Sitting in the music room teaching I looked out the window and noticed an eerie long garland of brittle brown leaves swinging back and forth in the breeze. They were held together by an invisible thread making it Halloween worthy. Each day I make a point of noticing them and each day the garland grows….
Category: Autumn
The Day
The week has been magical; dry and sunny and the foliage seems to have arrived with the tour buses. Driving to and from home we pass underneath an archway of color. Windows down we hear our tires crunch through fallen leaves and watch them blow out from behind our car, like confetti following a parade….
Preparing
I close the gate to the pasture after letting the sheep in and push hard on the metal gate to the garden. Long tendrils curl away from the pumpkins, small yellow bulbs swell but don’t really resemble a Jack O’lantern yet. Kale plants, eternally hardy, faithfully push new leaves out for me to harvest. The…
Fair Time
The beginning of the third week in September has a distinctly different feel to it. Something wonderful this way comes. It is the Tunbridge fair. Paul and I talk about who will check the fair schedule, feed the dogs, and bring sheep up so that we are ready to leave as quickly as possible. It…
Change
It is November in Vermont. The in-between, stick season. Autumn: time for long sleeves, hats (the warm, not cute kind) and mittens. However, this past week was in the seventies. I stubbornly continued to dress for pre-winter and, although I did grin and bear it, I admit I perspired. We can’t really call this a…
Bending
The red and orange leaves are down. The remaining are gold of Beech & Poplar and rust of Oak. While there is an emptiness that arrives with their departure, there is also brilliance as the sun flits through those still hanging in there. The lowly Poplar is the first to leaf out and the last…
Parenting Older Children
The rain and wind started today, whipping the leaves into autumn confetti. The temperature outside hovered around fifty degrees, not terribly cold by VT standards in October but cold enough to warrant throwing a few sticks into the woodstove to take the chill off. I looked out the kitchen window and could see the sheep…
The Importance Of Impermanence
Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves. -Humbert Wolfe, (1885-1940) It is the opening weekend of October and we are ablaze. If you don’t see it now- you don’t see it. Paul and I try to save Sunday for projects…
The Other Liquid Gold
Putting sheep into their paddock on September mornings I scan the hillside that rises up behind them. Each day now color creeps across the mountain. Yellow arrives first, looking more like the green leaves are feeling a little “off.” There are teasing splotches of reds and oranges visible through morning fog. I call to Bronte…
Bounty
Driving down our dirt road I am beginning to see the first signs of leaves turning. At first one puts it down to only the weakened maples beginning to change, but then I started noticing tinges of orange and yellow dotting entire hillsides. At home and on the farm it is the busy season. We…