Our Labor Day celebration turned out to be more exciting than I expected. The Thayns surprised us with a visit. They arrived Sunday afternoon. I was napping when Stacey woke me and said there were footsteps on the front porch. We went to the door and there was Florence and Russell. Tabor had parked the car next door and they walked over so we wouldn't hear them. So the party atmosphere increased dramatically immediately. Sunday night we sat around and played games. Bedtime was not strictly enforced.
 |
| Sunday night games. |
Monday morning was quiet for a while. I was awake at my usual time. The rest of the house didn't start to stir until around 9:00. It was a cold morning, 34°, but not cold enough for frost, barely, which was a relief. Once the sun was up, and the household with it, things warmed up. The weather was perfect late summer weather, just what a Labor Day should be. And it was a day of labor for us. We harvested and processed carrots. We cleaned out part of the vegetable garden and hauled it to the compost. We worked on sanding the walls in the living room.
 |
| Bringing in some pumpkins. |
 |
| Hazel and Tabor pulling and trimming carrots. |
 |
| Our carrot harvest. |
 |
| June and Tabor cubing carrots for freezing. Russell acting as quality control. |
We also managed to have fun and good food. We gathered on the Shillig's back porch at 3:00. Tosh was at the grill cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. There were delicious salads and corn on the cob. There were brownies for dessert. Sarah made special ice cream just for me, raspberry with shaved chocolate. The Thayns left for home at 5:30. It was a short visit and a lot of time spent in the car, but I'm so happy they came.
 |
| On the Shillig's back porch. |
 |
| Russell loves corn on the cob. |
Tuesday I had another doctor's appointment to go over my MRI with my other doctor. I was interested to see how his analysis compared with my chiropractor's last week. He said the same thing, my condition is stable. But he wants to change that. Instead of being content with things not getting worse, he said he wants to make them get better. So they took blood for testing and gave me new prescriptions. They called the next day with good news. The blood test results showed significant improvement. I was very happy to hear it. Hopefully, these new prescriptions will help even more.
Wednesday morning I had my weekly acupuncture appointment. That, combined with all the errands attached to it, took up the entire morning. When I finally got home at noon, I went straight out to work in the garden. It was a beautiful day, warm and breezy with that quality of light that makes it feel like late summer. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, such days will soon become rare. The long term forecasts say our fall and winter will be colder than usual and the outlook for winter looks miserable. I hope they are wrong, but when the news is bad, they're usually right.
We had a chance to see the Aurora Borealis at the beginning of the week. Monday it was only faintly visible with a camera and on Tuesday it was cloudy. Wednesday was clear and on the slight chance it might still show up, I went out to look. There was no aurora, but I did see plenty of stars and the moon. That night the moon was in the waxing gibbous phase on its way toward being full, which happens tonight. As I gazed, the strangeness of that term, waxing gibbous, struck me and I had to ponder on it and then investigate. We say the moon waxes and wanes as it moves through its cycle. The origin of "wax," as used in this context, follows an interesting etymological trail back through time from Middle English waxen, to Old English weaxan, Proto-German wahsan, and on back to the Proto-Indo-European root *weg, the same source for the Sanskrit word vaksayti and the Greek auxein – all meaning to grow or increase. Around the 12th century "wax" came to be paired with "wane" especially when referring to the moon. Wane follows a similar trail back through Middle English wannen, to Old English wanian, Proto-German wanonan, to the Proto-Indo-European root *weno, meaning to grow less. The noun "wax" as in the substance secreted by bees, sounds the same, but has an entirely different origin. The evolution of language is fascinating. I found out that gibbous comes from the Latin word gibbus, meaning "hunchbacked." In our family we sing a song Stacey learned while on her mission in Italy, La Famiglia de Gobbon, about a family of hunchbacks. I never made that connection until that moment.
I once had an interesting conversation with one of my missionary companions about language. We had just read in our daily scripture reading the account of the tower of Babel and the confounding of language in Genesis Chapter 11. My companion said he thought it would have been fun to be there when everyone suddenly started speaking different languages, like English, French, Spanish, and so on. I told him that it didn't happen that way, that those languages didn't exist until recently. He didn't believe me. I explained to him that English, as he would understand it, didn't come about until around the 17th century, and the romance languages, Spanish, French, Italian, etc., all evolved from Latin and so didn't develop until after the Romans. He was incredulous. He thought I was a heretic for doubting his Sunday School understanding of the Bible. I had some interesting companions.
 |
| The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563. |
As I was thinking of things waxing, it brought to mind other times I've encountered that usage. There is the Savior in Matthew 24:11 telling his disciples that in the last days "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold," which actually means their love will wane. And that brought up another instance of that same phrase. In junior high chorus, we learned the song The Water is Wide and in one of its verses we sang that "love grows old and waxes cold and fades away like morning dew." That memory sent me on another inquiry into the song and its origins. It goes back to a 17th century Scottish folk song O Waly, Waly. The words I learned were:
The water is wide, I cannot get o'er,
And neither have I wings to fly.
