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O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;
When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;
When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.
O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.
Helen Hunt Jackson
My Grandma Rathfon loved this poem by Helen Hunt Jackson. She once recited it to me. My Grandma Rathfon loved the month of October. She loved the fall leaves and the bright blue weather. Mary Elizabeth Showers Rathfon was born in October. Today is her birthday. She would have been 112 years old. She was born on October 7, 1906, in the little town of Port Royal in Juniata County. Every year that she could, Grandma liked to take a drive up through our ancestral homelands of Perry and Juniata Counties to see the fall leaves. I remember taking that drive with her several times. She would tell stories all along the way, pointing out places important to her and to our family, enjoying the beauty of the countryside. Grandma Rathfon was a lovely woman and I adored her. I love October more because of her.
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;
When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;
When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.
O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.
Helen Hunt Jackson
My Grandma Rathfon loved this poem by Helen Hunt Jackson. She once recited it to me. My Grandma Rathfon loved the month of October. She loved the fall leaves and the bright blue weather. Mary Elizabeth Showers Rathfon was born in October. Today is her birthday. She would have been 112 years old. She was born on October 7, 1906, in the little town of Port Royal in Juniata County. Every year that she could, Grandma liked to take a drive up through our ancestral homelands of Perry and Juniata Counties to see the fall leaves. I remember taking that drive with her several times. She would tell stories all along the way, pointing out places important to her and to our family, enjoying the beauty of the countryside. Grandma Rathfon was a lovely woman and I adored her. I love October more because of her.
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| Grandma Rathfon, age 16. |
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| Grandma as I remember her when I was a child. |
I’m hoping we get some bright blue weather this month. So far we haven’t had much sunshine. The leaves are turning rapidly, but the subdued light from our constantly overcast skies isn’t doing a lot to showcase them.
On Tuesday a storm roared through here. It was one of the biggest we’ve had so far this year. It arrived at sunrise just as I was headed down to the barn to do the morning chores. The eastern sky turned a beautiful and eerie shade of reddish orange. There was thunder and lightning and it began to pour rain. The lightning came pretty close to our house. One strike was so close that Hannah saw a spark arc from the faucet while she was standing at the kitchen sink. It also fried our telephones. The storm continued all day and on until sunset when the sky again turned yellow and then intensified into that beautiful shade of orange. We got about three inches of rain during the day. It was a great storm.
On Tuesday a storm roared through here. It was one of the biggest we’ve had so far this year. It arrived at sunrise just as I was headed down to the barn to do the morning chores. The eastern sky turned a beautiful and eerie shade of reddish orange. There was thunder and lightning and it began to pour rain. The lightning came pretty close to our house. One strike was so close that Hannah saw a spark arc from the faucet while she was standing at the kitchen sink. It also fried our telephones. The storm continued all day and on until sunset when the sky again turned yellow and then intensified into that beautiful shade of orange. We got about three inches of rain during the day. It was a great storm.
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| Stormy sunrise on Tuesday, looking east. |
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| A rainbow at sunrise, looking west. |
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| Stormy sunset on Tuesday. |
I’ve mentioned the problem we have with skunks ripping up our lawn. Well I’m hoping we don’t have a problem anymore. On Monday morning there was dead skunk on the highway just down from us. I thought it was our offending skunk, but it wasn’t, or at least it wasn’t the only one. On Monday evening on his way up from the barn, Josiah saw another skunk in our yard. He shot at it and it ran into the old outhouse where, apparently, it had been living. Josiah dispatched it there and came in the house to tell us he’d managed to do it without the skunk spraying. He was wrong. By Tuesday morning the reek of skunk was everywhere. It was dark when he shot it and no one had time to do anything with the remains until Tuesday afternoon, when Josiah took it away. We are still living with the odor. It takes a long time for the smell to dissipate. I hope that’s the end of our skunk problem, but Julie next door says she thinks there is still one more.
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| One of the offending skunks. |
Our apple harvest is well underway now. We’ve harvested all of the Honeycrisp apples, the unknown apples from the tree that fell over, and the Sweet Sixteen, Chestnut, Wealthy, and Golden Russet apples. There is still a lot yet to pick. Some of the trees won’t be ready until later in the month. Our biggest tree, the Northern Spy tree, is ready to be harvested now and it has more apples on it than all the other trees combined. If I had a proper cold cellar, I’d store apples and eat them all winter long, but our cellar isn’t right for storing them. They rot too quickly. So it looks like we’ll be making several trips to the cider mill. I hope some day to dig a real root cellar where I can store my apples and winter vegetables.
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| Picking Golden Russet apples. |
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| The harvest waiting on the back porch. |
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| Beautiful tiny crab apples in the orchard. |
We did some tree maintenance during the week. On Thursday Miriam and Josiah cut up the apple tree that had fallen over in the orchard (after I’d harvested all its apples). They trimmed all the small branches from it and took the trunk with its main branches intact down to the barn where it became a perch for the peafowl. Then on Friday afternoon, Stacey, Josiah, and I worked at trimming the big crab apple tree at the front of the house – the tree where I hang my bird feeders. It had branches that were rubbing on the roof of the house that needed to come down. It also had a lot of dead branches. We worked at it for an hour and trimmed the tree back into shape. There are three more trees in the orchard that need to come down, a pear tree that is almost dead, an apple tree that is diseased, and, alas, my Dolgo crab apple tree that the yellow-bellied sapsuckers have killed. I hate to cut down fruit trees, but my orchard is continually evolving as trees come and go. The Fedco tree catalog arrived in the mail last week and I’m already looking at trees to replace the ones I’ve lost.
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| The peafowls' new roost. |
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| Trimming the front yard crab apple. |
We still have not had frost and my garden is enjoying this extended season of unseasonable weather. I’m still bringing in bouquets of dahlias and zinnias. There are still morning glories blooming on the grape arbor. My angel trumpets are in full bloom. And I have irises in October.
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| Morning glories on the grape arbor. |
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| My angel trumpets. |
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| Irises in October. |
This is General Conference weekend. Yesterday we watched all the sessions and were thrilled by the announced changes to our Sabbath observance. We will continue to watch all the sessions today. The words of every speaker have been inspired. I always feel spiritually uplifted and fortified by General Conference. I feel so blessed to know that Christ directs His Church through continuing revelation to his living prophets.
Tomorrow is Columbus Day and we don’t have school. I have plans for the day. I’m hoping that I have two willing helpers, Josiah and Miriam, to help me work on some big projects. I need to make a new raised bed and plant garlic. I need to get the vegetable garden cleaned out, tilled, and mulched for the winter. I need to clean the barn and get it winterized. I know we won’t finish all of that in one day, but we’ll try. That is if the weather cooperates. The forecast says we have a 30% chance for thunderstorms. I’m hoping the 70% chance that we won’t prevails.
Tomorrow is Columbus Day and we don’t have school. I have plans for the day. I’m hoping that I have two willing helpers, Josiah and Miriam, to help me work on some big projects. I need to make a new raised bed and plant garlic. I need to get the vegetable garden cleaned out, tilled, and mulched for the winter. I need to clean the barn and get it winterized. I know we won’t finish all of that in one day, but we’ll try. That is if the weather cooperates. The forecast says we have a 30% chance for thunderstorms. I’m hoping the 70% chance that we won’t prevails.
