The Invigorating Meadow
The burgeoning green of the meadow in May was gloriously lush, radiant really. I searched for enough descriptive words to distinguish the greens I saw—emerald and viridian; olive, pea and lime; verdigris and malachite. I became giddy surrounded by robust greenery. Indeed, it was a green felicity, and the trials and doldrums of winter disappeared with the exhilaration I felt watching emerging blades, vines, and shoots.
As the meadow’s growth flourished, I kept track of the succession of plants. Golden coins of flowering dandelions carpeted the new grass for a week before fluffing into white globes of seed- carrying filaments. The grasses grew taller. Buttercups and blue flag iris colored the meadow with gold and purple, and daisies added their white blooms.
Grasses began to bud. Grass holds its highest energy content, that is, the most digestible dry matter, at this stage in its growth. Once bloom comes, nutritional values drop. However, the variety of grasses growing in the meadow do not bloom at the same time, and the mix of other hay plants, including clovers, vetch and alfalfa are best left to harvest while in partial bloom. This makes the optimal cutting time difficult to schedule. The weather conditions also influence the time to cut. We ask our neighbor to delay the mowing of our meadow until the bobolink youngsters have safely fledged. In a cool wet summer such as the one we have this year, parts of the meadow may be left uncut until August, providing mulch hay rather than animal feed.
This year I tried to identify as many kinds of grasses as I could. I examined the flower clusters with their delicate spikelets as they opened. Grass flowers are small and inconspicuous but wonderfully in...
... middle of paper ...
...ew leaves in spring. If the winter snows are deep, the mice and voles, with snug nests of grass and networks of tunnels beneath the white blanket, will prosper on meals of grass roots and seeds fallen from our bird feeders. My circuits of the meadow on snowshoes or skis will reveal that life is lived in earnest. Along the woods’ edge, the tracks of a snowshoe hare, separated by distances over a meter long and overlain by footprints of a sprinting fox, display the drama of survival. The seeds of yellow birch, shaped like little birds with wings outspread, lie scattered over the crust of snow in February waiting a thaw and the slow descent to the soil where spring sun and warmth will start germination. Persistent and valiant, this place invigorates me.
“This fevers me, this sun on green,
On green glowing, the young spring.”
—Richard Eberhart, A Bravery of Earth
While Snow Falling on Cedars has a well-rounded cast of characters, demands strong emotional reactions, and radiates the importance of racial equality and fairness, it is not these elements alone that make this tale stand far out from other similar stories. It is through Guterson’s powerful and detailed imagery and settings that this story really comes to life. The words, the way he uses them to create amazing scenes and scenarios in this story, makes visualizing them an effortless and enjoyable task. Streets are given names and surroundings, buildings are given color and history, fields and trees are given height and depth, objects are given textures and smells, and even the weather is given a purpose in the...
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
On the other hand, the garden itself within The Secret Garden can be classified as a cultivated natural therapeutic landscape. What makes the garden truly remarkable as a therapeutic is its role in Mary’s coming of age, considering that prior to Mary’s exposure to the garden she was raised without an appropriate adult role models but nonetheless reached emotional maturity. In addition, the garden is considered a true therapeutic landscape due to its role in healing not only Mary, but also Colin and Archibald
He describes how the sun “bakes” the earth, the grasshoppers “consume the parched grass,” and how the prairies are full of “endless desolation.” The word “bakes” exhibits nature’s hostility to its surrounding lands. The grasshoppers eating the “parched grass” convey how on top of the grass slowly starving and dying, it has to deal with the grasshoppers devouring it as well; which emphasizes nature’s unforgivable attitude towards the land. The words “endless desolation” reveal that the land is nothing but despair, and that it is full of endless agony and suffering. This bleak description expresses a miserable tone that deduces the reader’s mind to believe the landscape is barren and
As characters in the poem are literally snow bound, they find that the natural occurrence actually serves a relaxing and warming purpose, one that brings together family. This effect is further achieved through the use of meter throughout the work as a whole. In its simplistic yet conversational tone, the author uses meter to depict the result that nature has forced upon these humans, who are but a small sample size that actually is representative of society that that time. Due to nature, the characters can talk, represented by the conversational meter, and thus, they can bond within the family. A larger representation of this more specific example can be applied to a more general perspective of human’s relationship with the natural world. Although “Snowbound” captures what humans do as a result of nature, it can also represent a larger picture, where nature appears at the most opportune times to enhance relationships from human to human. In “snowbound,” this is symbolized by the fire, “Our warm hearth seemed blazing free” (Whittier 135). This image relays a spirited, warm, mood full of security, which is expertly used by the author to show how fire, a natural phenomena, can provide such beneficial effects on humans. This very occurrence exemplifies how such a miniscule aspect of nature can have such a profound effect on a family, leaving the reader wondering what nature and its entirety could accomplish if used as a
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2007.
