that I love music just a little bit more than I love books. My intent is not to combine the two together on this blog, for the most part, but with this CD by Cindy Morgan re-releasing and becoming available at Target, I wanted to re-post a review of the CD that I did for my music website when it originally released awhile back. It's a really great collection of songs and this new version also has songs on it not on the version I reviewed.

If you shop at Target, just go to their little music kiosk and you should be able to hear song samples there.

 "All this fear it binds me up and ties me to the floor

I wish I wouldn't answer when it's knocking on the door
There's not a sparrow falls to the ground
You don't turn your head to the sound
Pick it up so sweetly in your hand"
~~"Worry" by Cindy Morgan

Regency Roads

I'd give almost anything right now for "50 miles of good road." With all the road construction going on lately, you realize you sometimes take good roads for granted, ...whether they are Regency roads, or not.

When the roads get put back together, I'll be grateful. For now, I'll trod them carefully, and with just a little angst that mine are not Regency ones with country paths for stretching with rests from the travel between Regency miles. Once again, born in the wrong era!

"It must be very agreeable 

for her to be settled within 

so easy a distance of 

her own family and friends."

"An easy distance, do you call it? 

It is nearly fifty miles."

"And what is fifty miles of good road? 

Little more than half a day's journey. 

Yes, I call it a very easy distance."

~~Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 32