A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'R'

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 – wishing they were here.

R – Rose, Rhododendron, Robin, Rabbit, Retriever

For a rose we can only begin with Burns:

My love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June

An older verse applies to roses too as not all are as red as those.

 

Thou blushing rise, within whose virgin leaves

The wanton wind to sport himself presumes.

Over the years we have been nurturing a rhododendron bush that didn’t thrive in the soil in the front garden border. It has gone from border to tub, to ericaceous tub to back garden border where it now flowers happily.

 

Rhododendron

Three girls, engrossed, were wrenching full clusters

Of cerise and pink from the rhododendron,

Mountaining them on spread newspaper.

They brassily picked, slowed by no chagrin,

I’m pleased to be able to show a photo of one of my favourite birds which I’m sure you will have all seen on Christmas cards.

Robin

 No noise is here. Or none that hinders thought.

The redbreast warbles still, but is content

With slender notes, and more than half suppressed;

Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light

From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes

From many a twig the pendant drops of ice,

That tinkle in the withered leaves below.

Cute but less welcomed is this fellow about to attack the plants.

 

Rabbit

Now if today had been Friday then perhaps I’d get up early and sing along:

The song was written for Noel Gay's show 'The Little Dog Laughed' which opened on 11 October 1939, at a time when most of the major London theatres were closed.

The farmer with a gun would have needed a Retriever to fetch the rabbit. I know one that could do the job.

Cody

Incidentally Cody was 15 years old on Easter Sunday; he’s no April fool.

Poems:

• A Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns
• The Rose – Sir Richard Fanshawe
• From the Fable of the Rhododendron Stealers – Sylvia Plath http://allpoetry.com/poem/8498035-Fable_Of_The_Rhododendron_Stealers-by-Sylvia_Plath
• Robin – from The Task; William Cowper

Video:

• Youtube: Flanagan and Allan – Run Rabbit Run

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