All Is Safely Gathered In

Sunrise on the last day of October.

Last week we said good-bye to October. It seemed like a very short month. Its final days were among its best. On Tuesday, the penultimate day of the month, we finally had a sunny day – the bright blue weather I’d been waiting for all month. It had been so long since we’d seen sunshine that I hardly knew what to do with myself. It was cold in the morning, there was frost, but after things warmed up a little and thawed out, I went outside to work and didn’t come in again all day. By the afternoon I’d finished all that I needed to do in the flowerbeds. They are ready for winter now.

That afternoon when everyone was home from work, we drove up the road and cleaned the Raymond Cemetery. Our family always puts the flags on the graves around Memorial Day and in the fall we clean away all the flags and flowers for the winter. I have lots of kin in that cemetery, among them are my great-grandparents, Theodorus Howe and Anna May Stevens, their infant son Josiah Howe, and their three daughters, my great aunts Sarah Howe, Esther Howe, and Eleanor Ramsey.

Raymond Cemetery after cleanup.

When we got home from the cemetery, we picked apples. I knew that cold and wet weather was coming and it would be our last chance to pick the Northern Spy apples. Many of them had already fallen to the ground and were rotten. We spread sheets on the ground and Josiah climbed into the tree and shook the branches. Then we gathered up the good apples. There were some nice big apples this year. Now we have thirteen buckets of apples of several varieties on the back porch. Some we will press for vinegar. Some we will eat over the next few weeks. We had a good harvest this year.

Josiah shaking down apples.

Wednesday was Halloween. In the morning it was warm and breezy. The forecast said it would all go away in the afternoon when cold and rain would return, so I hurried and mowed the orchard. I only mow it twice a year – once in early summer and again in the late fall. With the fruit trees empty and the tall grass mowed, the orchard is also ready for its long winter sleep. Just as I finished mowing, the wind changed and rain started to fall.

The mowed orchard.

We are not enthusiastic observers of Halloween. We don’t do extravagant decorations. We don’t usually do costumes, having no reason to wear them as we don’t go to parties (probably a consequence of not having very many friends). We do have a few traditions that we keep. Living out in the boondocks, we don’t get trick-or-treaters, but we always have candy on hand. Knowing that no one will come to our door, we (meaning those that actually eat candy) make sure the kind we have is the kind we like to eat ourselves. We usually carve pumpkins. We did that on Tuesday night. We usually watch E.T. The Extraterrestrial. We did that on Tuesday while we carved pumpkins. On Halloween we usually pick a good movie to watch while we eat the candy that no one came trick-or-treating for. This time we watched the classic 1944 thriller Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, and a very young and saucy Angela Lansbury. That’s all we did.

Carving pumpkins.

While watching E.T.

Halloween night.

Now it’s November and so far it’s been cold and rainy, which is the usual sort of November weather. I’ve reached the point now where the things that occupy my time have shifted from exterior to interior. From now until the spring, I won’t do much outdoors except the daily chores down at the barn. Instead, I’ll fill up my spare time with indoor things. I’ll work on painting my sign orders. I’ll do more family history research. I’ll tend my houseplants. I’ll watch the birds at the feeders. I’ll read books. Lots of books. I read books all year long, but when the garden goes to bed for the year the amount of books I read increases dramatically. I’m always looking for new literary adventures – new authors I haven’t met before, new books by authors I already know and love, classics, fiction, non-fiction, the new, the old – I welcome it all. I’m making my winter reading list now.

