Fall keeps within us

Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge

How lovely is this Autumn!  I hope I don't ever take for granted these colors...never have I seen such enormity of  beauty in the change of a season.  At first I found myself a bit melancholy, I recall the Big Fish wondering what the heck was up with me-

"I don't know...maybe it's the change of seasons.  I get like this...."

Good enough explanation for the man, although he avoided me in wide-walking-around circles for the rest of that day.  Smart man.

My fella works in the local paper mill, an economic anchor here in this area.  He's been employed by the mill for over thirty years.  He just got through and over a two week 12 hour day, no time off run...I missed him a bit.  This past week and still counting today- he has been on vacation.  Wood splitting, stacking, yard clean up, installing a new wench so we don't wrench our backs so much, and he's suggesting I clear out the gardens for fall tilling...

"What?!  It hasn't even frosted yet, I like to keep the sunflower stands for winter feeds for the birds and the marigolds and cosmos are still beautifully vibrant and ever blooming...."


"Yes deah, I understand that (his stock reply to my long winded explanations for why I do the things I do...), but we've got to clear the ground and get ready..."


"AAARRRGGHHH!!! Don't say it, please- I know what's coming, I do!  But, but, but..."

So into the hoophouse upon a drying table the sunflower heads went, and all along the chicken wire walls the hydrangeas did go, drying perfectly mounded and the herbs are hanging here and there and all across the garage.  Apples are piled high in a work area, I've only attended half of them, putting away enough apple sauce to feed a small army, still have the apple butter to work out.  Pears have been pickled in a crock and fruit flies are gathering like a buzzing congregation around the blueberry liqueur vessel.  This preservation time is a time of experimenting with new recipes, improving old modes of storing and restoring old ways I loved doing but over the last several years, had no time for.  I am as busy as the bees I see still gathering pollen, I am as happy as the fat blue jays stealing and storing all the sunflower seeds that they can jam into their cheeks, I am as silent at times, in the splendid solitude I find out by the old camp- as the yellow gilled mushrooms appearing seemingly out of nowhere.

I marvel at the once shy trees along the roadways, never before have they had their say as they do now- standing as if in a cotillion, all decked out in their finest finery- keeping time just as well as their seasoned evergreen boastful neighbors.


And I am thankful once again, for the preservation of this time.  Fall keeps within us- a chain of memories.  We add to it, link by link- a charm from each successive year and the one at hand.  Winter puts to sleep all growth, Spring is fine for newness, Summer keeps us on our toes, but it is Autumn truly, that reflects every deed done by the sun and rain, storm and ice- manifesting brilliance!

Yes- I know what is to come.  But for now, the gathering continues, the momentum- almost at it's peak- slows like tires on a gravel road and I...well- I make haste in viewing the thickness of a time that soon will thin into the bare branched limbs of winter.  My memory made rosary of Fall bears witness to yet another sustainable harvest.


Take care-