To commemorate this auspicious occasion,

...the tenth anniversary of the one and only rhymeswithplague blog, I wanted to show you the last rose of summer. which surely would remind many of you young whipper-snappers of moi.

However, I cannot show you the last rose of summer because (a) I do not have any roses and (b) my neighbors who do have roses of the popular "knockout" variety have many, many roses currently and I have no clue at this point which of them will turn out to be the last one of the year.

Therefore, I will show you what I do have, which are our encore azaleas (so named because they bloom both spring and fall) and our beautiful sasanqua camellia which blooms every year in September and October. We have had this particular bush for 13 years now. I have no idea how old it was when Phoebe E., our landscaper, planted it near our front door, but like this blog, it endures. Camellias seem to be both hardy and fragile (I think of Greta Garbo in her most famous role) but the individual blooms do not last long. The petals fall to the ground daily and are supplanted by more of their kind. This seems to me to be symbolic of blogs and bloggers in general, and I for one am happy to have continued as long as I have.

I may be gone in a moment's notice or stay around for quite a spell -- no one knows for sure -- but while I remain I intend to bloom my guts out for your reading enjoyment.

The jury is still out on whether this blog is written by a budding genius or a blooming idiot.

In the bleak midwinter

...thinking about Vagabonde’s photographs of Callaway Gardens from last April is what keeps me going until Spring rolls around again.

Have a look.

Gorgeous, isn’t it? And there weren’t even any dogwoods in blossom to make the scenes of spring in Georgia even more beautiful.

Vagabonde hails from France originally but now lives with her husband in Marietta, Georgia -- just a hop, skip, and jump down the road from Canton. She travels extensively and wields a mean camera.

I’m so glad.

Winter Olympics notwithstanding, one can look at ice and snow for only so long.

I wandered with the sneering crowd...or Welcome, sweet Springtime (part 3)

I cannot take credit for the following, but it made me laugh:

There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still.


To redeem myself, here’s a better poem, plus some forsythia, a few dandelions for Putz, and a goldfinch thrown in for good measure.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs 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.

(Photograph © by James G. Howes, 2003)




At the house where we lived from 1999 until 2003, goldfinches arrived in profusion. They loved the thistle seed we put out for them. But ever since we moved seven years ago from there to our current house, thirty miles to the north, I had not seen a single goldfinch until yesterday, when a pair of them visited our Leyland cypress trees.

This post is my way of saying “thank you” to them.

Spring, by the way, is also pink and purple:

Bougainvillea:
Azaleas:
Wood-violets:(Wood-violet photo by Maia C. on Flickr)

But if yellow is your thing, see the previous post for daffodils.