Glorious While It Lasts

I think some of our best sunrises and sunsets come in the month of October. Looking back through my photo archives, my files for October every year are full of vibrant sunrises and sunsets. Maybe it’s just that I notice them more in October. When the trees lose their leaves, the horizon suddenly becomes easier to see. Last week we had several great ones.

Sunrise over the beaver pond.

Sunrise through the bare trees.

Our fall weather has been lovely, warm, and sunny. But, warm or not, nature knows what is coming and is getting ready for it. I realized last week that the robins are gone. It dawned on me one morning as I was filling the bird feeders that I hadn’t seen any in a while. Then, as if to prove me wrong, on Wednesday and Thursday there were lots of robins in the orchard eating the little crab apples. I don’t think these robins were our robins – the ones that spent the summer and nested here. I think our robins left a few weeks ago. These robins were from some place up north and had just stopped in to rest and feed on their way south. I haven’t seen any since then. Our other migrating birds are long gone. We haven’t seen any of the swallows – tree, barn, or rough-winged – in months. The red-winged blackbirds are gone. The last hummingbird I saw was sometime around Labor Day. Long “v’s” of geese fly over now and then headed south. In the spring the sound of the geese flying north is thrilling. In the fall their southbound cries are one of the saddest sounds I know.

We had encounters with other wildlife besides birds last week. A skunk has been coming around at night and digging in our lawn and the Shillig’s lawn. I think it is hunting for grubs. In true skunk fashion, it doesn’t really care if we humans are bothered by its activities. It just moseys around knowing that we know better than to bother it. It does a lot of damage ripping up the turf. Kurt has taken a few shots at it to scare it off, but it isn’t deterred. I would set the live trap to catch it, but I’ve caught them before (by accident when I was trying for woodchucks) and I don’t want to deal with that again.

We’ve also had lots of deer in the yard. I’ve seen their tracks through the soft soil of the flower beds. I’ve found piles of their droppings here and there. On Thursday Kurt said he looked out in the early morning and saw six of them lounging in the orchard near the hazel hedge. I guess my soap deterrent has worn off. There isn’t much for them to damage now. The garden is empty. The apples are gone. I should let them lounge if they want, but I don’t want them to get comfortable. Come spring, I’ll want them gone.

Speaking of deer, we harvested our black beans last week. Even though the deer ate the plants down over and over again all summer, we managed to get two cups of beans. That’s not even enough for one meal – a lot of work for a handful of beans.

Our black bean bounty.

There were a few outdoor tasks to do last week. The weather was fine and I had to find something, anything to do outdoors. I cut down the dead asparagus and covered the bed with straw for the winter. I cleaned out the raspberry beds. Miriam helped me dig up the dahlias and gladiolus and pack them away for the winter. She also helped me wrap the trunks of the smaller apple trees to protect them during the cold months ahead. We started working on the front porch woodpile. The nights are cold now and we’ll have to light the wood stove soon to keep the chill out of the house.

Dahlias and glads drying for winter storage.

The beginnings of the front porch woodpile.

On Wednesday afternoon we did our annual cleaning of the Raymond Cemetery. We gathered up all the flags and the artificial flowers, preparing it for the winter.

The cemetery cleanup crew.

On Saturday Hannah was my helper. She helped me fortify the fence around the chicken yard. It was sagging in places and needed to be strengthened against the winter winds and snow that will soon buffet it. Hannah also spent several hours power-washing the house. Her main task was just to clear the rain gutters of all the leaves that had accumulated in them, but once she got started she kept on going and sprayed off the whole house. It looks good.

Mending fences.

Hannah power-washing the house.

This year’s vinegar moved into phase two last week. It was done with its first cider to alcohol fermentation. I siphoned it from the vat into the glass fermenting bottle and added the vinegar mother. It will take a few months for it to ferment to vinegar. I love homemade vinegar. It has a richer body than the store bought stuff.

Five gallons of almost vinegar.

This weekend was the Orionid Meteor Shower. This nighttime wonder happens each year when the earth passes through the debris from the tail of Halley’s Comet. I went out to the orchard before dawn on Saturday to see what I could see. Potter County is renowned for its night skies. We are so far away from everything that there is very little light pollution here. The sky over the orchard was clear and the stars were bright and crisp. The orchard grass was crunchy with frost. There was Orion the Hunter standing in the sky to the southwest with the Pleiades on his right and his faithful dog, Canis Major, on his left. I stood there for ten minutes, shivering and wishing I’d worn a heavier jacket. Then, as I was about to give up and go back inside, a streak of brilliant white fell between the hunter and his dog down toward the horizon. It was beautiful. I was satisfied having seen just one meteor, so I turned to go back into the house. Venus was glowing in the east just above a dimly brightening horizon. The two bears (dippers), Ursa Major and Minor, were there, the bigger sitting directly over the house. I kept my eyes on the sky as I approached the back porch and saw another meteor fall between the bears, a long line of blue fire. I was glad I got out of bed so early on a Saturday morning.

We’re almost to the end of October now. The weather has been perfect. There are still some places where the trees are beautiful. I was out running errands yesterday and took the long way to Genesee.  I turned at Keech and went over Whitney Hill. It’s a rough road, but that’s not why I drove slowly – I was glorying in the beauty of the world and that takes time.

On Whitney Hill.

On Whitney Hill.