An Indian summer

To-day we are having an Indian summer. The whole Indian summer may well span only this day but how lovely to fling open the windows and go out without a coat, hat and scarf. Anticipating an Arctic winter I have been standing smugly by my wood pile, congratulating myself on having ordered some in on time and stacking them relatively neatly so they don't all topple over.  As Beezle and Lao Tzu would say "Great acts are made up of small deeds."

 Having wanted to photograph this new design that we planted up - all summer - I finally managed to remember to take my camera when I went to visit one of my clients. It's past its best now of course - you have to imagine it with lots of purple Salvia caradonna and blue iris sibirica in there as well.

You can't see these heavenly verbascums but they are in there as well. They are so delicate and before each flower opens they look like ruby beads on a stem.

 I think I have become A Sentimentalist. My client has invested in a small lawn mower that mows the lawn all on its own. It looks like an armadillo and it sets off along a given path, its little blades furiously cutting under its carapace. Sometimes, if it reaches a steep bit it might topple over but it rights itself and carries on, then finds its way back to its re-charging station, plugs itself in and waits patiently until it has charged itself up again. I couldn't help feeling sorry for it and the sight of it saddened me. I think this is taking anthropomorphism too far.

Pixie agrees and hopes I'm not going to employ something similar to take her on a walk.
I must send my client this poem by Rudyard Kipling. A short extract of which is below.

The Secret of the Machines

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(MODERN MACHINERY)

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,   

   We were melted in the furnace and the pit—   

We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,   

   We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.   

Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,

   And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:   

And now, if you will set us to our task,

   We will serve you four and twenty hours a day.

 But remember, please, the Law by which we live,   

   We are not built to comprehend a lie,

We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.

   If you make a slip in handling us you die.   

We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—

   Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods.-

Our touch can alter all created things,

   We are everything on earth—except The Gods.