A Season for Thanks

We’re in a new month now. It’s November, and the year is winding down. There are only seven weeks left in 2016 and I know they will go by quickly. I like this time of year. The garden is done and tidied and ready to sleep until spring. The harvest and canning season are over and all the food is stored away in cupboards and down cellar. The house is snug with our trusty wood stove and our new furnace ready to keep us warm through the cold winter days ahead. I almost feel like saying (not singing) “Let it snow,” but I won’t. Not yet. It can hold off until after Thanksgiving. Then I’ll sing it.

The beaver pond on an autumn afternoon.

November actually began with a “heat wave.” The temperature rose into the high 70's on Wednesday – not bad for November. We had some rain during the latter half of the week. I think it’s safe to say the drought of 2016 is over. The ponds are full and the rivers are running normally again. I'm thankful for that.

The last bits of autumn color are manifesting themselves now. Out in the meadow in front of our house the huckleberry patch has turned a smoky red. Here and there on the hills there are patches of bright yellow poplars and rust and burnt orange oaks still to be seen. And on the hill above Gold, the larch trees are glowing their varied shades of yellow and gold. When they’re done and their leaves drop (or needles in the larches’ case) autumn will be over – at least as far as color is concerned.

The huckleberry patch.

The larch trees of Gold.

Speaking of color, we saw an odd bird last week. Red-tailed hawks are very common around here, they are our most common bird of prey, but last week Stacey and Hannah came home from work and said they saw a white bird that looked like a red-tail down on Seven Bridges Hill. I grabbed my camera and we jumped in the car and drove down to take a look. It was indeed a white red-tailed hawk. I managed to take some photos before it flew off into the woods. When we got home, I emailed my friend Dave Hauber, the local bird expert, and he said the white hawk has been seen around Seven Bridges for several years now. I was glad we got to see it. It was beautiful.

The white red-tailed hawk.

We finally finished my project list last week – that is, everything that’s going to get done is done now. On Tuesday I spent most of the day cleaning the back porch and woodshed. When Stacey and Hannah got home from work that afternoon, they helped me spread manure on the asparagus patch and the rhubarb. On Wednesday after school I burned the leaves that had piled up along the road edge of our property. Yesterday I spent most of the day at the barn washing windows and scrubbing out the chicken waterers. That afternoon, Stacey went up on the roof to clean out the gutters with the power washer one last time. She’s braver than I am when it comes to heights, but you should have heard her scream when she hit a hornet’s nest with the sprayer and it fell down beside her. It was empty, but she didn’t know that. Later in the afternoon Stacey finished up the season’s canning by turning the last of the tomatoes and apples into several quarts of salsa and apple pie filling. Then in the evening, in a fit of completeness, Hannah and I put up the outdoor Christmas lights. We won’t turn them on until after Thanksgiving, but it’s nice to have them up before the weather gets bad. So, that’s it. We’re done. Anything else will have to wait for spring.

Burning leaves.

Stacey cleaning gutters.

There isn’t much to report after the garden is done for the year. My only outdoor responsibilities now will be my daily chores down at the barn. We’ve arrived at the time of year when I mostly keep myself busy in my spare time with family history research, painting my barn quilts, reading books, and watching movies. My gardening for the next long months will consist of tending houseplants. Speaking of houseplants, my Christmas cacti are getting ready to bloom. I guess they’ve decided to follow current marketing trends and begin the Christmas season before Thanksgiving.

One of four Christmas cacti I have, all of them in bud now.

On Tuesday Josiah left the Missionary Training Center in Provo and traveled to his assignment in California. He sent us a brief email saying he’d arrived and was excited to begin the next phase of his mission. His p-days are on Monday now so we’re anxious to hear from him tomorrow. If you want to write to him, his email address is Josiah.Howe@myldsmail.net. Or you can send letters to him via the mission home at:

Elder Josiah Howe
c/o The California Arcadia Mission
614 W. Foothill Blvd.
Arcadia, CA 91006

Josiah with his MTC district.

Josiah with his mission president and wife.

Tuesday is Election Day. I have feelings of foreboding about this election. I haven’t been satisfied with any of our political parties or our politicians for a long, long time and it doesn’t look like things are going to get any better any time soon – probably not until the Savior comes to reign on the earth. I see signs of the times increasing all around me every day and I take great comfort in knowing we have prophets and apostles of God and the scriptures and the Holy Ghost to give us guidance. How else can we survive the turmoil, decadence, and evil engulfing the world? Here in my little village of Gold, the events and the confusion and complexity of the big world seem far away. Here things move on in their times and seasons with little change – winter, spring, summer, fall, seed time and harvest, week after week, month after month, year after year. I know that, isolated as we are, we are not immune from the troubles that plague the world, but they seem a little quieter here. It’s hard to believe on a tranquil autumn morning that there is so much trouble in the world. I’m thankful for that.

Late autumn sunrise.