CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. in OCTOBER

"It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon..."-Sarah Addison Allen

The forest in the valley before Mt. Washington range, from my front window.

Yum Yum, one of the urban deer who lives in the green belt and regularly sleeps in the back yard after eating a good deal of leaves and fallen apples.

"...Nature has been saving up all year for its grand finale..."

-Lauren DeStefano

Dogwood Hill leading into downtown, with Quadra Island in the distance.

In the meantime, Yum Yum is still sleeping on the back yard hill...zzzzzzzzzz

On the edge of town, the bridge that reaches over the Campbell river...

"Listen! The wind is rising...

...and the air is wild with leaves,

we have had our summer evenings...

...now for October eves!" -Humbert Wolfe

Heading down the main street of Dogwood, leading to Dogwood Hill....

"Is this not a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love, that makes life and nature harmonize...

...the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay and begin to strew on the ground..."-George Eliot

Oh look, Yum Yum has woken up from his 6 hour nap. He's eating leftover apples that fell from the compost basin....Mr. Spencer at the window with Rona shadowing him. 

....and Little Marshmallow on his new perch, looking for the older cats. Yum Yum seems to like the cats and the cats....well, I wonder if they think the deer is just a VERY BIG cat.

At the end of Dogwood Road, Quadra Island Ferry, ready for passengers.

The actual Campbell River ....

   "And I rose in rainy autumn, and walked abroad in a shower of all my days." -Dylan Thomas

Photographs 2026

                                                              Towhee  by the fence

STELLAR JAYS return at SUNSET...

AUTUMN SUNSET by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) (excerpts)

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendour...

where there are solitary wings gilded by it, or some brook in the midst of the marsh...

just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump.

We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves,

so softly and serenely bright...

I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it.

Every wood and rising ground gleamed like a boundary of Elysium,

and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman...

...driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land,

one day the sun shall shine more brightly...

...shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts,

and light up our whole lives,

a great awakening light,

as warm and serene... 

and golden...

.... in autumn.

Photographs 2026

 

IN THE COUNTRY...

MNEMOSYNE by Trumbull Stickney ( 1874-1904) He was an American poet and scholar, graduating with honours from Harvard in 1895. Published Dramatic Verses in 1902 and died too young,in 1904.

"Mnemosyne" means "remembrance" and memory ( originally the name of the Greek goddess who was mother of the Muses in mythology. Mnemosyne (memory) was always important in Greek storytelling)

It's autumn in the country I remember

How warm a wind blew here about the ways! And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber

During the long sun-sweetened summer-days

It's cold abroad the country I remember.

The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain at midday with a wing aslant and limber:

And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain...

It's empty down the country I remember

I had a sister lovely in my sight: her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;

We sang together in the woods at night.

It's lonely in the country I remember.

The babble of our children fills my ears, and on our hearth I stare at the perished ember to flames that show all starry thru my tears.

It's dark about the country I remember

There are the mountains where I lived. The path is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber;

The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath.

But that I knew these places are my own, I'd ask how came such wretchedness to cumber the earth, and I to people it alone.

It rains across the country I remember...

Photographs 2026 Mnemosyne is in the public domain. All works published before Jan 1 1931 come under this designation. This poem was written in 1902.