The story opens by embracing the reader with a relaxed setting, giving the anticipation for an optimistic story. “…with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (p.445).”
I prepared myself for the upcoming adventurous day. I set out along a less-traveled path through the woods leading to the shore. I could hear every rustle of the newly fallen leaves covering the ground. The brown ground signaled the changing of seasons and nature's way of preparing for the long winter ahead. Soon these leaves would be covered with a thick layer of snow. The leaves still clinging to the trees above displayed a brilliant array of color, simultaneously showing the differences of each and the beauty of the entire forest.
The first images of the garden are seen through the exaggerated imagination of a young child. “” are as “ as flowers on Mars,” and cockscombs “ the deep red fringe of theater curtains.” Fr...
The influence of nature theme, seen in Romanticism, prevails in “The First Snowfall” and “The Snow-Storm” through figurative language, but through different types of figurative language: similes and personification. “The First Snowfall” employs similes in lines 13 to 16 and 19 and 20; “The Snow-Storm” uses personification in lines 3 to 5. The simile in lines 13 to 16, “I stood and watched by the window, the noiseless work of the sky, and the sudden flurries of snow birds, like brown leaves whirling by,” describes the birds that the narrator sees as leaves falling, which presents an influence of nature. The simile in lines 19 and 20, “How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood,” again mentions birds. Whereas, the personification in lines 3 to 5 of “The Snow-Storm,” “...the whited air, Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, and veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. “ personifies snow, (or “the whited air”), and claims that the snow hides and veils; snow, another element of nature, acts as Emerson’s gateway to bring nature into his work; Lowell’s birds act as his gateway.
There has been many cases of fraud that people have lied about housing and unemployment. This leads to questionable debate whether recipients should be drug tested or not. In North Carolina a law has been passes for all of the recipients getting assistance must be drug tested. (Parker 1) “For example, according to The Associated Press, Utah saved $350,000 in its first year of drug-screening welfare applicants, though it found only about 12 people who tested positive” (Parker 1). Many states have questioned this new law to be passed or not because it may save the government money in the long run.
“States Consider Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients.” Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly 21.8 (2009): 4-6 Academic Search Premir. Web. 28 Sept. 2015
As the first rays of the sun peak over the horizon, penetrating the dark, soft light illuminates the mist rising up from the ground, forming an eerie, almost surreal landscape. The ground sparkles, wet with dew, and while walking from the truck to the barn, my riding boots soak it in. The crickets still chirp, only slower now. They know that daytime fast approaches. Sounds, the soft rustling of hooves, a snort, and from far down the aisle a sharp whinny that begs for breakfast, inform me that the crickets are not the only ones preparing for the day.
In "Kew Gardens," the narrator follows different visitors to the gardens, giving the reader brief snapshots of their lives through small descriptions as they reach the same flowerbed. The story begins with a description of the oval-shaped flowerbed. The flowers are red, yellow, and blue. They have petals that are heart or tongue shaped. As the petals fall to the ground, they stain the earth with these colors for a moment. Petals from the flowers soar through the sky in the summer breeze. The flowers' colors flash in the air. On this July day, men, women, and children walk through the gardens. As the people move through the gardens, their movements resemble butterflies. They zigzag in all directions to get a better view of the flowers.
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.