October Already!

And here we are in October already. I love October for mostly nostalgic reasons. It's the month I think of as being quintessential autumn with all the things that come with that – colorful changing leaves, sweater weather, pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns, Halloween, etc. I picture it as a sort of Hallmark card or Thomas Kinkade month when we bask in some of Helen Jackson Hunt's "bright blue weather." It often isn't that way at all. Some years it's more like winter parka weather with the leaves dull or already gone and the pumpkins frostbitten and rotted before a single jack-o'-lantern can be carved. This might be one of those Octobers. Our leaves changed early and are mostly gone. I'm already wearing a heavier coat to do the morning chores. I have pumpkins waiting to be carved, but they might not make it to the end of the month. We'll see.

Autumn at Apple Hill by Thomas Kinkade.

October is a busy month as our preparations for winter shift into high gear. In the next week or two I'll need to winterize the barn. We'll have to lay in a good supply of firewood. The garden is in the process of being gutted and I will try to finish that as quickly as I can. It's time to plant garlic and spring bulbs. Harvest is over now except for apples. Soon we will pick the main crop and hopefully have enough to make a trip to the cider mill.

I took a detour in my reading last week. I was part way through William Faulkner's Light In August, but was getting a bit bogged down in its complications, so I decided to take a break from it and read something Octobery. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, when we lived in Tallmadge, Ohio, there was a late night television program on Friday nights called The Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show. It came on at 11:30 after the news on WJW channel 8 out of Cleveland. They showed horror movies interspersed with comedy skits. We were not allowed to watch it because it came on so late and because of the kind of movies they showed. Of course we watched it as often as we could get away with it. One of the movies I remember watching was The Day of the Triffids, a B-Grade science fiction movie made in 1963 starring Howard Keel. In it most of humanity going blind from looking at a meteor shower and then these giant alien mobile carnivorous plants called trifffids start wiping out the population. It's total sci-fi kitsch, but as an eleven year old, I loved it. I bring this up because last week I was looking at a list of recommended science fiction novels and one of the books listed was The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I've read a lot of science fiction over the years starting way back in my teens, but I'd never read that one. I was intrigued, so I picked it up from the library. That was my detour.

Movie poster from 1963.

It's definitely not on a par with Azimov's Foundation or Herbert's Dune novels, but it was a fun read. The movie poster proclaimed it "the greatest science-fiction novel of all time." It was hardly that. Azimov's Foundation Trilogy was already published by then and Dune would be published shortly after. The Day of the Triffids* seldom appears on any of the current Best Science Fiction Novels of All Time lists.  I watched the movie after I finished the book. It didn't follow the book much. It took the basic premise – most of the population going blind and giant carnivorous plants – and used the names of some of the book's characters, and made just what you'd expect from a 60s B Sci-fi flick. The special effects were terrible. The acting was hammy. It was great.

[*On a side note, when I was on my mission in Japan, young American male missionaries called pretty teenage Japanese girls trifids. I don't know who invented the term or why, or when, but it was standard senkyoshi-go, missionary jargon, back then.]

We've had some beautiful sunrises and sunsets lately. It seemed like we went a long time without anything spectacular and now mother earth is making up for it. This was Monday's sunset.

The weather service issued a frost warning on Tuesday night. It was hard to believe. The day had been so warm and sunny, it didn't seem possible that we could drop from 76° during the day to below freezing at night. But we did. At this point I don't really care about frost. In fact, I welcome it. I'm ready for the frost to kill off the stragglers that have avoided death up till now so I can clear away things without feeling a tinge of guilt for there being a few blossoms left. But knowing it was going to frost, I took time on Tuesday afternoon to bid farewell to those lovely stragglers in case they were gone in the morning. I took a walk past the cosmos, zinnias, petunias, cleome, nasturtiums, and marigolds, admiring them in their final moments of prettiness. The tomato vines were no longer pretty. They needed to be put out of their misery.

Some marigolds before the frosts with ugly tomato vines behind them.

On Wednesday morning, the first of October, it was 31° at dawn. There was frost, but it was very light and mostly out on the fringes of the property. I think the warmth of the last day of September held on long enough to thwart a major freeze. I had decided not to do anything with the tomatoes, but I saw there was still some unripe fruit, so I took pity and picked all of it and brought it onto the back porch. If they ripen, fine, if not, the pigs will eat them.

Tomatoes on the back porch.

We were warned to expect another frost on Thursday morning. This time I was worried about some of my potted plants that I keep on the back porch steps. Being close to the house usually protects them from the cold as long as it's not too much. I thought it might be too much this time, so I moved some of the most tender of them inside the porch. One of them is the night-blooming jasmine, which was, still is, in full bloom. With the porch door closed at night, the fragrance fills the porch and even drifts into the house. I step out into the porch several times every evening just to inhale. It is wonderful.

