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| Late October flowers. |
It was one of those weeks that moved on two different levels. By outward appearances, it was lovely. The days were mild. The garden and the surrounding hills were beautiful in their fading autumn splendor. Any moment I was able to spend out in all that glory was a delight to my soul. On Monday I could not sit indoors anymore and I went out and mowed the lawn. I went slowly and did not push myself. When I’d finished, the yard looked so much better and I felt better because of it. Then I went in and took a nap. That’s how the second level of life runs here now. In contrast to the beauty of the world around me, I still struggled with that nagging cough all week. It plagues me almost every year at this time. Some years I can beat it quickly, some years it hangs on into November. I’m being careful this year and I think it’s finally going away. Every day I do what I can in the garden, but my lungs limit me and that frustrates me. There is so much I need to do before winter comes.
On Thursday morning I resumed my morning walks. I didn’t care if it was a little chilly and foggy. I needed to be out to greet the rising sun. I’ve gone out almost every morning since then. Most mornings are a bit foggy now. The morning light at this time of year has a special quality. The sun has moved to the south and the long angle of its first beams spilling through the low fog makes an ethereal light. It casts an amber tinge that catches the last of the green and the yellow and orange in the trees and makes them glow. On the bank by the barn, the young sumac grove is incandescent in such light.
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| Scenes from my morning walks: morning light. |
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Scenes from my morning walks: the meadow.
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Scenes from my morning walks: light across the front yard.
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Scenes from my morning walks: the beaver pond..
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Scenes from my morning walks: sumac by the barn.
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I also resumed processing apples. While I was under the weather, I couldn’t do anything with all those apples sitting in buckets on the back porch and it bothered me. We’ve had such a bounteous blessing this year, I couldn’t bear to think they would go to waste. On Wednesday I began canning applesauce again. I made a batch almost every day. Miriam and Stacey have also been drying them. We have to sort through the buckets carefully as some of the apples are going bad. Our main crop is still waiting to be picked.
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| Late October garden. |
After a spell of convalescence, I look at the world and I see gifts all around me. After a bout with sickness, my returning health feels like a great gift. This lingering fair weather is a gift. I could not have coped with an early snow like Geoffrey in Utah and Josiah in Idaho have had. Days in the 70's in October are truly a gift. The mildness of these autumn days has given me a gift of late season flowers like I’ve never had before. I have irises in bloom. The cosmos, zinnias, and anemones are the loveliest I’ve ever grown. I even had a poppy bloom, just a single red flower to delight me. The trees might not be the brightest this year, but my garden has compensated by giving me the gift of color.
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| Late irises. |
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| A late poppy. |
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| Anemones. |
Then there are little gifts, unexpected things, whose discovery makes me smile. Things like bumblebees sleeping in marigold blossoms in the cool mornings or the last of the butterflies feeding frantically before they go south. Walking out past the orchard one morning, there was a breeze and the milkweed pods were open and I stopped to watch their silky seeds floating away. And one afternoon I thought I’d clean out some weedy vegetable beds I thought were finished, and was happy to find some carrots, beets, and a cauliflower hiding among the weeds.
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| Sleeping bumblebees. |
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| The last of the butterflies. |
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| Milkweed in the wind. |
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| Late veggies. |
We’ve also been given a gift of apples. When I started my orchard over twenty years ago, I was told by long time locals to expect very mixed results. That has certainly been the case. At first when my fruit trees were small, getting just a few apples was expected. As the trees grew past five years, six years, seven years, I expected higher yields. But we live in a place with very unpredictable spring weather. That’s not really accurate – our spring weather is predictably unreliable. Most years we get late frosts in May and even early June that wreak havoc with the flowering and fruiting of my trees. But now and then we get the gift of a good year. This has been one of those years. Most of my trees are mature enough that, when nature is kind, they give bounteous returns. This year I have fruit on trees that I’ve never tasted before. Black Oxford, Roxbury Russet, and Ashmead’s Kernel are all bearing fruit for the first time – and they are all bigger trees that just never had the right circumstances until now. Other trees like Golden Russet, Caville Blanc d’Hiver, Winter Banana, and Winesap that bear sporadically are full of fruit. And the king of my orchard, the huge King of Tompkins County tree, is so laden with fruit, its branches are bent to the ground. I seldom see a year like this. It is the rare reward for all the less fruitful years, a gift to keep me hoping and working.
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| Black Oxford apples ready to pick. |
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| Roxbury Russet. |
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| Heavy laden King of Tompkins County. |
Friday evening we had a beautiful sunset. Saturday we woke up to rain that has stayed with us. It was raining when we left for church this morning. On the drive home, the rain let up and the sun tried to shine. I tried to get some photos of the hills. The colors are fading fast now, but still beautiful in places. So we are home and lunch preparations are underway. We have an overabundance of eggs, so we are having bean and cheese omelets. Then there’s nothing to do but enjoy a very quiet Sabbath. And that’s just what I need. The weather has cooled off but it looks like it will stay mild enough to keep us from freezing in the week ahead. It will be a busy week. Tomorrow night I will be trimming the chickens’ wings. They have taken it upon themselves to fly out of their yard and wander where they will, so I must clip their wings. It’s a big job and very traumatic for all involved, human and chicken. We will also be picking most of the rest of the apples at the beginning of the week. We hope to take them to the cider mill on Wednesday afternoon. We have one quart from last year left in the freezer. It will be nice to have gallons and gallons of new cider to sustain us until next year’s pressing.
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| Sunset on Friday. |
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| On the drive home from church today. |
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| On the drive home from church today. |
Dan
