Autumn Leaf Of The Day #52

 

Gathering Leaves

Spades that up leaves

No better that spoons

And bags a full of leaves

Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day

Like a rabbit and deer

Running away.

Again and again

Till I fill the whole shed

And what have I then

Next to nothing for weight

And since they grew duller

From contact with earth

Next to nothing for color.

Next to see for use

But a crop is crop

And who's to say where

The harvest shall stop?

By

Robert Frost

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #50

 

By late autumn, the yard would grow thick with fallen leaves, leaving the landlady to heave many deep sighs.

~Takahasi Hiraide

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #34

 

“Nature is an alchemist,
gathering the last of summer’s green
and turning it to gold.”

 
~Laura Jaworski 

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #42

 

I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colors richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colors, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death." 

 

~Lin Yutang

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #12

 

“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile."


~John Howard Bryant 

Indian Summer 

If you look closely, and keep an open mind, autumn leaves kinda smile, at least in their own way. I see it in every leaf I choose for this project! I bring you smiles from the autumn world.

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #11

 

"Summer makes me drowsy, autumn makes me sing, 

winter's pretty lousy, but I hate the spring."

 

~Dorothy Parker 

 

Well, we know how Dorothy felt about autumn, don't we?

 

I feel exactly as she does, about every single season!

 

 

Autumn's Vivid Colors

 

“Autumn mornings: sunshine and crisp air,

 birds and calmness, year’s end and day’s beginnings.” 

 

~Terri Guillemets

 

Autumn, this year, is going to be filled with more vivid colors then in previous years, I can already tell! Look at the colors on this Western Bluebird, the just stunned me! I got to look at him for a good amount of time, as e seemed to want to pose for me, which unusual for this kind of bird. It's not quite as manic as the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, or the Common Yellowthroat, but it does move from branch to ground in a fun pace. I wasn't even focusing on birds at that moment, there was a new squirrel I have never seen before playing nearby, and then there it was, a beautiful streak of blue hopping about the grass. I followed it up to a branch just above our car, and as I said, it posed for me! I eventually got the picture of the squirrel too, but today belongs to the Western Bluebird! Magic!

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #2

 

“Autumn leaves don't fall, they fly.

 They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”

 
~Delia Owens

  Where the Crawdads Sing

 

A pretty orange flower to start the week!

September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale

Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them." 

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #18

 

While the blooms
were singing the success songs of Summer;
quietly 'October' arrived.

(Haiku)
― Monika Ajay Kaul 

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #15

 

“leaves glow under
a haze of sunlight,
and hang
still on a windless
day”

 

 ~Bremer Acosta

  Cosmos in a Tree

 

 

Dragons And Damsels And Autumn Leaf Of The Day #14

 

Summer leaves sulkily with rains.
Winter sets off gaily leaving spring behind.
Autumn walks a fine line.

(Haiku)
~Monika Ajay Kaul 

 

The cool days are here. Well, cool for the Central Valley. Some years it's well into October before I need a sweater, but hubby is helping me get all the warm stuff washed and put on standby. Yes, I even get excited about washing my favorite autumn and winter sweaters for the season. I am hoping to still be able to catch a few more dragonflies and damselflies before the rains come in. They are an amazing challenge for me to photograph, but just look at them, so delicate and so beautiful I can't help but try.

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #10

 

“The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong.” 

 
~Elinor Wylie, 

  Nets To Catch The Wind

 

 

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #6

 

“Autumn is a place where words fall short.

 It is a magic that must be felt, breathed, experienced, and treasured.” 

~Laura Jaworski 

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #5

 

 “Aprils have never meant much to me,

 autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.” 

 
~Truman Capote,

  Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #4

 

“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be

 are full of trees and changing leaves…”

 

~Virginia Woolf

 

 A peach colored leaf. It reminds me of the delicious peaches we bought just a couple months ago. I guess summer does have a few redeeming qualities. The amazing fruit. I love fresh peaches and strawberries. Alan has always loved watermelon. Truth be told though, we both love a big fruit salad with something decadent, like sherbet or ice cream. There used to be a restaurant called, Lyon's, and many a summer evening we would walk from our apartment, a third floor walk up, to the restaurant just a cross the alley. We were just married, and made fun out of something as simple as walking to the restaurant or theater, which sat the same amount of steps in the opposite direction. It's a nice memory of being 28, happily married to the love of my life, and enjoying the best of it all in peace. See, that's what my leaves do for me, they help me remember the best of times. I need that right now.

 

 

Autumn Leaf Of The Day #3

 

“I hope I can be the autumn leaf, who looked at the sky and lived.

 And when it was time to leave, gracefully it knew life was a gift.”

 

~Dodinsky

 

 So much beauty.

Autumnal Rainbows And Autumn Leaf Of The Day #8

 

"Fall colors are funny. They're so bright and intense and beautiful. It's like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary."

 

~Siobhan Vivian

Same Difference

 

White-faced Ibis are beautiful, full stop. As a juvenile they shine with iridescent dark green feathers. There are other colors mixed in, but as they fly overhead all you can see is either green or black feathers. These two Ibis are among the most lovely I've seen, and with the autumn sun shining through their feathers, illuminating a beautiful rainbow, I can't think of a more fascinating or photogenic bird. 

 

 

~Me

Ben Mears And Rob Lowe

 

Preston Castle Wall

Ione, California

May 7th 2022

Minolta

"There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it."

 

~Shannon L. Alder

 

Preston Castle

Ione, California

Nope, not closing the book yet. Well, maybe the Twitter book, but that remains to be seen (see history). What do I mean by see history? Well, Elon Musk... the jerk... is trying to manipulate the price of the stock, and he has already said he would reinstate Trump, and you know how I feel about that, and I am not alone. Some of this shit is already firmly planted in history. The deal may not happen. We will see. If it does goes through, history will have a lot to say about it. 

