Sweet Wayfaring

To wrap up this trip, here are some of the farm gates seen in Cabonne Country. And it's back home for a while, I'll start something new at the Blue Mountains Journal today , see you over there.

Over the road from the orchard I saw these bull rushes which I thought were pretty with their flower spikes forming.

Another chance to apply the red rule at the orchards around Mount Canobolas on our way into Orange and home. Musing: From The Garden by Andrew Marvell "What wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head ; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach ; Stumbling on melons as I pass, Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness : The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find ; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas ; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade."

How's this for a rare find! I thought they had all been eradicated by zealous councils and replaced by the low plastic variety with soft plastic turf below. They had a big dangerous see-saw and high swings too in this park. The kids would love it. Musing: A Wish for My Children by Evangeline Paterson " On this doorstep I stand year after year to watch you going and think: May you not skin your knees. May you not catch your fingers in car doors. May your hearts not break. May tide and weather wait for your coming and may you grow strong to break all webs of my weaving.

On the way home we went through Borenore (15kms outside Orange) which proudly announces on the entrance into town that it is home of the Borenore shop (note singular) and Australian National Field Days which according to their website is "Australia's oldest annual agricultural exhibition where visitors will see a vast range of agricultural machinery, implements, services and ideas. Each year over 600 exhibitors from throughout Australia and overseas display their products and services at our event." So for a few days each year the place becomes alive. Musing: I Meant To Do My Work Today by Richard Le Gallienne I meant to do my work today, But a brown bird sang in the apple tree, And a butterfly flitted across the field, And all the leaves were calling me. And the wind went sighing over the land, Tossing the grasses to and fro, And a rainbow held out its shining hand-- So what could I do but laugh and go?

There is a lovely picnic and camping spot at Ophir, beside the still water. Musing: From Endymion by John Keats "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits.

And red rule applied again, I think to good effect. Musing: If I can stop one heart from breaking by Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

Red rule applied to give yet another corrigated iron shed a point of difference. Musing: Love and Friendship by Emily Bronte Love is like the wild rose-briar, Friendship like the holly-tree -- The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms But which will bloom most constantly? The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring, Its summer blossoms scent the air; Yet wait till winter comes again And who will call the wild-briar fair? Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now And deck thee with the holly's sheen, That when December blights thy brow He may still leave thy garland green.

When I noticed this fence around the graveyard, I had to take a photo. I've become entranced by fences. Musing: When death comes by Mary Oliver "When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measles-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth tending as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married ...

We drove on to Ophir, home of the first payable gold field found in Australia. There is nothing there to show the town that was in the 1850s ... just disturbed landscape reclaimed by nature and a few old graves. Musing: A slumber did my spirit seal by William Wordsworth "A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course With rocks, and stones, and trees." This is a repost participating in the taphophile tragics meme.

And at the local hall too. What was it -- a meeting place, a shop, a dance hall? Musing: but if a living dance upon dead minds by e.e. cummings but if a living dance upon dead minds why,it is love;but at the earliest spear of sun perfectly should disappear moon's utmost magic,or stones speak or one name control more incredible splendor than our merely universe, love's also there: and being here imprisoned,tortured here love everywhere exploding maims and blinds (but surely does not forget,perish, sleep cannot be photographed,measured;disdains the trivial labelling of punctual brains... -Who wields a poem huger than the grave? from only Whom shall time no refuge keep though all the weird worlds must be opened? )Love

And the same thing happened at the petrol station. Musing: Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop Oh, but it is dirty! --this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several quick and saucy and greasy sons assist him (it's a family filling station) Do they live in the station? It has a cement porch behind the pumps, and on it a set of crushed and grease- impregnated wickerwork; on the wicker sofa a dirty dog, quite comfy. Some comic books provide the only note of color-- of certain color. They lie upon a big dim doily draping a taboret (part of the set), beside a big hirsute begonia. Why the extraneous plant? Why the taboret? Why, oh why, the doily? (Embroidered in daisy stitch with marguerites, I think, and heavy with gray crochet.) Somebody embroidered the doily. Somebody waters the plant, or oils it, maybe. Somebody arran...

Euchareena is like a town that stopped. This dray isn't in a museum, it's in the paddock near the house, just as if one day they parked the dray, put the horse out the pasture and time stood still. Musing: By Arnold Bennett "You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the magic tissue of the universe of your life. No one can take it from you. No one receives either more or less than you receive. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt. You can only waste the passing moments. You cannot waste tomorrow. It is kept for you."

We stopped so I could try to get a picture of the poplars (I got better at it later on). I wondered what the yellow crop was in the field then realised that it was grape vines losing their leaf so pulled up a little further on to get a shot of those too. Writing of Colin Thiele the other day reminded me of another of his books. I remember my very pious grandmother asking my sister what book was she reading. She told her the title "Labourers in the Vineyard". Grandma was well pleased -- a good religious book she thought. That gave us more laughs than any of Colin Thiele's stories. Musing: From the Holy Bible John 15:5 (New International Version) "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Yesterday's shearing shed was near this cluster of old houses. Musing: From The Women of the West by John Essex Evans They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill, The houses in the busy streets where life is never still, The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best: For love, they faced the wilderness - the Women of the West. The roar, the rush, and fever of the city died away, And the old-time joys and faces - they were gone for many a day; In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains, O'er the everlasting sameness of the everlasting plains. In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run, In the tent beside the bankment of the railway just begun, In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man’s unrest, On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.

I stopped to take a picture of the shearing shed (below) but thought this pile at the gate was just so typical I decided to feature it instead. Musing: From Outback by Henry Lawson "The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought; The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out; The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black- And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back. For time means tucker, and tramp you must, where the scrubs and plains are wide, With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide; All day long in the dust and heat- when summer is on the track- With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags Out Back"

After the church it's back to the featureless flat paddocks. Musing: From Figures in a Paddock by John Kinsella "The sky is brittle blue, foliage thin but determined: colour indefinable beyond green." Read the whole poem at John's website .

Country churches pop up in the landscape. No town around them, just the little church like a beacon for the farming families that built them. Sometimes lovely in stone, sometimes timber and sometimes corrigated iron. Some well kept, some turned into homes, some disused and some roofless and dilapidated. Musing: From Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: