Changing Seasons

The week seemed short. Arriving home from the Thayns' house on Monday afternoon seemed to clip off part of the week and speed up what was left after it. I found myself scrambling to find time for all the things I wanted to accomplish. Summer is over. The equinox doesn't arrive until Tuesday, but the season has already departed. I'm not ready to face the cold days yet. Am I ever?

On Tuesday morning, I stepped out just before dawn intending to take my walk. I was in short sleeves. The cold was like a slap in the face. I went back inside and checked the temperature. It was 35°. I put on my fleece-lined hoodie, but I didn't resume my intended walk. Instead, I turned on the heater by my desk and hunkered over it while I checked my emails, the news, etc. When Stacey and Hannah left for work, there was frost on the windshield of the car. I went out to the garden and couldn't see any sign of frost. I came back inside and didn't venture out again until 9:00 when the world had finally warmed to 55°.

While I waited for the warmth, I worked at transcribing my old journals. I had reached 1987 by then, the year that Rachel was born. It seemed fitting, having just been to the birth of Rachel's sixth child. They have finally settled on a name for her, Iris Elizabeth Thayn. As soon as I found out, I went online and looked for varieties of iris with 'Elizabeth' in their name. There are several. I want to add them to my garden. All of Rachel's girls have a floral element in their names. In my gardens I already have hazels and roses (Hazel Rose), a juniper (Juniper Louise), and ferns (Mabel Fern). I don't have a myrtle (Florence Myrtle) because they don't grow here. Maybe I should try growing one in a pot. So adding some 'Elizabeth' irises is perfect.

Iris Elizabeth Thayn.

The dew was finally dry at noon and I had to mow. September is usually when mowing grass turns into mowing leaves as the grass stops growing and the leaves start falling. The leaves are falling, but the grass is still growing like it's May. I finished with my yard, but the Shilligs' and the Fosters' yards needed it too and I was tired of sitting on the mower. When Stacey got home, she said she would mow. She's never used the Cub Cadet before, so I gave her a quick lesson and off she went. By dinner time she'd finished everything but the front of the Fosters' property where the bank down to the road is scary steep.

Wednesday was a warmer day, but with the warmth came rain. It didn't arrive until later in the day, so I had time to work in the garden. I'm at the ripping up, tearing down, and clearing out stage for a lot of things. I pulled up spent plants, tore down collapsed vines, and cleared a bed for planting garlic. Our main tomato crop was severely damaged by blight. We lost nearly all the fruit. The tomatoes in my raised-bed garden have survived the blight so far. We picked a bucket of them Wednesday afternoon and made sauce. The cauliflower and broccoli are done and I've begun pulling them up and sending them to the compost pile. We've harvested all the corn. The green beans are gone and the dry beans are almost ready to pull up to dry. I cut all the pumpkins from their vines. Most of them will be processed for food, the rest will be decorations.

My pumpkin harvest.

In the flowerbeds, almost everything is finished or at least past its prime. The zinnias and cosmos still look good. The colchicums have started to bloom. They are the flower season's last hurrah. They're a little early this year. They usually don't bloom until the end of September and beginning of October. I won't take their earliness as a sign of any sort.

Some of my zinnias.

Cosmos.

A bed of colchicums.

I have three types of colchicum.

After much perseverance and a good amount of carnage, I think we've licked the rat problem down in the barn. I haven't seen any evidence of activity for two weeks now. I'm not taking any chances, though. I still have traps and poison bait set out, just in case. Since the rats are gone, chicken food consumption has decreased considerably. It looks like the rats were eating more than the chickens.

Thursday was warm and humid. It drizzled off and on through the day, a soft, misty drizzle. Wonderful weather. I worked in the garden and sweated all day and it felt good. I brought in all the pumpkins, washed them in vinegar water and set them on the back porch. We will wait until later to process the edible ones. 

Pumpkins on the back porch.

More pumpkins.

Friday was wet and gray. It rained hard during the night and the day never completely dried out. It felt very autumnal. I spent the morning working on transcribing old journals again. By then I was in 1990. I was in the bishopric in the Sylmar Ward and was released in May of that year. I got my undergraduate degree and began my postgraduate work. We already had Geoffrey, Rachel, and Sarah, and then Miriam was born in June. It was a busy time.

Working on these journals can be almost traumatic for me at times. Those early years of our marriage when we were so poor, and I was in school, and we had young children were hard at times—from what I wrote, maybe all the time. Reading my words now, I'd forgotten how much I agonized over things back then. The pages of these journals were my therapy where I wrote what I usually could not or would not say aloud. But there is a lot of happiness in them too. Those were times when most of my immediate family lived close enough that we could get together often. Now we are scattered across the continent and seldom all in one place at the same time.

By noon the sky had cleared and I went out at last. Everything was still too damp to do much. Later in the afternoon, Sarah came over and we worked in the big garden. We took down the protective arches we had made over the tomato row. Despite all our attempts to save them, the tomatoes in the big garden were wiped out by late blight. We barely got any fruit from them. 

Taking down the tomato covers.

Sad, blighted tomatoes.

We also worked on the fenced yard for her guinea flock. We covered it with net to keep them from flying out, and to keep undesirable things from flying in. We let them out into their yard and they were pretty happy. When it came time for them to roost for the night, they didn't know to go back into their pen. Sarah had to catch them and put them back. They aren't very bright.

Hannah left to go down to the Thayns' after work on Friday. Miriam was down there all week. So it was just me and Stacey here this weekend. On Friday night we went on a date to the movies. We saw The End of Oak Street. It was fun and sometimes gave us a jump scare, but it had terrible problems with time-travel paradoxes. That's something movies seldom get right. That always bugs me. But it was a fun date.

There was a beautiful sunrise yesterday. I could see the glow of it on the walls inside the house and dressed quickly and went out to enjoy it. While I was down at the beaver pond, I finally saw a beaver swimming around. I was glad to see it. I was afraid they'd abandoned their pond.

Sunrise on Saturday.

Sunrise over the beaver pond.

Later in the day on Saturday, Sarah and Tosh came over. We worked some more on making room in their chicken coop for their guinea flock. We divided the interior of the coop into two parts and made accommodations for the guineas in the new half. I also worked some more on dismantling the tomato row in the big garden. Stacey spent the day in the kitchen turning tomatoes into sauce. She finished twelve quarts.

Working inside the Fosters' chicken coop.

The new dividing wall.

Stacey cooking tomatoes all day long.

Twelve quarts of tomato sauce.

This Sabbath morning was dark, gray, and wet. It had rained all night. It was still drizzling when I went down to do the morning chores. I came back to the house and put on a long queue of Tabernacle Choir music to lift the mood. I love hymns. After I was dressed and ready for church, I sat down, as I do every morning, to look at the news. I only glanced at the first two headlines and stopped. I didn't feel like wallowing in all of that on the Sabbath. The day was already dark enough. Instead, I turned up the volume on my hymns.

This evening, just before sunset, Yom Kippur begins. It is the holiest day of the year for the Jews. When the Lord revealed His law to Moses, He commanded: And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever (Leviticus 16:20-31). To atone is to suffer the penalty for sins and, through that suffering, be made clean and reconciled to God. It is the central doctrine of the gospel, that Christ, the only one capable of carrying the burden of our sins, paid the penalty through His suffering, and by our repentance and, through his mercy and grace, we can be redeemed and reconciled with God. Today in sacrament meeting, we partook of the emblems of Christ's death and suffering so that we can always remember what He did for us and strive to repent and be made clean through His infinite atonement. It is a beautiful and wondrous gift to us. I felt the power of it strongly today.

Church is done and we are home. Our meetings were good—good talks, good lessons, and good people. I love our little branch. I noticed trees with leaves changing already as we drove home today. Stacey is making lunch now. Later on, Hannah and maybe Miriam will be home. The day is still gray and drizzly, the perfect sort of day for an afternoon nap. The week ahead looks to be pretty rainy, but I'll do what I can to continue harvesting and getting the garden ready for its winter sleep. I hate to think about that, but it is coming, so best to accept it and prepare.