 

But meanwhile back in the present. 

 

I'm not closing any doors either. I'm working on my health. Covid forced a giant detox of my eating habits. Before Covid, I ordered lean meat on my sandwiches, sliced extra thin, served with a jar of mayonnaise. Now, mayo is pretty much verboten. I can't tolerate mayonnaise, or anything oily. No fries. No jalapeno poppers. No mozzarella sticks, but there is some super healthy stuff I can't handle either. I can't have spinach, or lettuce, or any other leafy stuff like cilantro. Weird. I LOVE salad, always have. I am a veggie girl. But since Covid, I get a queasy stomach from it. Sigh.

 

I can't do much about most of it, but ride it out and hope it all goes back to normal one day, but I'm done with fucking waiting, I am taking lead and jump starting the process. Dr. Williams gave me a guide for kicking my sense of smell and taste back in. I purchased an aromatherapy machine. The sense of smell and taste go hand and hand. The idea is to choose a scent, and retrain my body to recognize it. Hopefully it will help my sense of taste if I use the same formula. I also purchased a sound machine to maybe help me get my body retrained to some healthy sleeping habits.

 

I can do this.

 

As for the mental exhaustion, again it's a matter of closing the last chapter on what happened last autumn, by closing the storage room. Hubby and I will be cleaning out the last of it next week, and that will be that. The door will be shut, with four months left on our contract at our current home. Hopefully Eric, the owner, will renew our lease, and I can take a little longer to recover, without another move. I'm trying to not think about it. I'm good right now. There is a roof over my head. I am relatively safe. And I am about to buy an air fryer to help me get back into the swing of cooking. I miss baking too. Alan has pretty much been doing everything since my breakdown, the poor man is well trained in being married to a nutjob. Sorry, chronically depressed person.

 

But he knows I eventually get back up, and I guess I will again this time too. What choice do I have? Suicide will always be sitting there, reminding me of it's availability, but, well, you know. Robin. I am trying really hard to not give up this time, in that I came so close to going though with it last fall. I have so much that I haven't shared about what has got me to this place, but as we move along I am sure the details will make themselves known. I just need to process things and go from there.

 

Now, about the "Lowe" in the title of this post. It refers to Rob Lowe. You might remember I posted about his visit to the Central Valley, when he filmed the first episode of, The Lowe Files, back in 2019. His love of the supernatural lead him to film the first episode at Preston Castle, in Ione, and that helped me find something to enjoy out here. I struggled in the first few years, as there isn't a lot to see, and photograph in and around Stockton. But Preston Castle changed all that. As did the town of Ione, Ca. The castle itself is mighty spooky and at the same time glorious. Like all truly spooky places it has a deeply troubled past, which intrigued me. In the next few years I photographed it many times over. And there is a very photogenic graveyard nearby and one of my favorite autumn trees to feature every year in my autumn leaf project, sits nearby in a small park and ride near the creek. 

 

I'm still grateful to Mr. Lowe, he will never know it, but he helped me heal. I experienced a lot of pain between 2015 and 2019 when he visited here. Because of his visit, I was interested about something again, and even slightly amused about how Preston Castle could have easily served as Hubie Marsten's house from Stephen King's, Salem's Lot, that Rob Lowe starred in. It's easy to pretend it was Ben Mears who visited here, and let my child's mind take over for a bit. Are there really ghosts roaming around among us? Perhaps. Are there vampires sleeping in an eerie house on a nearby hill? I don't know where they sleep, but I can say without a doubt that yes, there are vampires among us. That's what's got me to where I am right now.

 

Damn those vampires.

But Thank you, Ben Mears and Rob Lowe. 

 

"But when fall comes, kicking summer out on it's treacherous ass, as it always does one day sometime after the mid point of September, it stays awhile like an old friend who you have missed." 

 

~Stephen King

Salem's Lot

 

You might recall that this is my 

favorite quote to begin autumn with. 

 

 

No Panache And The Whore

"The tints of autumn... a mighty flower garden

 blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost."

 

~John Greenleaf Whittier

 

So, if all goes well, our official date to vacate our home will be Sunday, October 3rd. What a strange feeling. As I have said before, I liked the place, it had the most beautiful interior lines, and so much mid-century character, but it was never real. No panache and her whore of a boyfriend... lol... builder... liar... coward... co-conspirator, sunk us financially before we ever moved in. For clarification purposes, Jeanette and Mike lied to us just enough to sink our financial life before we ever moved into our home. So why did we move it? Well, it's a long story, that mostly took place in Turlock, California, in the summer of 2015. I don't want to think about it right now, not while I am packing to move from the only home I have ever owned. It brings about too many emotions that wouldn't help in any way! I will share sometime after we move into the new rental. For now, and probably for the next couple weeks, my blog posts will mostly be held to "Leaf Of The Day" entries. Autumn is already looking quite lovely, so I am glad that my blog will have plenty of beautiful leaves to help me heal, and move on.

 

Judas Tree Leaf

Ione, California

September 2021

Nikon

 

 

 

Leaving Heaven Behind

 

"The beauty as mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion... open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony."

 

~Orhan Pamuk

My Name Is Read 

 

Leaves. It's not quite time for autumn, but the colors began almost three weeks ago. Summer gave up this year. Fine. I am ready to be on with it too. Lets get the past, present, and future on it's merry way. The only thing I want to see last is autumn. I am going to need this time of healing. I am grateful that leaving Heaven behind, begins at the end of the summer of 2021.

 

 

~Me

September 12th 2021

Stockton, California