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22 May 00 - 11:16 AM (#231787) Subject: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Peter T. The rain finally came last week and lifted the woods into green life almost overnight, away from their hesitancy and stammering, and into full, heady, spring. Two weeks ago I trekked along a riverbank edge, water low, ground brown, sprinkling of leaves. Yesterday I could not even get close to the river, clogged and inundated with greenery, and the river itself churning in mud, four feet higher and completely transformed. I hacked my way through the undergrowth, and what had taken me five minutes two weeks ago, I had to give up on after an hour. The woods seethe with young life -- it is like a high school 1.2 seconds after the last bell rings for the day -- and nothing can stand in its way. It is an energy all its own, the great juvenile hum, and one can see why all the parasites of the world -- the marketers and the opinion shakers -- have reoriented the whole of society to its pulsations. But everything is not spring: though you would be hard pressed to keep that in mind watching cable, or stumbling through the wildly ecstatic undergrowth near the Leaside Bridge. |
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22 May 00 - 11:20 AM (#231791) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: MMario Much as I enjoy spring, I miss the firm footing of the frozen ground when spring thaws drop me into inches deep mud and muck. I miss the wide open vistas as the trees leaf out and obscure the horizon. And I miss the crytalline silence of a still winter evening when faced with the noisy quiet of spring peepers. But the changes are what makes it exciting. |
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22 May 00 - 11:25 AM (#231797) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Homeless Ah, but to sit in the middle of an open field, plucking random single notes from a guitar, and staring, transe-like, into the distance, and noticing the million different shades of green in the trees. |
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22 May 00 - 11:42 AM (#231812) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: catspaw49 Karen and I talk every Spring about which day is the "Green Day" and when we think it will arrive. There is that long period of greenish-browns.....and then ALWAYS that ONE day when the land just EXPLODES. Nothing quite like it....... Spaw |
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22 May 00 - 12:56 PM (#231863) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Just got shamed into extending the flower bed, instead of trying to rejuvenate the lawn. (Bedford is all rock mates) After hard work turning the sod, and moving rocks to form the borders, shoveling topsoil, and raking it all into shape; now I can watch my son and daughter plant flowers together, it was worth it. Distant reminders of my life at age twelve, working to form a garden out of the earth dug out of the foundations of our new home. Even though Dad is gone, my mother still tends the garden, though not as well as she did thirty five years ago. Occasionally I get pictures, most of the tree's that we planted are still there. Except for one. "My" oak tree, that I rescued from the bulldozers as a small sprout, was cut down because it was "Too Big". A heavy price to pay just to make an extra car port.... Shame how we have to destroy the beauty around us for convenience. I would have enjoyed recieving at least a branch to make a walking stick. I feel like I lost an old friend. The bulldozers are at work here too. Behind a layer of tree's 500 metres away from my house, finishing the new school that my children will attend next year. More tree's coming down down. Yours, Aye Dave |
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22 May 00 - 01:09 PM (#231875) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: McGrath of Harlow I sometimes think it must be really weird to live in a part of the world where you don't get proper seasons, where it stays the same sort of weathert also year round. Or where it stays the same sort of temperature, but the change is between the rainy season and the dry.
It must change your whole psychology to know what the weather is going to be next week. Or for anybody used to living in the Marmite Isles (formerly known as the British Isles), knowing what it's going be be like 20 minutes from now. |
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22 May 00 - 01:13 PM (#231879) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: JenEllen Last Thursday, we celebrated the 20 year anniversary of when Mt Saint Helens decided to send us all into a tailspin. I'm sure you've all see the pictures, but there was nothing like that destruction viewed in person. The volcanic activity that spawned this entire region eons ago also formed some delightful caves, old lava tubes, that I never seem to tire of exploring. Every visit I can see a little bit more of the re-birth. New seedlings, the return of the wildlife, flowers growing where there were none before. Where the trails get cut away, you can see the line, about 3 inches thick, of ash that refuses to incorporate into the soil. Every year, the line gets a little lower, turning into 'geologic history' instead of just an event that left a young girl in her window watching the world change. Maybe my grandchildren will be able to hike that mountain, fighting their way through the brush to find that perfect huckleberry bush? It would make every spring from here to then worth it. ~Elle |
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22 May 00 - 01:29 PM (#231886) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Peg the many shades of green in spring never cease to obsess me...I have various names for those days which mark the shifts of color, when they change and intensify, from pale yellowy greens to celery greens to light apple greens to leaf greens to tree greens (I know some of these are highly subjective)...and then in late summer when the process reverses, when just after high summer the intenstity of color, of greenness, dissipates ever so slightly each day, and then the change begins when new colors, shades of otherness are thrown upon the palette: the many shades of green in August gradually give way to gold and yellow and orange and rust and brown and sepia and crimson and red and mauve and scarlet...a process so excruciatingly sad and beautiful and wistful my heart fairly aches at the sight, of the cool spectrum of greens melding into warm shades, colors fading and brightening sparkling and darkening against blue skies bright as a bicycle built in heaven... I pity those who do not live where this change take place with such gorgeous ferocity...yet every place has its change of seasons, on some level... |
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22 May 00 - 01:33 PM (#231887) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: JenEllen Peg, indulge me, what color is it today? ~Elle |
