Monday, June 25, 2007

Twelve Moons of the Year. July 01

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons. July 01.

"July afternoons can roar and rumble with thunderstorms that slash the sky, shake the hills and drench the valleys." p. 180.

"July nights can be as cool as May, as sultry as late august, and they are lit with more fireflies than stars." p. 180.

"By the first week in July the day lilies at the roadside and the brown-eyed Susans in the old pastures splash the countryside with Van Gogh orange." p. 183.

"There are almost 90,000 species of insects in North America and 25,000 of them are beetles." p. 184.

"Man fights insects for his mastery of the earth, and they outbreed all his efforts." p. 185.

"Daisies--sometimes called Farmer's Curse--beautify rural roadsides, but they invade meadows, pastures and all kinds of cultivated fields." p. 185.

"Beans. Properly cooked and buttered, the bean is one of the most satisfying of all early garden yields." p. 186.

"...wild chicory is warm blue, and Queen Anne's lace is a white cloud at the roadside." p. 186.

"...a rainy day is a blessing to the earth and everything that lives upon it." p. 190.

"If time ever stands still...it is on a mid-July day along a rural road with a leisurely stream on one side and fields and a wooded hillside on the other. Early afternoon and the air is warm and quiet, even among the top leaves of the roadside trees. The sky is clean and clear except for a few huge white cumulus clouds that make cool shade patterns as they slowly drift across the sun." p. 191.

No comments: