Buttoning up the Fall Garden

In the wide world of cornfields that surrounds my house, the big boys are still havesting.

But here at home, we have gathered the last of the pumpkins,

piled squashes on the picnic table,

patted soil over next year's garlic crop,

hidden spinach and brussels sprouts from winter's blast,

and said goodbye to gardening.

In the blink of an eye, February's flurry of seed catalogs will hit the mailbox

and we'll start again.

But for now, it's time to rest.       Time for ThanksGiving.

Curious Dog

Apple Picking

Isn't this sweet? Great family time in the fall sunshine, with three generations picking apples from my generous neighbor's generous tree.

We wound up with enough apples to dry, enough to can applesauce, to make apple cake and apple crisp, enough for two batches of apple jelly.

I thought we were all working nicely together picking apples, when, suddenly, an armed native appreared in the tree.

Then my own father turned on me.

He muttered something about Tom Sawyer. Yes, picking the apples had been my idea, and yes, he and the others were doing the lion's share of the work.

But somebody had to take the pictures!

More House-Hugging Critters

Audrey tells me that this, a praying mantis, is the only insect that can swivel its head. I snapped his portrait from numerous angles; everywhere I went, he followed me with a robotic pivot.

Rachel asks if the ladybug was really there, or a figment of my Photoshop imagination. It was there. I cropped this photo and bumped the contrast; other than that it is unedited.

In the Dry

John and the farrier worked in the machine shed last week. They talked about horses and homeschooling over the whisper of grey drizzle falling on the tin roof.

Midnight

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:

Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

And what I say unto you I say unto all,

Watch.

Mark 13:35-37

Keeping the Creepies Out

The down trend in the outdoor thermometer means lots of creepy crawlies are trying to get into my house. This guy slept on the front door for half a day, taking life from whatever warmth radiated through the glass. The worst autumn offenders are the mice who find their way in. They are nasty and destructive. The war rages every year---I'm armed with traps; the mice with determination and a will to survive. But this fall I have added a new and powerful weapon to my arsenal.

We don't usually keep cats indoors, but Sage had a mishap that fractured her hip. The vet prescribed six weeks' of house confinement. Midway through, John saw Sage padding across the floor, a mouse tail dangling between her teeth. And I have seen no sign of rodents, even though October is generally prime real estate season for mice hunting new winter digs.

Sage has earned a cozy place indoors, even though her hip is long since healed.

And, with winter coming on, I might just get used to having this personal heater at the foot of my bed.

Poultry in Motion

We like a little variety in the laying flock.

This Golden Laced Wyandotte is stealing a sip from the dog's water bowl.

This one's a Rhode Island Red. She's thinking she'll head back to Rhode Island, but we know the car will never make it that far, so we took the keys away.

And this fella is a Black Australorp. He is as stately as his name.

Moon Shots

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

(black night moon photo by Erica. Thanks, E.)

what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

It happens every year: John Deere green overtakes the green of summer.

Cubs!

The Cubs are in the playoffs, which is like setting bulls loose in a china shop. It is almost always unruly, noisy ... and something is bound to come crashing down. Usually the Cubs.

Mike Lopresti, USA Today

If you love baseball, you've got to love October. I'm listening to every game I can, determined not to let the memory of unused tickets to World Series Game 5 detract from my enjoyment of this year's tournament. Yep, that's right, THE WORLD SERIES! I had a ticket to the biggest party in baseball; I loaded up the crew and buzzed out to Denver for the game, but never unpacked my suitcase. The STINKIN' RED SOX swept the Rox in four games, so there was no Game 5. I'm still a bit miffed. Couldn't they have let the STINKIN' ROCKIES win one measly game?

"We would really love to ... you know ... there's no sense even mentioning it," (Cubs Manager Lou) Piniella says. I know what he means. I would have loved to, too.

Espanol

Los estudiantes aprenden en casa y en colegio español. La maestra en casa también.

Monday Morning

If you ever get a chance to build a house, try to face your kitchen windows east. Sunshine splashing around my breakfast is a better kick-start than caffeine, even on a Monday morning.

A Short Century

This is one of my two favorite grandmothers. She lived all her life in south Texas, where she taught me to play Spite 'N Malice and Canasta, and taught me to make candy: toffee, divinity, fudge, pralines. She taught me that fresh strawberries were extra good if you held them by their green tops and dipped them in a bowl of sugar before you ate them, and that I shouldn't watch soap operas, even though she did. Her Sunday-after-church dinners were a southern feast: ham and okra gumbo, black-eyed peas, mustard greens, cornbread and the best cobbler I've ever eaten, made from wild, thorny Texas dewberries.

Besides cooking, she liked to sit and visit. As a child, I would lie after supper on her thick living room carpet, eyes closed and ears open, listening to stories that bobbed and rebounded through the air above me. Avoiding bedtime banishment, I pretended to be asleep until I actually was asleep, wrapped in the comfortable conversation of aunts and great aunts and adult cousins who knew and loved each other well.

