Ellie@Home by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

   Happy Saturday all! I write to you today with a four year old tucked under my arm, so I beg indulgence if odd letters pop up in this post. We're teaching him to type.      Today is the last day of May, and as I listen to the birds sing and smell the lilacs that have bloomed at the bottom of my steps (I'm horribly allergic, by the way!) I can't help but feel summer has truly arrived, even though Litha is still weeks away. No matter: the sun is shining goldenly, my seedlings are growing tall and blossoming, my stepson is graduating in a week; it's summer in this household! And so, to welcome the onset of summer, I took a small vacation...with John Keats. (Yeah, sorry all; no spectacular photos of Cape Ann or Mystic to share with you, not yet anyway.)      I finished reading Endymion last night; it was everything I had heard it to be: lush, lyrical, moving in Endymion's near despair, and then crowned with his triumph and joy. It is also lacking the elegance and

'A house, without garden or orchard, is unfinished, incomplete, does not fulfill our ideas of the homestead, but stands isolate, defiant in its individualism, with a savage, slovenly air, and distance, that lacks softening and blending with the surrounding landscape.' A. Bronson Alcott, Concord Days      A bit extreme, I think. I hardly think a house without a garden looks 'savage' or 'slovenly,' but we must bear in mind that Bronson Alcott was wont to compare others to himself and usually find them wanting; and he was an avid gardener. Again, a bit extreme, but I can empathize: I love flowers, and have pots on my back steps planted with peas, beans, lettuce and squash.     ~*~*~*~*~       In his essay 'Berries' Alcott includes William Ellery Channing's poem Our Blueberry Swamp , which is a clear example of the love both men had for the New England woodlands they came from. Our Blueberry Swamp    ~W.E. Channing  Orange groves m

     I have finished Thoreau's Walking , and while exquisitely written and definitely thought-provoking, I did not find it as moving as Nature. (Though in all honesty I believe chapter 8 of Nature eclipses all the rest of the book.) I do appreciate Thoreau's metaphors, however: walking through nature as a metaphor for living life, and the observations we make of nature while walking as the development of our own consciousnesses.      I am several chapters into Concord Days by Bronson Alcott. Though I have zero respect for the man, his biographer John Matteson ( Eden's Outcasts ) claims it is one of Alcott's better books. (Possibly his best, as Record of a School was actually written by Elizabeth Peabody.)      Alcott's memorial essay on Thoreau is incredible: clear, honest, it bespeaks of his admiration and of an affectionate friendship. His essay on Emerson is not so good, which is surprising, considering Alcott considered Emerson to be his dearest friend a

   Greetings all; it's been a few days, a few crazy-busy days, as my household gears up and dives into end of the school year happenings. We've hit the weekend now, though, not just any weekend, but THE weekend, that 3 day stretch of fun and freedom, Memorial Day weekend. Not just for beach and barbecue fun, though. Let us not forget all those currently serving, those waiting to be called up, and those that have done their duty to family and country. Thank a veteran if you know any, and if you don't, take a moment amid your weekend revels and spare a thought for all of those who have, and are, giving themselves for their countries.      In my last post I shared a summer reading list; I have commenced, and in fact just finished the first part, namely Ralph Waldo Emerson's incomparable essay Nature, which is not about nature, as one might expect, but rather the human mind, and how it relates to, and relies on nature for its completion and wholeness.      What are we,

sends me a poem a day, and today's is a perfect paean to spring! Enjoy!! The Frog Pool Week after week it shrank and shrank as the fierce drought fiend drank and drank, till on the bone-dry bed revealed the mud peeled; but now tonight is steamy-warm, heavy with hint of thunderstorm. And hark! hark! hoarse and harsh the throaty croak of the frogs in the marsh: "Wake! wake! awake! awake! The drought break!" but no, that chorus seems to me more a primeval harmony. The thunder booms, the floods flow blended with deeper din below, and every time the skies crash the swamps flash! and the whole place will be tonight a pandemonium of delight. James Martin Devaney   

Summer Reading List   1. Nature: Ralph Waldo Emerson; Walking: Henry David Thoreau Essays by two of Transcendentalism's greatest minds.             2. Concord Days: A. Bronson Alcott   A collection of essays, not just about Concord , but various topics Alcott found interesting. Should be an experience.   3. Endymion: John Keats Ah, Keats. One of his great romantic epics.   4. The Celtic Twilight and a Selection of Early poems: W.B. Yeats A volume of essays on the nature of the faerie realm within Irish culture, as well as poetry.   5. Madame Curie: A Biography: Eve Curie A biography of one of science's greatest minds, written by her daughter.   6. The Book About Blanche and Marie: A Novel: Per Olov Enquist style='float:left imageanchor=1' v:shapes="_x0000_i1030"> Sadly, a work of fiction. Blanche Wittman was a real person, and she really was Marie Curie's lab assistant. Unfortunately, there is