Sunday Roast: Hello, Autumn

Posted on by

(photo source)

On Fields O’er Which the Reaper’s Hand Has Pass’d

On fields o’er which the reaper’s hand has pass’d
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze.

~Henry David Thoreau

This is our daily open thread — Talk amongst yourselves…

About these ads

69 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: Hello, Autumn”

  1. Ode to the West Wind

    O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
    Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
    Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

    Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
    Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
    Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

    The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
    Each like a corpse within its grave, until
    Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

    Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
    (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
    With living hues and odours plain and hill:

    Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
    Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820)

  2. Talk amongst yourselves…

    Just don’t answer yourselves!

    F1 is at Singapore today, racing after dark local time, so the race can be live at normal times. It’s midday in the UK, and 7am here just like a European race venue.

  4. Unreal. mAnn Coulter is going to be a panelist on This Week on ABC. I really wish the “librul media” would stop providing a platform for fringe kooks. I don’t care how many books she’s turned out; Coulter is a festering boil on the rump of the body politic and doesn’t deserve the attention or respect of rational people.

  5. I love fall. I love the feeling of putting everything to bed for the winter, setting the stage for the spring to come. The summer haze is gone, the quality of air and light changes. “Come, let us get drunk on the light!” (Renoir, I think)

  7. Just went out to replenish the hummingbird feeder and could see my breath. That’s always the first hint of Autumn for me. My favorite season by far. The early part here is generally crisp and dry (mmm,Brut!) and sunny.

    Cats, you should know that there have been serious wildfires in the High Desert and there is a great deal of smoke in the air, with thunderstorms in the immediate forecast. The storms may not bring any relief in the form of rain, but instead may start new fires with lightning. IOW, that pristine air you experienced in Bend isn’t a guarantee.

    • The smoke has cleared a bit today, although it’s not gone. I’m hoping that the “possible” thunderstorms today clear it out even more — without sparking more fires.

    • Yeah, it was a bit smokey when we visited because of a fire further up north. At least we weren’t drenched in sweat. It’s fascinating… storms without rain. There are a great deal of fires throughout the high dessert especially in WA, ID, and MT.

  8. Migration has been in full swing – an indication of autumn.
    Daily Hawk Count – 2012, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, has been very busy capturing, tagging, releasing!

    • Thanks, Ebb. I love George’s hair in that first one.

      And the telephone series of ads is hilarious!

      Computers, bottom picture: That ashtray is built into the console. It appears to swivel back underneath. I remember Walt posting some pics of early NASA consoles, and they had ashtrays and lighters built into the console. My, how times have changed.

  10. We are going out to a new park today to have a walk in the fall. Lots of leaves are yellow and some trees have already lost them. The park is new and huge covering the north of the Bow River from Cochrane to Calgary and was donated by a rich family

    Here is a map for those that love maps.

    I bought a tablet for our holidays that I hope will replace my old Garmin hand held GPS. Today will be a test of a couple of free apps to save my track. I’ll post it later.

    • Well, that won’t be helping the Romney campaign. Maybe Romney really doesn’t want to be president. Could his campaign be all about grabbing the money from the campaign contributions?

  16. There is something just ironically appropriate that a candidate who has consistently and outrageously run a campaign on the notion that his opponent is really a European rather than an American, a foreigner rather than a native son … has a tax return that describes the USA as a “foreign country.” Just let the irony and lack of self awareness wash over you:

    http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/21/mitt-romney-calls-usa-a-foreign-country-in-his-tax-returns

  19. Let’s see if this vimeo works here.

    This is one of the juvenile Peregrines from this year.
    The four have long since dispersed from downtown – this is a great
    sighting some 12 miles away.
    The tiercel will, more than likely, fly even further out – at some point staking his own territory.

    It’s always grand to see a ‘known’ peregrine! (they are completely wild – the band was placed while in the scrape/nest before they fledge)

      • My guess is that both of them will avoid, like the plague, the media other than the friendly faces from FAUX”News”. It seems like the campaign staffers are starting to get the same look as McCain’s staffers once Bible Spice started talking.

    • Mittens is beyond arrogant. Treating educated people as if they were small children.
      That teacher was civil and mittens was a complete jerk (I realize that is nothing new).

  21. Headline: New Book Reveals Cause Of Rick Perry’s Big Debate ‘Oops’

    Cliff’s Notes Version: Perry is Congenitally Stupid

    • Heh! Did you catch his rant from last week where he said that Satan started the whole separation of church and state, with a little help from “activist judges”, in the Godless 1960s? It’s all just confirmation that, despite a number of strong contenders, he might be the stupidest politician of our time.

  23. Happy birthday to the best thing to come out of New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen. Here’s an outstanding performance of ‘Jungleland’ from 2001 in his honor:

  26. I had noticed this last week but got distracted. It comes as no surprise that Judy “We’ll have to leave it there even though you’ve been lying for ten minutes straight” Warner was playing the false balance card. She’s the reason I stopped watching the News Hour. Of course, since the Koch brothers are big PBS donors, I tend to see a conspiracy.

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/23/894601/pbs-ombudsman-newshour-climate-story-stumbled-badly-use-of-non-scientist-watts-for-balance-was-stunning/

  27. I never thought I would say this but I think the Democratic party needs to talk more about football. Specifically, they need to take advantage of this glaring example of what happens when “replacement workers” are brought in to break a union. I know that a lot of people care a lot more about football than politics and this is an issue made in Heaven for Dems who want to reach those people.

    http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_21614555/minnesota-vikings-replacement-official-admits-allowing-harbaugh-challenges?source=rss

    BTW. The story doesn’t even mention that the ref gave San Francisco their timeout back which also should not have happened.

Comments are closed.