Pensively Speaking

This time of year sometimes brings on a bout of nostalgia, pensively speaking. One of my favorite poems, October’s Bright Blue Weather by Helen Hunt Jackson, describes the kind of weather we’ve been having lately.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.

The sky is certainly bright blue and signs of  fall are everywhere. Acorns lie on the ground and I’ve seen squirrels busily storing them for winter. Many times the acorns don’t quite make it to the storehouse. 

Standing under the willow oak and gazing upward, I saw a squirrel’s nest nestled on tree limbs a dizzying height above the ground. Do squirrels stay in the same home summer and winter? Or do they have more than one?

An interesting bush with small, beautiful red berries has come up by my back fence. Is this a wild cherry bush? Maybe the birds will like these or maybe they are poisonous. Does anybody know?

All spring, summer, and now into fall, the little girl in my back flower garden has gazed at a bird bath and the small stone birds perched there. She seems to be contemplating the swift passage of summer. Maybe she’s looking forward to winter when she’ll be put into the garden shed to wait for spring again.  Or maybe she’s pensive, like me, and thinks summer has passed all too quickly.

Answers to yesterday’s Trivia Quiz: 1.Levi, OK; 2. Jethro; 3. Pat; 4. red Escape; 5. Grant Hendley; 6. Jake; 7. Ben Ventris; 8. July; 9. The Cemetery Club, Grave Shift, Best Left Buried, Grave Heritage.