Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A Panorama of Witches!

Click HERE to see the interactive version of this photo!
Clay Morehead is a talented photographer who treated us to a unique photograph of ourselves last year at the Balls Falls Thanksgiving Festival. Using a very special camera that we had to stand quite still for, he made a marvelous and magical photo of us called a panoramic photo - a wonderfully weird image that you can spin about and see not only us, but everyone and everything around us from the ground to the sky to all the lovely people standing about admiring our stunning good looks!

Would you like to see it? I bet you would! Just click here and you will be taken to Mr. Morehead's  posting at the Port Colborne Camera Club. Once there, right click on our photo and hold the button down. Roll the mouse about to see how the word around us looked at that precise moment in time. Isn't it exciting, my dears? And if you'd like to see more of Mr. Morehead's work, do visit his blog at http://clayswpandvr.wordpress.com/ .


P.S. You'll notice Priscilla was experimenting with what she believed was a new high-fashion hairstyle featuring tumbles of black and white tresses. She realizes now this was perhaps a misjudgment but at the time thought herself quite stylish. It's best not to mention it to her as she is rather sensitive about it. Thankfully she's let her unnatural auburn grow back in!

Monday, September 6, 2010

THE PUMPKIN by John Greenleaf Whittier (1850)

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o’er Nineveh’s prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, — our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o’er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!