p.m. – in studio studying the “Spider Web Tree”
AM – To Beech Camping Grounds Berrying – A cool windy morning – Bobwhite comes up from remote rainy meadows sparrowhawks sporting over Posts Clover-field – killdeers in bottoms
Often I say to myself, “This is the best time of the year.” I say it every day the year thru. And it is true. Every season is the best. I cannot conceive of a true lover of nature “despising” winter but liking summer or vice versa.
At Huron and Washington, on our way to the Mohawk Ramp, we turned and looked westward. I was amazed at the incredible beauty of the scene, these commonplace buildings and electric sign supports (the Genesee Bldg) seemed translated into fabulous objects
I walked up over the hill, and found myself in a clump of blackberry bushes, the surge of heat that came up from the ground, seemed good to me; a feeling came thru every part of my body that I was nearly recovered, that my blood was running hotly, and a new strength from deep within me.
What a cheerful thing is a fire in the woods: Even on a warm night [its] heat is a pleasure; the flames take on all shapes. The weeds around camp are no longer weeds but some beings advancing on us. Away from camp we still look back at fire & feel cozy.
Charles Burchfield taught Summer Session at the University of Minnesota, Duluth Branch, July 26-August 17, 1949. Bertha accompanied him on the trip, stayed until August 27, 1949, and drove home, arriving on August 29, 1949. In this account, as if recounted for his children, he refers to themselves as Dad and Mom.
What I need most of all now is a period of complete solitude in which I can meditate at length – It is essential to my being – yet it is denied me –