 |
| An autumn evening. |
Autumn continues to dazzle us with its short-lived beauty. Most all of the trees are past their peak, but there are still some gorgeous specimens here and there. I love the sunlight when it falls through the thinning colored leaves. It’s like light coming through a stained glass window.
Yesterday was one of those busy fall days. The weather was beautiful. I had a long list of things I wanted to do. I thought I had time to do most, if not all of it. I forgot, however, that Josiah was away camping with the Boy Scouts. That made me move some things down the list because I rely on him for a lot of my heavy work. Then Stacey asked me to make a couple of batches of elderberry jelly first thing in the morning. That wasn’t on my list, so I had to move some more things down.
 |
| The view from the North Bingham Cemetery looking south. |
The later in the morning the Amish called and said the grapes we’d ordered from them were ready. That meant an unexpected drive out to North Bingham to pick them up. I didn’t mind – any excuse to drive the beautiful back roads to North Bingham is fine with me. When we got back, I spent the rest of the day juicing grapes. We got a bushel and half of Concord grapes and a half bushel of Niagara grapes. I also picked the Concords off my own vines and added them to the others. I canned ten quarts of juice and I’m only half done.
 |
| Grapes from my own vines. |
 |
| Ten quarts of grape juice. |
At 4:00 we had to leave for a Branch Pig Roast over in Ward, New York. Needless to say, all of the items on my list are still there. Happily, we don’t have school tomorrow because of Columbus Day, and Josiah will be home and Stacey too, so the list might just get finished after all. This is a busy time of year and I love it.
The pig roast was a fun event. Some members of our branch dug a pit in their yard and roasted a pig. They own a nursery (the plant kind, not the children kind) and converted one of their greenhouses into a temporary dining hall. The branch members brought pot luck to supplement the pig – which was good because the pig wasn’t done in time. We played games, ate good food, and had a fun time. Then Stacey, Hannah, and I left the pig roast and drove up to Angelica, New York, to pick Josiah up from camp. On the way there we watched a spectacular sunset.
 |
| Taking pig out of the pit - went right back again. |
 |
| Eating in the greenhouse. |
 |
| Sunset Saturday night. |
We’ve had frost a number of times now. The frost is as beautiful as it is deadly. Anything not hardy is dead. I’m ready to clear out gardens and flower beds – those are items on my list. Tomorrow we’ll tear out the shriveled remains of my nasturtiums, zinnias, and marigolds, dig up the dahlias, and pull up basil and pepper plants. I actually like cleaning up the garden in the fall. I like the garden to be tidy and tucked in for the winter. It makes less work for me in the spring.
 |
| The last rose of summer- frosted. |
 |
| Frosted blackberry canes. |
 |
| Dahlias after frost. |
Daniel will be home on the 22nd. We are very excited for that. So is he. It’s been two years since he left for his mission. They seem like long years in some ways and short in others. I have another list of things for us to do when he gets home. We’re going to clean and winterize the barn, clean the gutters on the house, repair the back porch roof, re-stack the woodpile, and so much more. It’s going to be so much fun.
The woolly bear migration is underway now. Woolly bears are the fuzzy caterpillars of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctica isabella). They hibernate over winter in their larval stage and metamorphose into moths in the spring. Right now they are looking for suitable places to sleep through the winter. I don’t know why so many of them cross the road, but that’s where we always see them. On the way home from church today I counted 38 of them. According to folklore, the wider their middle orange band is, the milder the coming winter will be. I hope that’s right because most of the ones I’ve seen look to be mostly orange. Most of the high tech forecasts I’ve heard say we’re in for a cold, hard winter.
Today when we got home from church the house was so chilly that I decided it’s time to light the furnace. We can burn wood while we’re here, but when we’re gone for hours, which is almost every day, we can’t have a fire and the house cools down too much. The upstairs hall heater has been lit for a week already. And I have the electric heater plugged in here by my desk. Stacey hates to give in, but it’s time to light the furnace. I have a feeling the predictions (except for the woolly bears) of a more severe winter are going to be correct, unfortunately.
