I woke up in the wee hours of the morning one day last week and looked out the window and saw Orion rising in the east and felt an involuntary shiver. Orion is a beautiful constellation, so bright in the night sky. But seeing him means the cold days are coming.
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| Orion (not my photo) |
On Wednesday I got home from school in the afternoon and found that the township had been by and mowed down all the asters and daylilies I had growing along the edge of my yard. They’ve tried to do that in years past, but I was usually home and was able to stop them. This time they picked a time when I was not home (intentionally, perhaps) and they won. I don’t know why they are so determined to mow down my flowers. It’s my property. I planted those flowers. They don’t obstruct the view of anything. I fired off an email to the township supervisors. I doubt they’ll pay any attention to it.
We picked the last of our grapes and made two more gallons of grape juice. It was a good year for grapes, the best we’ve ever had. There are still a few clusters on the vines, but they’re hard to reach and I’ll let the blue jays have them. The blue jays are also busy taking hazel nuts from the hedge in the orchard. I used to try to beat them to the nuts, but the nuts are small and when I do pick them, we don’t use them and the jays seem so happy to take them, so I let them. The hazel hedge is beautiful and serves as a windbreak for the orchard – and it makes the blue jays happy. And that’s enough for me.
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| Headed up the Rapley Road on Friday. |
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| On the road towards Ellisburg. |
I’ve been hoping and praying for rain for a long time. Our summer was very dry and our water table dropped considerably. The creeks, rivers, and ponds are low. We’ve had rain now and then, sometimes hard rain, but it still hasn’t been enough to compensate for those long dry weeks. So when it began to rain last week, I felt it wasn’t my place to complain. I knew I should be thankful. But why did the rain have to come just as the leaves were reaching their peak? The season of fall leaf color is so short and fragile. One breezy day, one heavy rain, and it all comes tumbling down. On Friday I was only in school in the morning. It was a sunny day, but I knew rain was coming, so I took the long way home from school. I drove up the Rapley Road onto Cobb Hill, then over towards Ellisburg, then back up Cobb Hill and down the Raymond side. The leaves were very pretty and almost at their best. That evening, when Hannah got home from work, we drove up to the Losey Run Overlook in the Susquehannock State Forest. By then the clouds were moving in and things were looking dull. Saturday the leaves were at their best, but it rained all day and leaves were dropping everywhere. So it goes.
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| Up on Cobb Hill. |
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| Looking over Raymond. |
We are expected to get a hard freeze tonight so yesterday I picked all the tomatoes – green, yellow, orange, pink, or red. I have them laid out on the dining room table hoping most of them will ripen. So tomato season is over – at least the garden growing part. There will still be some canning days ahead as these last ones ripen. I also picked the quinces and the last of the pears. They are also ripening indoors.
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| The last tomatoes. |
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| Quinces and pears. |
I planted pumpkins this year, but they did not like growing in straw bales (another lesson learned) and the vines died before they set any fruit. We eat a lot of pumpkin and we couldn’t go a whole winter without some on hand for pumpkin dump cake, pumpkin bundt cake, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin pie, so we bought six pie pumpkins from the Amish and on Saturday we cooked, mashed, and froze them. One more good thing in the “pantry” for winter.
Because of a proliferation of chipmunks last summer, I stopped filling the bird feeders. The chipmunks went away – thanks mostly to Josiah live trapping and relocating them. Lately I’ve seen chickadees, goldfinches, and nuthatches checking the feeders and looking disappointed to find them empty, so on Saturday I decided it was time to start filling the feeders again. All day I watched to see who would be the first to come to the feeders. Usually the chickadees come first and the other birds follow when they see all the chickadee activity. Well, the first thing to show up at the feeders was – a chipmunk. Ugh. And now there’s no Josiah to fight the rodent war. It looks like I’ll have to take over the chipmunk relocation program.
We had several spectacular sunsets last week. It seems October is all about brilliant color.
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| Sunset on Friday. |
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| Sunset on Saturday. |
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| Keech on the way home from church today. |
Despite the promise of some sunshine today, the weather is still overcast. That didn’t stop us from taking the scenic route home from church. We stopped in Keech to take some pictures from the top of the hill where Theodorus Howe’s farm once stood. Then we drove to the top of the Gazdag Road and took pictures looking down toward Ulysses. The trees are unbelievably beautiful. They would be even more dazzling with sunshine and blue skies. Seeing the trees in their fall glory, I know that God loves color and beauty. He could have created trees that just drop their green leaves in the fall or whose leaves turn gray. But he made them bright with colors that amaze us no matter how times we see them, year after year. I’m thankful for that.
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| Up on the Gazdag Road. |
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| Looking towards Ulysses. |
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| Coming down the Gazdag Road. |
