An inextricable tangle
October 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
“We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motives in which, perhaps, the evil predominate but where one must continue to hope doggedly in what little good can still be found.” – Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Dancing dogs
October 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
I know it’s a bit blurry, but I had to post it just for fun.
Season of mists
October 23, 2012 § Leave a comment
Overcast, wet weather most often makes me want to light a candle and cozy up inside with tea and a book. Other times it makes me want to confront it so that I can embrace it; to throw off the sheltering walls of the house and go where the mists can surround me, their tiny drops prickling like sparks on my face.
Today looked colder than it felt. As I pulled on boots on the front porch I decided to leave my coat behind. This time of year the leaves are layering the woodland floor with yellow, rusts, muted purples, and many browns. The collage of all these colors made me want to spin on it, and I did. Sometimes you’ve just got to put your arms out and spin. And look up, and around, and laugh.
Life is good.
The sky stayed gray-white-blue today in the cover of clouds, until night fell and hid them away. On our walks through the woods, the lines of the tree trunks draw my eyes upward, to where I can see the silhouettes of the trees’ crowns against whatever color the sky happens to be. Today I found myself centered beneath several trees whose fine, small, tip-of-their-fingers branches reached out and overlaid one another, multiple times, so that above me I saw a kind of cobweb, or lace, hung in that space, woven of wood. I wish I could describe it for you better, all those black lines crossing so delicately over one another, so clearly defined against the white of sky. You would understand why there are stories of dryads. You would understand why humans are compelled to create art, tulle-lush tutus, tapestries, linens with fine embroidery, filigree. We want to be of such things, to re-speak them, to be connected with them somehow.
Milkweed
October 21, 2012 § 2 Comments
The milkweed pods have opened. The seeds blow into the wind.
Have you ever pulled them out, felt how soft and almost weightless they are in your hands?
Throw them into the air. Watch as they ride and twirl through the sky.
Be glad for prairie. Wildflowers. Nature’s wondrous details.
Mid-autumn
October 17, 2012 § 4 Comments
This is the time when the most vibrant oranges and reds and yellows begin to deepen and fade; when the blaze has already peaked and now we must slide toward winter.
But there are yet colors to earn attention here. The rust-orange of leaves. Grasses and forbs within a few shades of my golden retriever’s coat. The slate and gray and cool blues of sky. That sky against the shape of trees and the slopes of wheat-colored hills.
No, I don’t mind this part of the season. It makes you take more time to notice. The subtle things often seem the deeper things, to me. As temperatures become more reliably chilly an extra sweater and a jacket are more appreciated.
There is a stillness here before the holiday rush surrounding autumn’s end and winter’s beginning.
Tassie and I, we will walk through it.
Point home
October 16, 2012 § 2 Comments
“All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.” – Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man’s Hunger in His Youth.
Festival
October 15, 2012 § Leave a comment
We had several cloudy, cold days on either side of October 7. But on the day of the festival the sun came out. And so did the people.
Want to learn more about the farm? Visit Hungry Turtle’s website.
Want to learn more about nature experience opportunities for kids? Visit Bluebird Hill Homestead.
Oh, cider, scarves, and pumpkins. Farms and fall. Food. Friends. October.
Ephemeral fall
October 3, 2012 § 1 Comment
All the colors are turning and I have yet to photograph them! How is this happening? I daresay they are already past their prime, actually, and with the dry-as-a-bone weather we’ve been having the trees are quick to drop their leaves. This is sad. But fall has been blissful. October is starting off almost too hot in the afternoons, though we’re headed toward a cold weekend for the festival. This means there will be a bonfire. And hot cider. Just saying.
Meanwhile, it is time for pumpkin carving, tying corn stalks into shocks, and locating ingredients. My plate is full this week. Photos to come, soon, my friends. At least one fall afternoon must be documented.
Autumn
September 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yesterday I went for the most wonderful drive. Morning, and straight east into red-orange hills. Classical music on the radio, golden retriever in the backseat, a jar of steaming coffee in the cup holder. I was going out to Brett Laidlaw’s place, Bide-A-Wee, to borrow a cider press for our upcoming festival. Brett had come to our brick oven workshop in August, and also happens to be the author of Trout Caviar – both a blog and a book about foraging in the north woods. His two griffins came to greet me; Tassie hesitated and even growled a little at these unfamiliar dogs, but eventually she got over herself enough to run around the acreage and explore their space. They followed her with interest and a bit of determination to retain their territorial rights.
The air was September crisp and the hills were so burning with color that you could almost smell smoke. This is the time for woodstoves and campfires. Brett met me with a smile, we caught up on ovens and farms and projects and festivals, and then he showed me the pieces of the press, how to put it all together, how the apples will grind and press into cold, delicious cider. Bright sun, plaid shirts, vests, boots, cast iron, goosebumps. I shivered in the cold but also the very delicious autumn of it all.
Once we had loaded the press into the back of my truck, we talked about France, which always makes me glad, especially to find someone else who loves it the way I do, and not for all the popular things people love it for (ooh la la!) but also for the countryside, the small gîtes and the regional ciders and the roads winding through woods and hills that look so similar to here. Then back in the truck, me and my girl, to make our way home, my mind full of old memories and future plans, and a sense of the season’s reliable goodness.
Kinds of Honey 