Give me a boat that will carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.
I leaned my back up against an oak.
I thought it was a trusty tree.
But first it swayed, and then it broke.
And so my false love did unto me.
Oh love is handsome, and love is fine,
And love's a jewel when it is new.
But love grows old and waxes cold,
And fades away like morning dew.
The tune is lovely. There are some beautiful arrangements of it by composers like Cecil Sharpe, Benjamin Britten, and John Rutter. It is used as a hymn tune for hymns like When I Behold the Wondrous Cross and Thou Gracious God, Whose Mercy Lends. I love this version of that hymn sung by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square.
Here in the waning days of summer, I cherish even more the flowers that have lingered and survived two frosts. They are struggling, but still brighten the garden. I usually plan my flowerbeds to impress with masses of color. I select a palette and plant blocks of flowers. I want it to look good from a distance. I forget sometimes the beauty of the individual blossoms that make up the mass. When I stop to look closely, I realize the single flower is more impressive than the multitude. The structure of each flower, its shape, color, fragrance, and function, is a miracle of divine design. Here is a selection of the flowers I found last week in their lovely individuality.
 |
Top: sweet pea, pink, marigold, petunia.
Middle: calendula, hollyhock, sedum, nasturtium.
Bottom: snapdragon, cosmos, platycodon, calendula. |
I knew there was a good chance for rain on Thursday afternoon, I was really hoping for it, so I quickly did all my outdoor work in the morning. I worked for an hour tidying up areas of the flowerbeds that have died back. I have a small burn wound on my belly, the result of a malfunctioning TENS unit I was using, and I thought a little sunshine would help it heal. The sun was shining and it was pleasantly warm, so I put on my bathing suit and went out to lay in the sun for half an hour. I spread a blanket in a secluded corner of the garden where no one would see me so as not to shock them with the whiteness of my farmer's tan torso and laid down. The sun felt good on my skin. After about ten minutes, suddenly, a chilly wind started to blow. A shower of leaves came swirling down on me from the big maples across the yard. Clouds quickly moved in and the rain came a few moments later. I had to make a dash for the house. The rain didn't last long, but it stayed cool, windy, and overcast for the rest of the day, so I wasn't tempted to go out again. Looking at the weather, short and long term, I don't think it will be warm enough again to provide any more sunbathing opportunities until next July. I spent the rest of the day indoors looking through the seed catalogs that had just arrived in the mail, making plans for next year.
The township mowers went up the road later that afternoon and cut down all the wild plants growing along the road at the edge of the property – milkweed, goldenrod, asters, and other grasses and weeds. In years past I've put up signs telling them not to mow because the milkweed was full of Monarch Butterfly caterpillars, but this year it was not. We'd only seen two earlier in August and the last time I checked, I couldn't find any. That's a trend we've noticed, fewer Monarchs every year. So I didn't mind that the township mowed. If they hadn't done it, I would have had to do it in the fall and it's easier for them to do it than for me.
 |
| The mowed roadside. |
The end of summer is the season of spiders. They've been around all summer, but now they've reached the size where they are very noticeable. There don't seem to be as many this year. Most notably, we've seen very few Black and Yellow Garden Spiders (
Argiope aurantia). We do have two large Pumpkin Spiders (
Araneus trifolium) with webs in the potted plants on the back porch steps. Down in the upper part of the barn, there aren't as many spiders this year. I usually walk through at least one web every day while filling the chicken feeders, but not this year. I don't know why.
 |
| This Pumpkin Spider has its shelter inside a withered gladiolus flower. |
Friday morning was foggy and cool. Walking down to do the morning chores, it looked, felt, and smelled like fall. The fog lifted later in the morning and I spent the day in the garden. Good garden days need to be taken full advantage of now. That evening we had dinner at the Fosters and then went into town to the movies.
Yesterday I went with Miriam and Hannah to the Highland Festival at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Stacey had a church event in Jamestown and didn't go with us. Edinboro is three hours away. They have one of the more notable Highland Festivals in the state. It rained most of the way there, but stopped before we got there, which was nice. We arrived there at noon, just in time to see the massed bagpipe bands march in.
We walked around the vendor booths, watched part of the fiddling and dancing competitions. We visited the harp display and watched the hammer throw. It was a fun event, even if it was a long drive there and back.
 |
| Hannah and Miriam and the Fighting Scotsman. |
 |
| The fiddle competition. |
 |
| On our way home from church. |
The week ahead will be busy. It looks like the weather will be suitable for the tasks I need to do. I'm going to start taking down the flower gardens. They are past their prime and gone to seed. I want to get them rearranged and tucked in before it gets too cold. For the first time in a while, I don't have any doctor's appointments this week. That will give me plenty of time to work. Good Sabbath.
