Come, Little Leaves

“Come, little leaves” said the wind one day,
“Come over the meadows with me, and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold;
Summer is gone, and the days grow cold.”

Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the soft little songs they knew.

Dancing and whirling the little leaves went;
Winter had called them and they were content-
Soon fast asleep in their earthly beds,
The snow laid a soft mantle over their heads.

Lots of leaves.

I found myself singing this song a lot last week. When I was a wee lad, my mother used to sing it to us. The words are from a poem by George Cooper, but the tune my mother taught us is not like any version I can find. Right now the leaves are dancing and whirling, but the snow has not yet come to lay a mantle over them, and I’m thankful for that.

The view from the overlook.

Looking up though the trees.

The autumn leaves have about reached their peak now. Some trees are almost bare. It has been glorious while it’s lasted. We take drives around the back roads whenever we can. No matter where we go we ooh and aah over the trees. We drove up to the overlook again. We drove over Sweden Hill. We took a drive out to North Bingham. On days we can’t go for a drive, I wander around my yard. We want to drink in all that color and beauty knowing it will soon be gone.

From our drive over Sweden Hill.

Up on Sweden Hill.

Our new riding mower has a grass catcher on it and I’ve been using it to mow up the leaves on the lawn. It’s faster and easier than raking, plus it chops up the leaves so they decompose faster. I did rake up one pile of leaves into the fire pit for my annual ritual leaf burning. I’m just waiting for a calm, dry day to burn them. I love the smell of leaf smoke.

The leaf pile waiting to be burned.

I also used the mower to mow down the tall grass in the orchard in front of the beehives. Because of my bad reaction to stings, I wanted to do the job quickly. I wore my bee suit and I’m glad I did. The bees came after me, but I was not stung. We’ve decided to give our hives to our Amish friend Irvin Coblentz. He’s supposed to come by and get them one of these days. I wish he’d hurry. I don’t like having to worry about getting stung when I’m working in the orchard.

Mowing the orchard.

Ten or maybe even fifteen years ago I dug up some witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) sprouts I found growing alongside the road up on Cobb Hill and planted them in my woodland garden. They were just tiny twigs then and they’ve grown very slowly over the years. This year, for the first time, they are blooming. They bloom in the fall and have strange stringy flowers. If they set seed – and I hope they do – next year at this time the seed pods will burst. They explode and throw their seeds up to thirty feet away. I’d like to witness that.

Witch hazel blooming in my woodland garden.

Witch hazel flowers.

Work in the garden still goes on, though we will soon reach the end for this year. Last week I dug up the dahlias and set the tubers to dry and then packed them in peat and put them down cellar for the winter.

Dahlia tubers drying for storage.

The fall bulbs I ordered arrived on Wednesday and when I got home from school, I planted them. Instead of spreading them out over the flower bed as I have done in the past, I planted them in a small area at the front end of the bed. It will look nice in the spring when all those crocuses, tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths bloom right in the most prominent part of the garden. I can hardly wait to see them – but it will be a long, long time before I do.

The beaver pond one frosty morning.

We had some pretty cold weather last week. The temperature regularly drops down into the 20's at night now. We have frost almost every morning. We finally relented and started using the wood stove. On Friday we had our old gas floor heater replaced. The old one, which was over 50 years old, was in bad shape and we were afraid to use it anymore. The new furnace is a floor model just like the old one, but much more efficient. We still plan on using the wood stove as our primary source of heat, but it’s nice to have a reliable and efficient back up. Stacey is negotiating with someone to sell us nine cords of wood.

The new furnace grate.

Our new furnace.

Saturday was a beautiful day. It started off cold, but warmed as the day went on. We took advantage of the warmth and sunshine to do some hard garden work. The tomatoes were dead, the corn stalks were brown, and we couldn’t pass up such nice weather to do some outdoor work. Stacey and Hannah helped me. We took down the supports for the tomatoes, hauled the vines to the compost and busted up the bales they were growing in. Then we pulled up the corn stalks and piled them to burn. The ears of corn we picked last week that were hanging on the back porch to dry were ready, so we finished husking them. I grew two kinds this year, Mandan Red (an Indian corn), and Glass Gem. Now we will shell the kernels from the cobs and store them for grinding later. The garden is growing tidy bit by bit and soon will be ready to be tucked away for its long winter sleep.

The tomatoes dead from the frost.

The tomatoes cleared away and the bales broken and scattered.

Our dry corn - Mandan Red at the top and Glass Gem.

This morning when I woke up the sunset was already fading (I slept a little later than usual). It looked like it might have been pretty earlier, but by the time I saw it, it was just a soft pink color in a mostly cloudy sky. Even so, I took the camera and walked down to the beaver pond. I’m glad I did. The pink light made the maple trees in the front yard glow like they were on fire. It was beautiful.

Pink sky this morning.

Maples in the pink sunrise.

This week I will try to finish as many outdoor projects as I can. My list is getting shorter, but there are a few big jobs yet to do like painting the back porch, winterizing the barn, and cleaning the leaves out of the gutters (again). This beautiful weather cannot last much longer.