The Sweetest Things

"Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into." ~Henry Ward Beecher

The Moon

"The moon is at her full, and riding high, floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky are all asleep tonight."
~William Cullen Bryant

Loveliest of Lovely Things

"Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower."  ~William Cullen Bryant

Horses

"Somewhere in time's own space
There must be some sweet pastured place
Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow
Some paradise where horses go,
For by the love that guides my pen
I know great horses live again."
~Stanley Harrison

Shadows and Light

"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter." ~Ansel Adams

Textures courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations .  This is another photo looking back of our property.  The land was covered in frost this morning and the sunrise created interesting shadows and light on the ground.  I also added a glamour effect to the photo.

The Butterfly

"May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun

And find your shoulder to light on,

To bring you luck, happiness and riches

Today, tomorrow and beyond."

~Irish Blessing

Cobblestone Bird II

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. ~E.E. Cummings


I went out exploring in the backyard today. This mockingbird flew into an Oak tree and I circled the tree numerous times trying to get a good shot. I was finally obliged.  Texture courstey of Shadowhouse Creations.  I also added a cobblestone texture as in the previous bird photo.

Rose

How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Texture courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations.  In addition to the texture from SC I added a canvas texture.  

Cobblestone Bird

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. ~Victor Hugo

Texture courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations.  In addition to the SC texture I added a cobblestone texture to the photo.  Hence the title. 

Light

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.  ~Edith Wharton

Texture courtsey of Shadowhouse Creations.

What's in a name?

What's in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  ~William Shakespeare


Texture courtsey of Shadowhouse Creations.

Under the Stars

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches.  It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.  ~Georgia O'Keeffe


This photo has a snow texture applied to it but to me it looks like millions of tiny stars shining down.

I Am Only One

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.  And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can.
~Helen Keller

Misty Morning

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.  When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.  ~Ansel Adams


Texture courtsey of Shadowhouse Creations.

Quotes, Poems and Sayings

"The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light."
~Joyce Kilmer
.....



"There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it."
~Minnie Aumonier
.....

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
~Rachel Carson

.....

"How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said."
~Victor Hugo

 .....

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever love."
~William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116

.....

"Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 .....




"Somewhere in time's own space
There must be some sweet pastured place
Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow
Some paradise where horses go,
For by the love that guides my pen
I know great horses live again."
~Stanley Harrison

.....




"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
~Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay
.....

"In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!"
~Robert Louis Stevenson
Autumn Fires.

.....

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft thro' footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

~John Gillespie Magee, Jr. 

.....

"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)