Created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and now hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.
UPDATE from Last Week:
Surprise! Project's finished! (finally)
These are my hose guides. They are inexpensive, easy to make, and have sparked lots of conversations over the years.
When asked what they are, my answers usually include talk of some sort of clandestine surveillance by otherworldly beings or sentient earthworms. (I never have to worry about neighborhood kids on my lawn.)
They needed a new coat of paint and I did something I have wanted to do for a long time. I gave them Eyeballs. Now they really are spooky things watching my garden. 
Today's poem is:
Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market.
This is only an excerpt, and you can find the full text {here} I know it's kind of long,
but the beauty of its terror is incredible.
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”
“No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
. . . Read On . . .
Spring started early this year, only to be punctuated by one last freeze after the bulbs and buds were well on their way.
Luckily, the early bloomers all escaped harm to perform beautifully.
We also had a last rain shower well into the beginning of summer, after trees were fully flowered, which caused some problems. For Orchardists it raised issues with splitting fruit and mold. For folks like myself the problems had more to do with the weight added to fully flowered branches. I had to do some emergency pruning to avoid splitting of major branches.
Right now Spring flowers are beginning to greet their fall cousins still in bloom. The garden is full of birds, mostly hummingbirds, scrub jays, and finches. Sometimes it seems that there are as many finches as there are leaves fallen off the trees.
Speaking of leaves. We have never been blessed with especially showy displays of autumn color here, but this year was different. Well, let's face it, this year has been different all the way around. My crepe myrtle has had the most spectacular reddish orange color. It has never been so beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't think to actually take pictures until the leaves started dropping - and they're dropping fast. I just wish my pictures could do it justice.
