The woods decay, the woods decay and fall

[pameladean]

They don't, of course, they are just getting ready for a different season; but I am a sucker for Tennyson.

Sorry I've been so quiet. I mostly wanted to let you all know that I just did a public Patreon post that has two cat pictures and also some photos of the yard that I took just before the hard frost. I don't feel up to navigating Dreamwidth's maze to put photos here just now, but anybody can view the ones on that Patreon post. Commenting here would be great; I don't think you can comment there if you aren't actually on Patreon.

Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/november-cat-92199735

Pamela

Comments

[halfmoon_mollie1]

what beautiful kitties. I think kitties like to sleep all scrunched up (like a paperclip, as you said...) so that box is just right. My SallyCat used to sleep in the sun...

I especially liked the photo of the 'late' violet. It looks quite exotic!

[pameladean]

Yes, my idea of what should be the right size of box is obviously very human-centric. All these years, we have been giving her oversized boxes.

One of the nicest things about November in this house is the way the sun reaches right across the rooms from the south. Very good siting on the builders' part, even if they didn't know how to design a kitchen and had no real understanding of closets.

P.

[halfmoon_mollie1]

Very good siting on the builders' part, even if they didn't know how to design a kitchen and had no real understanding of closets

I guess we take our victories where we can.

[redbird]

I especially like the lily-of-the-valley photo.

[pameladean]

Thank you! I finally managed to get into macro mode on my phone, and those two little berries were just so appealing.

P.

[kore]

The violet! And "ghosts of goldenrod" made me think of Hopkins.

I love Cassie's you-are-touching-me face.

[pameladean]

Oh, that is rather Hopkins-like. I have certainly wallowed in Hopkins in my time, and expect to do so again in the future.

Cassie is usually the toucher rather than the touchee -- she is a very if-I-fits-I-sits type, with no particular personal boundaries. But in this case you're absolutely right; Saf had moved from one side of Cassie to the other when the sun moved.

P.

[sovay]

I mostly wanted to let you all know that I just did a public Patreon post that has two cat pictures and also some photos of the yard that I took just before the hard frost.

I love the cats and the creeping bellflower especially.

[pameladean]

Thank you! They can both be somewhat of a nuisance, but well worth the trouble.

P.

[bibliofile]

Aw, kitties! Such fine cats, and good photos of them too.

A landscaping friend says that weeds are just plants that are growing where you don't want them to. In one yard, she got lots of compliments after rearranging all the weeds, putting the black-eyed susans together, and doing the same with the other two flowering plants that grew randomly around the yard (whose names I don't remember). She's not wrong.

[pameladean]

Oh, thank you. I'm a very indifferent photographer, but sometimes things just work right.

Creeping bellflower, crowding other plants out as it does, even provides the rearrangement for you. A friend of mine once said that she liked the plant "because it makes it look like you intended something."

Helenium (false sunflower) is similar. It makes big clumps of itself, just as if you had meant it.

P.

[thistleingrey]

The photos are lovely! I've never met solomon's seal--good to learn a bit. Bellflower would be a weed near me, but it's usually so dry that the plant can't survive unless someone waters it deliberately. (A few years ago I tried keeping one alive, brought perhaps by a neighboring cat, and failed.)

[pameladean]

Thank you! The native wildflower is about half so high as this garden cultivar, but they are both very pleasing. I should try to find some photos of it in bloom, though since the flowers grow below the bending stem, they are a little elusive.

It's mostly a woodland denizen, so I can well believe that dry areas aren't friendly to it.

P.

[graydon]

Tennyson's command of mood might not hold up to materialist scrutiny as a description of natural processes in the world as a whole, but I think it can do pretty well for how some human person might be feeling about things at some similar time.

Which is to say, "sucker" might not be the term. There is no there there, but being there is itself enough a thing.

[pameladean]

That is quite true -- the sensation described is exactly right for Tithonus.

There's probably lesser Tennyson that I really am a sucker for, but yes, that description doesn't really do either me or the poem justice. Thank you.

P.

[graydon]

You're most welcome!

I have wandered around to the view that while there are doubtless things for which any poet might be expected to apologize (in the Great Beyond if necessary), one need not apologize for the poet.

[cmcmck]

Fellow Tennyson lover here and that's one of my all time favourites!

[pameladean]

One of his very best efforts, I think. I do also love "Ulysses".

P.

[dreamshark]

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispéd and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year....

Well, okay, it is November now. But this started running through my head as soon as the October skies became ashen and sober. Not exactly Poe's best poem, but I love the first stanza

[pameladean]

Poe is really often good at beginnings. And I do like a good wallow in his work from time to time. This is absolutely the season for it.

P.

[ljgeoff]

Your riverbank grape (Vitis riparia) looks like our fox grape (vitis labrusca) - I had to look that up.

I love the picture of the cats in sunshine.

[pameladean]

And of course I had to look up fox grape. I see by the map that it's in Wisconsin, and I'd be rather surprised if there weren't some of it in Minnesota along the border, so I'll have to take a closer look next time in one of the bordering state parks, not just assume it's all river grape.

I've got more cats-in-sun photos, but Dreamwidth just makes it so hard to post them. I have made a note, however.

P.

[vr_trakowski]

About the woodland we will run/To see the elm gold in the sun! :P

The violet is gorgeous. Do yours have a scent? My mother's been growing them for sixty years or so but hers are odorless.

[pameladean]

Nice! Now we just need summer and winter versions.

The white violets don't seem to have any scent to speak of. (I'm pretty sure that one is a Canada violet, but I didn't check the back of the petals, and we do have another white violet here and there too.) We have volunteer purple ones as well, and in sufficient mass on a humid day, they do have a very delicate scent.

P.