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22 May 00 - 01:42 PM (#231905) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: keltcgrasshoppper Living in New England at this time of the year you appreciate GREEN..We have exploded.. The rains have been here now for almost 30 days on and off.. The trees are back to life and the flowers are up and waiting for the sun.... Of course when it comes back we will be filled with the sounds of the suburbs.. LAWN MOWERS.... Oh how I long for the sound of silence....and the smells of real country.... |
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22 May 00 - 01:58 PM (#231941) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: ceitagh ...and the lawnmowers come, making the grass bleed fresh green-smell....walking outside is a delight to the senses, the greens accented by lilac shades of purple and pale pink/white apple blossoms. My lawn is dotted a cheerful dent-de-lion yellow, like pollen sprinkled over the yard. A curtain of ivy falls over our porch and decorates the house and the feilds are full of bluegreen kneehigh alfalfa and rampant clover. I love living in the country in the spring. Ceit |
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22 May 00 - 02:01 PM (#231943) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: wysiwyg Our wet and wacky spring is expected to have two ongoing outcomes in addition to the amazing burst of green now evident-- "Wet May, Barnful of Hay" and "Whatta Croppa Phlox!" And the deer this year are amazingly and warmly golden brown. Must be the rich browse. ~S~ |
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22 May 00 - 02:29 PM (#232021) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Peg Here in downtown Boston, it is sunny and the temperature is currently 61 degrees Fahrenheit, and there is not much green to be seen out my window...though I may head out for a walk on the Common soon... Today's shade of green near Peg's house in Medford this morning, however, was a damp, broccoli hue shaded over with shadows and tints of pale lilac, gold and pink columbines, white azaleas, cloyingly-sweet lavender wisteria, and grapey purple irises...not to mention the lilies of the valley, a tiny crystal vase of which lent their faery-like fragrance to her dreams last night... can't wait for my pink and white roses, antique varieties which smell of Bulgarian meadowns and English gardens, bloom next week...and grasshopper, you and me both can wait for those lawnmowers! All this rain seems to bring 'em out in noisy swarms... hmm, new thread idea: color of the day? also, since we are talking of it, here is a recent poem which is gonna appear in Obsidian magazine this summer... Peg Green
Green is the rainbow's peacemaker |
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22 May 00 - 02:34 PM (#232030) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Peter T. JenEllen, there was a fine article last week in the New York Times (Tuesday's Science Times, I think) maybe Thursday, on the ecological recovery of Mt. St. Helens -- how all the ecologists were completely wrong about what happens (humbling for all us ecologists). yours, Peter T. |
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22 May 00 - 05:45 PM (#232122) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Bert Peter T, Your eloquence is amazing. The rain finally came last week and lifted the woods into.... I would have simply said "It's pissing down" Bert. |
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22 May 00 - 06:29 PM (#232136) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: katlaughing Beautiful *green* thread. Ah, now there's a thought....Max makes it so that we can chose a colour for our thread, depending on mood, chakras, subject, etc.!Haha!! Jen...we watched an incredibly good special on Mt. St. helen's last week, I think on the History Channel or maybe TLC. We were here, in casper, then. I remember the wholetown, this far away! was covered with ash broought on the winds...I couldn't drive home from work wihtout washing all the windows off. My doctor told me to stay inside to keep from breahting it in. The sky was hungover in a sickly grayish-white pall and stayed that way for days, leaving a gritty and small idea of what it must've been like much closer to the eruption. we were all amzed at the reach of the Mother that day. This is my favourite time on the prairie. I can imagine it is the highlands of Scotland and feel so at home...everywhere are little tiny wild phlox and other flowers, hunkered down low for protection from the wind, while the silvery-blue sagebrush stands up tall, yet twisted, with scars of antelope browsing and literal brow-beating by the wind. I was amazed at the contrasts in greens from here to New England and back. There the greens were lighter and brighter...we were sure that what someone had told us was a blue spruce couldn't possibly be...it just was the wrong colour. Then someone told us it had to do with the acid rain. Don't know if that is true or not, but I had missed the greens of the West and was joyous when I came back here and saw the dark, opaque greens of Casper Mtn's spruce and pine, with a tiny bit of bright thrown in by the quaking aspen. I love spring. Too soon, it will be over, the wind will be blowing dust everywhere, the blood of the prairie, its soil. It will be almost 90 degrees in the shade and all of the greens will be tarnished with the pancake powder of akali dust, like an old diva of the theatre readying herself for a fading swan song in the autumn. kat |
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22 May 00 - 07:18 PM (#232166) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: Mbo "Whatta Croppa Phlox"! Love it, Praise! Laughin' me britches off! I know how it feels! Throw in some cosmos, and you got it! Oh boy, but what a terror it is to mow a 1-acre lot in 100+ degree weather...I know how that feels too! --Mbo |
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22 May 00 - 07:38 PM (#232204) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: JenEllen Colors? My drive is full of colors. The hills around our valley are of brown suede already. Not much greening up there. But from them you can see the patchwork of hop green, lentil green, new wheat green, alfalfa green.... The mountains are still cold, and in their deeper hues. It won't change much until after mid-June, then brief spendor, just before winter falls again. The eagles don't care, so why should I? I'd probably be a lot less grumpy about the whole thing if I could cartwheel on the breeze too...:) But don't forget the lovely smells that go with all of these colors!! Lambs wool leaving lanolin on your hands that you can smell all day long, sweet peas wafting in through an open window, the smell of good black dirt, earthworms, manure, and the rain. ~Elle
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22 May 00 - 09:46 PM (#232267) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - May 22 From: katlaughing My apologies for all of the typos...I was in a rush this morning, posting in between emails and editors on a deadline writing assignment, irony or ironies, eh? kat |