The night-blooming jasmine.

Thursday morning it was 30° and there was frost as predicted, but it was still a light frost. The sunrise was pretty, but not spectacular. I only went out for a moment to look at it. It was too cold to stay out longer.

Sunrise on Thursday.

I grew my tomatoes so carefully this year. I trained each one up an eight foot pole, pinched off all the suckers, and immediately took off any leaves showing the slightest bit of blight. The reward for all that vigilance was some of the best tomatoes I've ever grown. At least that's what the rest of them say. I wouldn't know. I hate tomatoes unless they are turned into sauce or soup. A raw tomato is about the most disgusting food I can imagine. Blech! So after all of that care and attention, I felt a little sad as I ripped them all out on Thursday. They were done. They were shriveled and frostbitten. It was an act of kindness to end their existence, but as I pulled them up, I remembered them when they were in their glory and my heart was stirred to an end-of-the-growing-season-sadness.

The end of the tomatoes.

Friday morning we had frost again. That will probably be the normal situation from now until next June. It was still light enough that it hasn't finished off some of the flowers. I had errands to run that morning and by the time I got back, it was warm enough to work comfortably outdoors in shorts and bare feet, a treat that will not last much longer. I love working in the warm sunshine. I love the feeling of the sun on my skin. It feels like the sunlight transfers some of the sun's energy directly into my body. I love to feel the warmth of the ground as I walk on it and the soil as I work it with my hands. 

That afternoon Kurt had the tractor out and was tilling in the big garden. I had him till a new bed for me along the bottom of the apple orchard. It's twenty feet long and four feet wide. I plan to plant it with poppies in the spring, but for now, I will cover it with weed barrier to keep it tidy until then.

The newly tilled future poppy bed.

The first year we moved here, twenty-five years ago, while on a walk up in the woods, I came upon a stand of small witch hazels. I went back to them the next day with a spade and dug two of them up and planted them in my woodland garden. After twenty-five years, they are still small trees. Witch hazels do not grow very big. They are pretty little trees, but I don't pay much attention to them. Except in October. They always surprise me in October by blooming. They've already lost most of their leaves. They look twiggy and barely worth a notice. And then one day I walk by them and they are covered with flowers that look like little bright yellow tassels. Once I know they are in bloom, I go out every day, sometimes several times a day, to admire them in their simple prettiness. They look especially nice in the late afternoon when the long light of the sinking sun lights them up.

My witch hazels are in bloom now.

Work on the living room progressed during the week. Stacey and Hannah successfully moved an electrical outlet by the woodstove a foot to the right. Miriam finished the sanding and priming and painted the walls with the final color, a very pale blue. It's starting to look good, but the room is still a mess with all the furniture piled in the middle of the room and dust everywhere. We still have to paint the ceiling and do the trim. When that's all done, we will refinish the floor. It's been a long project and I'll be glad when it's all done and things are back in order.

Miriam and Hannah left on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at the Thayn's house. The Thayns were on vacation in Idaho for two weeks so we haven't gotten to visit in a while. Stacey and I didn't go this time. We spent the weekend puttering around the house and watching General Conference. 

Twice a year, in April and October, we get to watch General Conference, five sessions, three on Saturday and two on Sunday, broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. We always look forward to it. The talks given by general authorities and other Church leaders are always inspiring and uplifting. We knew the conference would be a little different this time because of the death of Pres. Russell M. Nelson last week. We missed him. We watched three sessions yesterday and will watch two more today. The talks and the music have been wonderful.

Because General Conference doesn't begin until noon, we slept in a little this morning. By the time I was up and ready for the day, the sun was well up over the horizon. It was a pretty and bright morning. I took a walk to enjoy the quiet of a sunny Sabbath morning. I went out the back door and around to the front of the house. I crossed the yard and edge of the meadow. There was low fog over the beaver pond. Coming back toward the house, the pigs greeted me. They wanted their morning meal, which I hadn't prepared yet. I came back across the meadow, stopped to admire the colors in a big poke weed growing at its edge, then came inside and started making food for the pigs. They had oatmeal, apples, and boiled beans for breakfast. Yum.

Sabbath morning walk: coming around the front of the house.

Sabbath morning walk: crossing the front yard.

Sabbath morning walk: sunlight in the maples.

Sabbath morning walk: the edge of the meadow.

Sabbath morning walk: fog over the beaver pond.

Sabbath morning walk: good morning from the pigs.

Sabbath morning walk: heading home.

Sabbath morning walk: I love the colors of the poisonous poke.

The rest of the day will be calm and quiet as we settle in to watch the last two sessions of conference. Miriam and Hannah will be home later in the afternoon. Then I will look forward to another week of work and wonder as we move on through October.

Good Sabbath!