Goldenrod according to Blind Pig Readers:
Carol: It’s been a good year for Golden Rod around here. My honeybees are enjoying it. Packing it in for the winter.
Miss Cindy: This time of year my mother used to always quote a poem….”The Goldenrod is yellow, the leaves are turning brown, the trees in the apple orchard with fruit are bending down”….and that’s all I remember of it. I always notice the goldenrod, how can you not notice it this time of year when it blankets the fields. I know frost will soon be with us and we’ll have to rake leaves.
Ron Banks: I use to help an aunt in-law gather Goldenrod so she could make an herbal tea from it. I don’t remember exactly what is was used for but I think it was for stomach problems and that she would swear by it. If you had an ailment or affliction she had a remedy for it. She was a true Appalachian woman who I admired tremendously. I always think of her when the Goldenrod blooms and what a treasure she was to the people who knew and loved her. R.I.P Punkin!
Tom: Goldenrod is certainly in abundance here in My Old Kentucky home.
B.Ruth: Tipper, Beautiful photo….I think that Goldenrod is the Fall example of Springs (golden bells) Forsythia. There seems to be a contest of yellows…I believe Goldenrod is winning…don’t you? When we were out gathering the “Scuppernongs” last Sunday afternoon, we passed a field, slightly on a hillside. It was a wash of yellow. Actually very breathtaking..not in an allergy sense either…By the time I yelled at the driver, grabbed my camera, we were too far down the Interstate to turn around…I am so glad that I have the picture in my minds eye…such a blessing it was.
Kay Keen: My mother, said when the goldenrod blooms winter is just around the corner.
Hope you enjoyed the Goldenrod comments as much as I did!
Tipper
I have to let y’all know that the goldenrod is STILL blooming some up here in Michigan. I think this may be the latest I can recall it still here. Funny thing, we still have a few late hummingbirds, too. Must be something to that. I’ll have to make a note to keep that in mind in coming years. If the ‘rod is still bloomin, are there still hummers around? Not really scientific, but not completely un-scientific, either.
The British call it
farewell-to-summer.
I just love that.
THOSE BLOOMING GOLDENRODS!
I knew of the poem ’bout Goldenrod,
but my memory has flickered and gone.
When I looked in my head,
it was withered and dead.
So I had to write one of my own.
It is beautiful when blooming
Speak not herein of Goldenrod
Alluring fall paramour of bees
Flaxen flashes foretell its delights
Its dander oft elicits a sneeze
Tipper,
I enjoyed the comments about the
goldenrods. Those are probably the
last of new life we’ll see before
all the leaves start falling.
Hope you all are having a good time
in Gainesville today. Wish I could
be there lost in the audience, but
my woodpile is calling…Ken
From the PoemHunter.com
September by Helen hunt Jackson
The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun
The sedges flaunt the their harvest,
in every meadow nook
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook
From the dewey lanes at morning
The grapes sweet odors rise
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies
By all these lovely tokens
Septembers says are here
With summers best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer
But none of all this beuty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair
’tis a thing which I rember;
To name it thrills me yet
One day of one September
I never can forget
Helen Hunt Jackson
Tipper,
Were your ears burning yesterday afternoon and evening? I was talking about the Blind Pig Gang wishing I could be there seeing you all! At the same time wishing you were here with us at the 22 Annual Fall Heritage Festival and Old Timers Day at Townsend, TN. foothills of the Smokey Mountains. There were little groups of string bands on every corner of the porch (really) of the Visitor Center, in tents in the fields and bluegrass and country bands on the main stage changing every hour. All these old timers were flatfootin’, buck dancing and clogging! Just your regular mountain folks got up and buck danced, clogged etc. Some with taps, some not! I thought boy oh boy those Pressley gals could have danced up a storm for this crowd, when “Down Yonder” and “Orange Blossom Special” was played! A wonderful Fall Heritage event, fried apple pies, story telling, corn dogs, contra dancers, BBQ, fiddles playin’, funnel cakes, old men in beards flatfooting’ and children learning from the old fellers’, kettle korn, Bill Monroe music, did I mention bloomin’ onions’, m gospel music, old noisy antique machine-made ice cream like the olden days! I keep going back to food, when all I had was homemade squeezed lemonade and kettle korn! What I wish also, would be for all those, and there will be many, as it goes on thru Sunday, to see and hear The Blind Pig Gang play, sing and dance!
I talked about you and the Blind Pig Gang every chance I got, telling about your heritage blog and music!
We were home by 10:00 PM, since the foothills are just a hop, skip and jump from home.
We hope to see you soon at one of your events, and who knows some of those folks that I met last night may be there as well! Thanks Tipper,
PS…By the way, the Goldenrod was blooming, but beginning to fade some in the foothills and as evening wore on, it got a bit chilly!
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Tipper. dry them and use in a large churn jar for attraction of onlookers;Mixed with others wild flowers in the fall.
Your beautiful photograph of the bee on the blooming goldenrod stalk, and Miss Cindy’s remembering lines from Helen Hunt Jackson’s poem, “September” made me want to look up the poem and refresh its lines in my memory. Here it is, all 7 stanzas and 28 lines! It was published posthumously (She was born in 1830, died in 1885) in the book, Poems, by Helen Jackson in Boston by Roberts Brothers, Publishers, in 1893. Here is the poem. Go on the walk through all she sees in September’s panoply, beginning with the goldenrod! But you will learn that she’s really enjoying September because it is a special month, an anniversary, of something she remembers and marks as very important in her life. But she does not share what is so special about September. We have to guess what she meant! But you can be assured she knew! Enjoy Helen Hunt Jackson’s poem:
September
(Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830-1885)
The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchard
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
From dewey lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
‘Tis a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
The Goldenrod is supposed to have medicinal benefits, but when it blooms, it sends me looking for medicine. My allergies are always worse this time of year. My doctor must be a Goldenrod fan, as he blames the sneezing and wheezing on Ragweed.
I enjoy seeing the fields of goldenrod as I drive through a rural area. Such a pretty shade of yellow.
A little tune from my elementary school days: “Asters are here and goldenrod too, heap up the cart with yellow and blue.”
Yes, it’s that time of year. The Goldenrod are glorious and lethal to sinuses. LOL!
I would know they are blooming even if I couldn’t see them. I’m really not complaining, it’s just part of living in the mountains and I love living in the mountains!