In Fervent Praise of Picnics - Sepia Saturday

I've no photos of picnics in my files and I have 'done' hats before. So I was at a bit of a lost to respond to this week's prompt.

Then I remembered the man who wrote the poem 'Little Orphan Annie' which begins ...

To all the little children - The happy ones; and sad ones,
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones - Yes, the good ones, too, and all the lovely bad ones.

Little Orphan Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I found this picture of the man himself>

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

James Whitcomb Riley, poses with a group of children on 15 May 1869  for a photo to be included in a book published for the Indiana state centennial anniversary. (Source The Chronicle of Your State in Pictures - Author Indiana State)

The American writer, poet and author was known during his lifetime as the Hosier Poet and Children's Poet for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively.

I had only previously heard of his poem 'The Raggedy Man' which starts ...

O the Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa
An' he's the goodest man ever you saw!
He comes to our house every day
An' waters the horses an' feeds them hay.

I gather that somewhere in his poems he refers to a swimming hole; I haven't found the poems yet but I have found this - 

The Swimming Hole, Greenfield Indiana (By William Eccles)

This looks an ideal place for a picnic, don't you think?

Perhaps that's what inspired Riley to write:- 

Picnics is fun 'at's purty hard to beat

I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than_eat_

I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than go

With'our Char_lot_ty to the Trick-Dog Show

If you wonder what it's called.

It's  'In Fervent Praise of Picnics' - of course.

For more picnic snacks please make you way across to Sepia-saturday-190.

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'J'

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – a sort of wish they were here.

J – Jackdaw, Jay, Juniper, Jack, Jasmine

There is a bird who, by his coat,

And by the hoarseness of his note,

Might be suppos’d a crow;

Jackdaw

 The famous poem, The Jackdaw of Rheims, ends with the jackdaw being made a Saint; however in a much earlier Conclave than the recent one for the selection of Pope Francis.

The Conclave determin’d to make him a Saint;

And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know

It’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,

So they canoniz’d him by the name of Jem Crow!

 When at my daughter's home in Michigan:

Blue Jay

The Jaybird he's my favourite
Of all the birds they is!
I think he's quite a stylish sight
In that blue suit of his:

But as you can see the jays we see in the local woods are not blue at all. Often all you see is the flash of their white rump as they disappear in the trees.

Many of you will know the English nursery rhyme –

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
So early in the morning.

However I’ve just learnt that in Scandinavia the ‘mulberry bush’ is replaced with a:-

Juniper Bush

Somehow I get the feeling that Jack would find that rather tiring.

Jack at rest

 This year he will have a long wait to see this climber flowering:-

Winter Jasmine

Poems:

• The Jackdaw – William Cowper
• The Jackdaw of Rheims – Richard Harris Barham http://www.bartleby.com/246/108.html
• The Jaybird – James Whitcomb Riley
• Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush – An English nursery rhyme and singing game.

Photo attribution:

• Winter Jasmine – Wildfeuer – CC BY-SA 3.0