My grandmother was born in October of 1910. October the tenth --- 10-10-10. The rhythm of her birthday numbers underscored what I already knew: she was one-of-a-kind and very special. Through her, 10-10-10 leapt out of the history books and became real--playing cards and eating cobbler with me in my very present daily existence.

Decades later, I still think of my grandmother every time the month and date and year align, and even when they almost align, as they did twice last week. The time I spent with that 10-10-10 grandmother seems not so far away, and yet I can almost touch the next 10-10-10.....October 10, 2010.

How can a century be so short?

Corn, Corn, Corn

My sister-in-law is passionate about sweet corn, especially when it is fresh off the stalk. But she lives in the midst of the Dallas/Fort Worth concrete metroplex. When she sees cornrows, they look like this:

Web photo                                                                                             

Not like this:

An old retired farmer was selling sweet corn, still in the husks, out of the back of his pickup last week. His son had picked it that morning. On a whim, I scooped a dozen ears into his empty WalMart bag as he held it out. Not wanting to drive the ten miles home and back for a box, I buzzed into the post office and thumped my bag of corn up on the counter. "How much is it going to cost me for a box and priority postage to Texas?" Not as much as you would think. "Here--pack these around your corn," the postal clerk offered as she lifted a stack of free farm newspapers from behind the counter. Promising to return, I took the box and drove six blocks to the vet: "Do you have an extra ice pack?" The vet usually has leftover ice packs from pharmaceutical shipments. "How many do you want?" asked the receptionist. I told her one, to chill my sweet corn on its ride south; she gave me two. "Oh, and if you're going to the post office right away," she added, "would you mind mailing this box for me?" Another six blocks to the dollar store for a birthday card, and then I was back at the post office with my package and the vet's package. Two days later, my sister-in-law shucked and ate fresh, juicy sweet corn in her Fort Worth kitchen.

I love the way things work in small towns. Happy birthday, Miss Wusan!

Cinderella

Thank you to the princess who did my sweeping for me.

Visitors

Sophie doesn’t live here.

Rachel doesn't live here either, but when they're both here at the same time, I get to see a fresh subject through a fresh photographer's eyes. Thanks for the photos, Rachel. Nice.

Summer's Last Fling

Four families gathered last weekend for a final stab at summer.

We've gone round the seasons with these particular friends for nearly twenty years.

Fall's coming again. Don't blink.

This garden has everything:

Sunflowers drying to attract birds when the rest of it is covered in snow.

A tall spike of lettuce seeds drying behind the gate, to be harvested and planted next spring.

Blue jeans drying on the hot fence (electricity turned off, please).

And three kinds of tomatoes – not drying at all.

Inevitable

You may not get a funnel cake.

You might not ride the rides.

But if you go to the State Fair with this family, you WILL see the draft horses!

The Spaghetti Handshake/Sick Princess

For all of you big sisters, or aunts or uncles, or moms and dads who are not familiar with the Spaghetti Handshake, heads up. It goes like this:

You ask your young friend if he knows the Spaghetti Handshake. Of course he doesn't, so you take both of his little hands in yours, and then waggle them up and down as fast as you possibly can. His arms and shoulders feel like limp spaghetti, so he breaks out laughing, which causes you to break out laughing, because the whole thing is so entirely silly.

We learned the Spaghetti Handshake from crazy Mr. Yonker when the girls were all knee high. I used to think that only little kids could be repeatedly amused by the Spaghetti Handshake, but last weekend proved me Wrong-O!

This childhood game lives on, but another one--Sick Princess--seems to have passed away. Sick Princess rules require two underlings to bear the Princess in her sedan chair (a large cardboard box), wherever the bossy monarch directs.

As the servants' arms begin to tire, rebellion creeps in. They slam the flaps closed on the cardboard box sedan chair, and begin rolling the chair very rapidly, end over end through the yard. The Royal Passenger screams her displeasure to no avail; the servants keep rolling the box until she is ready to throw up.

Then the sisters all clamor to be the next Princess.

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

      "You ought to write 'A Happy Birthday' on it."

      "That was want I wanted to ask you," said Pooh. "Because my spelling is Wobbly. Would you write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?"

      Owl licked the end of his pencil, and wondered how to spell "birthday."

      "Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously. "There's a notice about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin wrote. Could you read it?"

      "Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could."

      "Well, I'll tell you what this says, and then you'll be able to."

      So Owl wrote......and this is what he wrote:

      HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

Enough

"Enough is as good as a feast"
--Mary Poppins


Deep down, I believe this. But sometimes I forget and slip into the ubiquitous American "more is always better" mode.



Rachel has recently been counting her blessings, fourteen at a time, on her blog. Periodically I comment, noting some particular item or incident that I am thankful for.





Today I add: Thank you, Lord, for enough.