I promised to show you the beautiful piece of glasswork made by our very talented nephew, Mark Lucas, who lives and works in Jerome. It was so well packed and survived perfectly.

Glass bowl  by Mark Galen Lucas

When leaving The Grand Canyon, we called in at Jacob Lake where there is a very tempting shop full of lovely art work and we bought this quirky little chicken made by a Navajo artist, Charlene Watchman. He is less than 6″ tall and we loved his cross-eyed expression.

Chicken by Charlene Watchman

Today in the Guardian on their Weatherwatch page, they quoted from John Keats‘ “Ode to Autumn” in their discussion of climate change as this season comes along rather later than it did in1819 when Keats wrote these lovely evocative words on 19th September.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Over the next few days I will show you more of the beautiful little treasures we brought home with us.