I wrote last week that I’d rescued an ailing orchid that was for sale at our local K-Mart. Ever since seeing my first one, I have been fascinated by orchids. My first orchid encounter was when I was eight or nine years old. I remember examining an orchid corsage my mother wore one Easter. I know now that it was a cattleya orchid, the kind most often used in corsages. All I knew back then was that it was beautiful and fragrant. I think that may be when I caught orchid fever – the insatiable desire to collect and care for orchids. The fever didn’t consume me right away. It slowly incubated over the years that followed as I read books, watched television documentaries, and dreamed about orchids. I never actually owned an orchid until we lived here. In 2003 someone gave me an orchid plant. It was a moth orchid they’d bought at a grocery store because it was pretty when in bloom, but after the blossoms fell off, they weren’t interested in caring for it. It was in poor shape when it came to me. I nursed it back to health and got it to bloom again. I still have it. It still blooms every year. Since then I have acquired other orchids. Some were given to me, some I bought. I’m sure orchid fever is a real thing. I read an entire book about it several years ago, Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy, by Eric Hansen. It’s a good book and I recommend it if you are prepared to catch orchid fever, a possible side effect from reading it. Since buying that sad K-Mart orchid, the fate of the other orchids that I didn’t buy kept haunting me. Finally I couldn’t take it any more. I went back to K-Mart one morning last week and bought two more. These two are in worse shape than the first one, but were still the best of the bunch they still had. These two also have impressive names (it seems all orchids do) Burrageara Francine ‘Roseglow’ and Oncidium Wildcat ‘Green Valley’. I would have purchased all of them if I’d had the means, although I doubt any of the rest will live. Someday, perhaps, I’ll build a big greenhouse and collect as many orchids as I can. That’s the ultimate dream of a victim of orchid fever. Until then, I’ll happily tend and admire the beauties I already own.

New orchids.

Yesterday was a cold windy day. It rained for a while. Then it sleeted. Then it snowed. Then the sun came out for a few minutes. Despite all that crazy weather, we worked outdoors all day and managed to get a lot done. Josiah and I spent most of the day down at the barn. We finished cleaning it, built some shelves to hold supplies, set up the electric line for the heated waterer, and sealed the windows. The barn is winter ready now. That’s one more project crossed off the list.

Working in the barn.

The tidy barn.

We also put up a big 8' x 8' barn quilt yesterday. I painted this barn quilt a few months ago for our local quilting club, Hooterville Junction. But the club planned to relocate, so we didn’t install the barn quilt until they had moved. Their new location is just across the way from us at the old Gold Church, or what remains of it. The main part of the church, the old part, was torn down last year. The newer part is all that remains and that’s where Hooterville Junction is now. So with the wind blowing, and the occasional shower of sleet and snow, we assembled the barn quilt and secured it to the side of the building. It took me, Stacey, Josiah, Miriam, and our senior missionary couple, Elder and Sister Cluff, to get the job done. But it’s done and I’m glad. When we finished, the Cluffs came back to our house for dinner.

Putting up the 8' x'8'.

Last night as Josiah was closing the barn and doing his nightly yard patrol he came upon The Skunk. It was in the Shillig’s front yard doing its thing, tearing up the lawn. He shot it dead and disposed of the carcass. This was the third skunk we’ve had to dispatch. We’re hoping it is the last. Our poor lawns look like a crazy person with a roto-tiller attacked them. This morning we can still smell the final offender. Its parting gift to us will linger all week.

We set the clocks to Eastern Standard Time last night. That means my body clock will be out of sync for a few days. I will still wake up at my usual time, except the clock will say 4:30 instead of 5:30. I will try to sleep another hour, unsuccessfully for the first few days. Then things will normalize again – until spring when we switch the clocks again. For now, it’s nice to have light earlier in the morning, but sad to have sunset come so early in the evening. Sunrise will come at a more convenient time for a while until the days grow even shorter. Before the change, the sun started to come up just as I was leaving for school and I didn’t have time to enjoy or photograph it. I’d be happy if they abolished the time change and left the clocks alone.

Sunrise this morning.

We’re having fine autumn weather today. Our drive to and from church was very pretty. There are a few late trees, mostly beech and oak, that have turned. The colors aren’t too bright, rusty reds and yellows, but I was happy to see them. The larch trees on the hill above Gold are turning the appropriate shade of gold. We’ve already eaten lunch. Josiah has a fire going in the wood stove. I need to go down and do the afternoon chores. And then I plan to relax and enjoy the rest of my Sabbath.

On our drive home.

The larches of Gold.