January-July 1895, Ranch Life (Martinez, California) Image 23

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1895
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Rennie; Swett; Sprightly; glacier; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2346; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3345/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

April Friday 19, 1895 Another bright day & warm, watering & cooling the rosebushes & geraniums. The vines putting out their leaves & shoots rapidly & all the vineyards looking hopeful & beautiful especially in the slant lights of morning & evening. Saturday 20 Lovely balmy morning. What a stir there is in every living leaf, every cell a busy factory & how enormously fertile are the kingdoms of insects. The air is all swirling & trilling with singing wings, especially of the Ephemera [mayflies]. They rejoice & play in large assemblies & keep time in a wonderful way going round & round in giddy whirls & spirals mostly from left to right with the sun into which they are geared in some mysterious way. Sunday 21 My birthday. I am told the 57th, & yet I feel only a boy. Must make haste & get work done ere the night falls. Make excursion with the babes to Mt. Wanda. Monday 22 The flood of warm sunshine pours over California with increasing warmth & creaminess. The hill vegetation has mostly gone to seed & leaves are fading. A couple of Parkmann’s house wrens are building a nest in the woodpile, merry singers & sprightly workers, bits of bright unclouded health. Commenced hauling wood. Very hot in the sunshine & rather headachy like the Eastern dogdays. Tuesday 23 Cooler. The trade wind has come deliciously tempering the sunshine. Visit from J. Swett. Wrote to J. Rennie & sent copy of M [Muir] Glacier, sketch of Alaska trip folder, List of writings & Sequoia paper. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3345/thumbnail.jpg