Song of the Valley

To be sung in the manner of Chesterton

Splendid rides the sunset o'er the garden of the Lord
Where summer spreads its colors on the hills like emerald wine
And the mowers raise the incense of the grass and of the soil
And the ponds and trees and houses gleam like grapes upon the vine
In the sun that smites the valley with the brightness of a sword:
In this cool and quiet garden in the center of the world
Where the people's death and living makes a song of righteous toil
In this precious piece of nowhere in a corner of the world;
In this garden of the people which is sacred to the Lord.

Summer's End

I'm sitting on the lawn outside my dorm at school. That may sound lifelessly urban, and I suppose it would be in a lot of schools: but my school is settled right in the middle of a country Tennessee community, without a fence and sometimes without even a road separating them. There is beauty in this place and moment. The sun has set and the sky is glowing russet and pale blue. The woods are so close across the road that I can hear the cicadas humming. A flock of geese just flew overhead, calling the evening bugle of summer as they sped southward. I guess this is really my Beginning of Autumn post, which seems to have become something of an annual tradition. I didn't intend it that way; but for some reason there is a day or a set of days as summer ends that remind me of the season changing and make me want to write about it. Perhaps it is because, as Chesterton said, you realize how much you love something when you begin to lose it. I don't notice how much I enjoy summer until a cool evening or a red leaf on the ground reminds me that it is passing. Perhaps that is why I love autumn so much. After the peace of summer, it is a reminder that the seasons change; that the years turn; that time passes. And that reminder makes me enjoy the seasons, and the years, and time itself, all the more.

Mystery Eggs

Miss M and I were looking in the yard for caterpillars and instead we found a leaf with some black spots on it. I once found a leaf with red things on it - and after I looked it up, I determined that the red spots were a growth from a fungus or something. I thought this was the same thing - a fungus that makes tiny tumors on the leaf. But then I looked under my Radio Shack 30x lighted magnifier and they look like tiny raisins; some even have tiny hairs stuck to them. And each black raisin has its own smaller spot of what looks like mud next to it. So I think they're eggs, and the hairs are probably from some kind of caterpillar.

This is the leaf:

And this is a close-up of the black spots accompanied with a smaller brown dot:

Maybe if I keep them all winter, they'll hatch in the spring.