A toast to my blog family and especially to Chuck and Karen on this, their 26th anniversary:

Observe, when Mother Earth is dry

She drinks the dropping of the sky,

And then the dewy cordial gives

To every thirsty plant that lives.

The vapors which at evening weep

Are beverage to the swelling deep;

And when the rosy sun appears

He drinks the ocean's misty tears.

The moon too quaffs her paly stream

Of luster from the solar beam.

Then hence with your sober thinking!

Since nature's holy law is drinking,

I'll make the law of Nature mine,

And pledge the Universe in wine.