Thursday This, That and Shakespeare

We have received a welcome cleansing from Mother Nature overnight. 

Perfect timing too.

I mowed the lawn for the first time in 2020 yesterday.  

With new white fences, bright yellow daffodils popping every day, leaves on trees threatening to bud out any moment and grass turning greener by the hour, the blend creates some stunning eye candy virtually every direction. 

The orange lawnmower went to work for several hours yesterday after Wizard Tony came to do spring maintenance Tuesday afternoon. 

Tony was a busy man that day, as he took our 4-wheeler with him and was due to pick up my sister's on his next run. 

I couldn't resist taking a picture of what I call "Tony's office," and this is a relatively new one.  I think he has been driving this van for about a year. 

He IS definitely a wizard cuz he can find things in that mass assemblage of all things fix-it. 

For a while, he didn't think that two 42-inch lawnmower blades for the Sears Craftsman were in the mix.

But he kept digging, and, by golly, he found a set. 

This morning's collection of photos also includes some shots of Jack and Colleen's handsome Hereford calves, which were all together with their mom's in a large corral alongside the road yesterday. 

Again, a little vibrant green grass in the background creates a beautiful scene with four-legged babies of any species.  

In the "Who's 456 years old today category?" the answer, of course: English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.  

So, it seems appropriate to end today with a few of the "bard's"  thoughts. 

Even though his thoughts are dated by their official chronology of origin more than four centuries ago, they're pretty timely today. 

I wonder how Shakespeare would craft the tragic events and behaviors we are experiencing at this time. 

~~~~

from As You Like It

                                  All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. 

At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. 

Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. 

And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. 

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. 

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare

~~~~~

from Hamlet

What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? 

He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

 William Shakespeare

~~~~

from Macbeth

 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare

~~~~~

from As You Like It

And, this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything. 

                                                   William Shakespeare