Unaccustomed Views

For the first time last week the much dreaded symbol for snow appeared on our forecast. I saw it on Tuesday when the weather was still warmish and I hoped they were mistaken. I still had visions of our trip to North Carolina in my mind. But on Thursday the weather changed dramatically. It was Halloween after all. It began to rain and then in the night the wind began to roar. By Friday morning any semblance of warmth was gone. There was a crust of ice and snow on the car when I left for school and little patches of snow here and there on the ground. It all disappeared quickly, but I see that little flake symbol on the forecast charts for this week too. Welcome to November.

Our weather this week - snow.

In my advancing years I find that I mind the cold much more than I used to. In years past I usually didn’t get out my flannel and fleece lined clothes until real winter had set in, sometime after Christmas. I’m already wearing them this year. I was once a lover of the snow, but not so much anymore. I acknowledge its benefit to my garden. I’ll grant it that. If it would only behave itself and fall when I want it to and to a depth of my liking, I would love it still. I do love the way it looks when things are supposed to look snowy. And I sometimes like using the snow as an excuse to cancel everything and just stay home. But that is the limit of my liking these days.

At the beginning of the week, when it was still a little bit warm, well not really warm, but not bitingly cold like it was later in the week, I worked on that big pile of mushroom soil out in the garden. I distributed it among my flower beds. I filled one of the raised vegetable beds with it. The pile is getting smaller, but there’s still plenty more to move. I still have six raised beds and the raspberry patch to cover with it. I need to get it done quickly now. I guess I’ll just have to bundle up and do it.

The slowly diminishing pile of mushroom soil.

Thursday was Halloween and, in keeping with our tradition, we didn’t do much. Miriam and Hannah carved pumpkins on Tuesday while we watched E.T. We never get trick-or-treaters at our house, but we usually use the possibility as an excuse to buy candy which we eat ourselves (some of us anyway). We didn’t even do that this year. On Halloween we watched a scary movie, as we always do. Miriam and I like scary movies, but Stacey and Hannah do not, so the scariness level is never very high. Miriam and I convinced them to watch Scary Stories to Tell in Dark with us, assuring them it wasn’t very scary (we’d both seen it before). They only had to cover their eyes a few times. That’s all we did. Our grandchildren, however, did go trick-or-treating. I wish they could have come here.

Carving pumpkins.

The finished jack o'lanterns.

Ellie, Gwen, and Henry.

Hazel, June, and Mabel.

Our son-in-law Tosh arrived on Thursday. He’s been doing some work here for the people that Stacey and Hannah work for installing security cameras around their property. He left this morning to go home to Michigan. He’ll be back later in the week to finish the job. He and Sarah are moving next week to Toledo, Ohio. Sarah has a new job in Toledo and has been commuting for the last few months. They bought a nice house in Toledo. We will go out to help them move in when it’s time.

Saturday was a bright day, but breezy and cold. The morning was frosty, but after several days of dreary weather, I had to go out and greet the sun. I took a walk along the perimeter of our property. There were red-winged blackbirds singing down at the beaver pond, which surprised me. That is a sound of the spring. I think it was a farewell song before they fly south.

On a brisk morning walk.

The beaver pond.

Later that morning, Miriam helped me put up Christmas lights on the front porch. I know it is early, but I wanted to take advantage of what little warmth there was. We usually wait too long when it’s much colder. So they are up, but we will not light them until after Thanksgiving.

Putting up Christmas lights.

On Saturday afternoon, Stacey and I got a cord of firewood. We bought it from an Amish family up in Shongo, New York. They always have reasonable prices – $60 for a cord of mixed hardwood. We brought it home and Miriam helped us load it on the back porch. It’s time to start using the wood stove now.

The woodpile on the back porch.

November is here and my mind can’t quite grasp that the year is so far gone. When I look out the windows in the mornings I’m surprised to see all the trees bare. The garden’s shades of brown and rust and tan seem out of place. There are still some spots of subtle color here and there. The tulip tree in the front yard, always the last tree to change in our yard, still has yellow-brown leaves the color of overripe bananas on it. The sedum in the long bed is clinging to a bit of rusty red that looks especially pretty when it’s touched with frost. Out in the orchard there are a few red apples still clinging to two of the trees. And the Wayman crab apple tree is loaded with tiny bright red fruit that remind me of Christmas decorations. The hazel hedge has lost its bronze leaves, but the nuts in their husks look like strange brown flowers. And on the hill above Gold, the larch trees have turned gold. They are autumn’s last hurrah. Soon the wind will blow and all their needles will fall at once and then the hills will be brown.

The not-so-colorful garden.

The tulip tree.

Frosted sedum.

The Wayman crab apple.

The hazel hedge.

Hazel nuts.

The larches of Gold.

It has been weeks since we cut the trees in the woodland garden down, but I just can’t get accustomed to their absence. The yard looks too open, the house too exposed. Now when I walk around the property, I find strange vistas viewed from angles that were not possible when the trees stood. I can’t wait until spring when I’ll plant a new woodland.

You can see the house from the highway now.

Strange side view.

We set the clocks back last night and so the day seems off kilter to me. When we got up this morning there was more patchy snow on the ground. On the way to and from church there were brief smatterings of snow swirling in the air. I was cold at church, but I always am. It seems they can never get the thermostat set correctly for comfort. Now we’re home and I’m still cold.  Outside it is overcast and cold. There isn’t much sun on this Sunday. I’ve put on fleecy sweat pants, a warm shirt, a hoodie, and wooly socks. I’m sitting here by my little electric heater hoping we have something warm for lunch. I think that I will light the wood stove before lunch. Miriam is practicing Christmas carols on the piano. She says she needs to start playing them now so she’ll be good at them by Christmas. In our branch council meeting at church this morning we started making plans for our branch Christmas dinner. I’m not ready for all of that yet. I wish we could turn a month back instead of just an hour.

Early this morning.