Indian Summer is a delight. We don’t’ always get one here. Some years the cold comes early and stays on well into spring. This year we were lucky. After a cold spell, warm and balmy weather arrived and gave us a few days of summery weather. Temperatures rose into the high 70's, soft humid breezes blew, a bit of rain fell, and there was plenty of sunshine to make the leaves glow with color. For being the latter half of October, it doesn’t get much better than that. It was wonderful while it lasted – which was until Thursday. Thursday we had thunder and lightning both morning and evening as colder air moved in on us. On Friday a cold heavy rain fell all day. Now normal autumn weather has settled in again. There were even predictions of snow, though they proved false, thankfully.
On Wednesday, just before the weather changed, we began picking the last of our apples. The apples on the Northern Spy tree, the biggest and oldest tree in our orchard, are ready. First Stacey, Hannah, and I picked all the apples we could reach from the ground, then Kurt and Julie came over with ladders and we picked some of the apples higher up. We filled 16 five gallon buckets. There are still as many more apples yet on the tree. We hope to pick them over the next few days. We have an appointment to have them pressed at the Amish cider mill on Thursday afternoon. I can hardly wait to drink some fresh cider.
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| Kurt picking apples. |
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| Apples waiting to be made into cider. |
I love books. I think everyone knows that. I usually have a book with me no matter where I go just in case a moment presents itself so I can read. This house is filled with books. Every room has a bookcase or a bookshelf in it except for the bathrooms. I have collected books all my life. I haven’t read all the books in the house, and I doubt I ever will because new arrivals stay well ahead of my ability to read them. But there are some books among the hundreds that I read and reread even though there are so many that remain unread. I have books that call to me from time to time and I can’t ignore them. Last week I heard E. B. White whisper to me as I looked over my shelves for something to read. I loved E. B. White as a child – Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Trumpet of the Swan were favorites of mine. I didn’t discover grown-up E. B. White until I took a creative writing course in college. The teacher told us that in order to write well, we should read authors who write well. When I asked for some examples, she recommended E. B. White. I went to the library and checked out Essays of E. B. White and fell in love. I loved the book so much, my wife hunted down a copy in a used bookstore and gave it to me as a gift. I have read and re-read that book more times than I can remember. That book, Essays of E. B. White, was the one that called to me last week, a familiar and happy whisper, and I didn’t hesitate to take it down from the shelf. When I opened it, I found a bookmark in the back dated 2012 – the last time I’d read it. I’m reading it now, slowly, as I always do, savoring every little bit of it, laughing at his wry humor, marveling at his wise insights, delighting in the beauty of his words. Even when I don’t agree with what he’s saying, I love the way he says it. If you’ve never read E. B. White’s essays, I recommend them. And if you do read them, I’m happy for the delightful journey you will embark upon.
One of our local landmarks here in Potter County is All Saints Episcopal Church down the road from us in Brookland. It is a pretty church famous for its Old World style and its stained glass windows. I’ve driven past it hundreds of times. We vote in the rectory house next door to it. But I never went inside to see the windows – until last week. We had guests for dinner on Tuesday and we knew they would appreciate seeing the windows, so we arranged for someone to open the church for us. It is a small chapel. It was built in 1889. The exterior is Potter County flagstone and looks like an old English church. The interior is beautiful. The woodwork – rafters, pews, and railings, are all made from Potter County butternut. The floors are red and white Italian marble. The altar is white Italian marble. The two large stained glass windows at either end of the chapel were made in England. They are very beautiful. I’m sorry it took us so long to see them.
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| All Saints Episcopal Church |
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| Window at the back of the chapel. |
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| A detail of the window. |
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| Window at the front of the chapel. |
On Saturday Stacey and I had errands to run that took us out on the back roads through parts of Ulysses, Bingham, Harrison, and Genesee townships. It was a chilly, gray day. The storms and heavy rains from Thursday and Friday have taken down most of the leaves, but even so, it was a beautiful drive. Those four townships are where my ancestors settled so many generations ago. I love these places for my heritage that gives me such deep roots in such beautiful country. I’m glad I belong to this place.
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| Near West Bingham |
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| Near North Bingham |
It’s chilly today and the sunshine comes and goes as the clouds pass by. We saw a few bright trees on the drive to and from church, but the hills are beginning to look drab. The brightest colors we saw were the burning bushes (Euonymus alatus) in the flower beds at the church, and a patch of winterberry bushes (Ilex verticillata) in the swamp along the Genesee just above Keech. I look for those winterberries every year, but there haven’t been any berries on the bushes for several years. I love their bright color shining in the drabness of the swamp. So do the birds. I haven’t seen any robins around for a while. Most of them went south weeks ago, but there were a dozen of them at the winterberry patch when I stopped to take pictures. There were also cedar waxwings, downy woodpeckers, and blue jays there feasting on the berries. I’m glad I stopped when I did. I don’t think there will be many berries left for long.
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| Burning bush at the church. |
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| Winterberry bushes by the Genesee |
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| Winterberry bushes |
