Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, Volume 37, June 23, 1929

Yesterday the summer Solstice but for several days before and after it always seems like the actual day.

Hot, humid weather – a feeling of the perpetual steaming days of half rain & sunlight _ rank vegetation that are supposed to be  characteristic of the early days of this planet – I feel strongly the glory and power of a full-blooded life

(a huge yellow butterfly just lit on some purple canterbury bells in the yard next door )

I sit here by the windows of my little attic, almost too full of happiness to write about it – a warm moist breeze comes in at times, bringing with it a multitude of sounds – the various noises of the roundhouse a mile away – bells a sharp whistle escaping steam – a steamboat from the Buffalo Harbor booms deeply blackbirds calls – a short while ago the air was full of white blinding rain, – the earth now stands hushed – stagnant plants drooping – the earth reeking—

I think of my new son – my first boy – only three weeks old – it seems incredible he is a boy – it is just a baby—

The day he was born – when I went east along the road to get Edna – the first light of dawn coming thru bar-like opening in the northeast sky – to the southeast it was yet night – the waning moon making a splotch of light in the clouds above the creek – that was in deep black shadows—

Then later, when he, a couple minutes old was placed in a basket just below me, he opened his eyes – and I was full of idiotic pride and exaltation because he was a boy—

Then later – when Bertha & he were brought home – and the little girls stood about him in awed delight—

The dense clover back of my studio feels the air with rich odor – life is incredible.

The way to get the most out of life is to confine ourselves to a few simple things, so that we can absorb them thoroughly – I had the happy thought this morning of making a sunflower bed in front of my studio – when I was transplanting them I found one with an odd leaf – in a field of them I would never notice it – but among a few that I handle carefully, it becomes an individual—

Since we have bought this place it makes a difference – I like to think of it as a little community – a narrow strip of land – 33 X 450) in which the lesser creatures & insects belong as much as we do – Besides my wife & I, and our little children there are the hoptoads, and snails and angleworms – and visiting robins starlings, sparrows, and grackles, and there aren’t so many but that they become familiar, and seem as if they might have names – they attain significance because the earth that supports them is ours—

 Charles E. Burchfield, June 23, 1929