ROADSIDE TREES ~

"...a human-made element of rural Ontario.  They give articulation to a landscape where the next highest field feature may be the fence post.  Roadside trees are not the remnants of clearing but were consciously reintroduced...amid the widespread belief that trees 'for shade and oranment' contributed to the virtue of country life.  Poets were aroused by the frightening prospect of a treeless landscape, and Arbor Day plantings became regular spring events at country schools late in the nineteenth century.
"Farmers pointed out that shade and beauty did not increase their income, and we read in Canada Farmer's Sun of the resident who cut down his line of non-productive forest trees.  The journalist urged others, as a compromise, to plant nut trees at the roadside.  Shade benefited church-goers, weary travellers, and sweaty kine on sultry August afternoons.  It did not matter that such trees did not grow ramrod straight for the satisfaction of lumber merchants.  As for the romantics, the play of light and shadow through basswood or hemlock added immeasurably to the maturing landscape."

~ LOOKING FOR OLD ONTARIO, Thomas F. McIlwraith, University of Toronto Press, 1997.

[Tomorrow:  Beginning in 1883 municipalities could pay farmers for planting roadside hardwood trees]

Thoughts and prayers with those mourning a loss today.

"A NEWSPAPER once ran an unusual competition.  For a large cash prize a question asked, 'Where is the shortest way to London?'  It didn't say where from, but didn't have to.
As every seasoned traveller knows, 'The shortest way to London (or anywhere) is good company."

or "The road to a friend's house is never too long!"

~ The Friendship Book, 2010.

"For where two or three are gathered together..."

Sunday, June 8 at 2:30 p.m. East Seneca Church ~ "The Little White Church in the Country."

151 th Anniversary Service

[Photo files ~ lbw]

Yes, in the poor man's garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers ~
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.

~ Mary Howitt, English poet. (b. 1799).  Mary & William were well-known writers in their day.

"You know, Francis, when I have problems and feel a bit downhearted, I like to go out and work in the garden.  Maybe it is just being in the fresh air beside so many growing things, but I know I go back indoors more relaxed and hopeful about dealing with my worries, which seem to become smaller.
I smiled.  'That's the value of your garden, John.  Mary Howitt knew all about it, and so do lots of people, including yourself. ' "
[Conversation related in The Friendship Book by Francis Gay, 1999.]

 

D-Day June 6, 1944

 

[Photo: lbw] 

Jane Austen's defence to accusations of triviality of the novel:

"...there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them.  'I am no novel reader...I seldom look into novels...Do not imagine that I often read novels...It is very well for a novel...'  Such is the common cant.  'And what are you reading, Miss --?' 'Oh, it is only a novel!' replies the young lady while she lays down her book with affected indifference or momentary shame.  'It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda'; or, in short, only some work in which the
greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."

~ Jane Austen, English novelist (1775 - 1817) in  Northanger Abbey [Posthumously Published in 1818].