Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

86. webs of the funnel-shaped kind - A cicada or two beginning to be heard at midmorning, grasshoppers putting in the appearance The season is (CD) mounting to the full power and glory of midsummer.

July 21 (Tues.) - Out gathering material for the wheat-field picture - to the usual haunts - first to the country north of Lancaster, where I made studies, and then to Rice Road, then to the original scene by Cowlesville (on Bullis Road) then to the junction of Jamison Rd and Marilla Road, to eat my lunch. Here a pleasant hour or two sitting at the edge of a maple grove, contemplating the wide-stretching landscape. The sky full of cumulus clouds, thru which the sun filtered in broad banded rays -

     On July 17 (Friday) - B + A + I to Cassel's near Marilla to get raspberries - C— + B— (CD) (with their boy William) had been in for the afternoon and for supper. Whatever congeniality there had been between C— and I (it was chiefly it seemed thru music) seems to have died out. Carl was in his usual argumentative mood, quoting at great length from some book by Spengler, who has it that Western Civilization has been declining for centuries. Bored by the whole business (for whether or not our civilization is declining concerns me not at all) it was a release to get out into the country.

     A storm that had occurred while we at supper (sic) had passed, and the north sky was over-cast with dark clouds - the field full of wheat shocks, running back to a little woods, mysterious