November 26, 2011

It is the week after Thanksgiving. My older sister came for Thanksgiving day. She brought her dogs with her, two Corgi's, which were well-behaved and made me want a dog. I am trying to hold off until Spring, but I am still checking both Rottweiler rescue and Pug rescue. Because I am pretty much insane.

This is a picture of me that my husband Don took about a week ago. No make-up, still recovering from a 3-week bout of some pulmonary something-or-other, and I see I have many wrinkles these days. It is because I try to laugh a lot and because I am 60.

This is a week of contemplation and quiet. Most everyone else is standing in line somewhere in front of Wal-Mart or Target or Best Buy. But I don't like shopping and can't stand crowds. So I'm staying home, finishing up the last of the Christmas decorating. Frankly just the thought of shopping in pushing or shoving crowds makes my eyes roll back up in my head. I saw all of that on the news this morning. No thanks.

Don and I are planning a round of trips to keep us busy over the winter. California, Texas, Florida -- all good places to visit in February and March.

It is supposed to snow again tomorrow and our weather man said this morning, that this morning would be our last nice day of the year. Nice being a relative term for most people. But it's in the high 40's and cloudy. The two small lakes you can see from the house are quiet and gray today. But when the sun is out, you can see them sparkle and dance from the living room windows. Am I falling in love with this property? Yes. Some. It grows on you. All the beautiful maples trees and the gentle roll of the land here is wonderful to look at. The birds are frantically at work at the feeders and a black squirrel, who grows larger and fatter every day, comes once a day to jam his jowls with black sunflower seeds. Wildlife abounds here. We have even read newspaper accounts of black bear in this county.

I am hoping to see a red fox one day soon. I imagine him loping across the white snow, black-tipped ears, on the hunt or perhaps just heading over to the lake to catch a large frog for a quick meal.

Friday, November 18th, 2011

I got up early this morning. It was windy and the wind was roaring through the leafless trees. Normally the time change makes me crazy and it takes me a full two weeks to readjust to the single hour change. But this morning I was grateful it started to get light early.

If you look on the left side of this photo, you can see the flag moving in the wind. The wind is from the south today which normally keeps the air warmer. But the wind chills are in the mid-20's and it's cold. We know winter is coming. We try to stave it off by doing whatever outdoor chores we can before the snow comes. Don was out picking up leaves again, I went around and picked up all the fallen branches and threw them on the outdoor fire pit. But by now, there are probably hundreds more branches blown down. If we used our fireplace it would be a constant source of kindling. We don't know if the fireplace works yet. We haven't had anyone out to look at it.

The deer come every evening around 5:00 p.m. to munch on the apples. People around here sell "deer apples" and people use them as bait to lure the deer close. Gun season started this past Tuesday. We hear shotgun blasts regularly throughout the day, starting early in the morning. But at our house, we let the deer come close and munch on the apples in peace.

Out in the garden there is a plastic beach ball blowing around everywhere. It started out as part of Dolly, our scarecrow, and gave her an impressive bustline. Later, halfway through the summer, it sunk down and she looked pregnant. Now she stands out there, more or less headless, bustless, and not pregnant. And the beach ball kicks around happily in the wind gusts.

Winter is coming, winter is coming, winter is coming. . . . It is like a drum beat in my head. I don't dread the winter. It's not the cold weather. It's not the snow. The older I get, winter is just a season, a short part of the whole year. I fear the inactivity. The boredom. Being house-bound. What will we do?

November 11, 2011 Veteran's Day

This is the garden we woke up to this morning! The deer fencing is all draped on top like garland on a Christmas tree. The trees are frosted with snow and hoar frost. It's hard to imagine that 6' tall tomato bushes groaning with wheel barrow loads of tomatoes and beautiful translucent onions standing in rows like soldiers used to grow here just a couple of months ago. It is so beautiful!

On the other side of the house, it's a scene from Peter and the Wolf. The pine trees are loaded with perfect snow. I wish I had to dog to go outside and romp in the snow with. Don wants a big Rottweiler. And he wants a small, black pug. Today, I want them all. A happy house full of wagging tails coming in from a romp in the fresh snow.

This week-end promises to be warm and sunny, in the low 50's. So all the snow will be gone. We are going to dig a "pumpkin hole" next to the garden. This is a two foot high, two foot diameter hole, lasagne-layered with soil and cow manure and leaves and whatever else I can find. It will cook all winter long and by spring, it will be a warm pot, perfect for the Cinderella pumpkins I plan to plant. They are prickly enough that the deer will not bother them. I hope the vines take over the entire west side of the garden. Then we'll have less yard to mow!

Halloween 2011

The garden has been put to bed. The trees are turning colors. The lawn has disappeared under a carpet of leaves. It is beautiful here.

Most of the trees are yellow. But a few, hidden here and there in the woods, are spectacularly red.

It is Halloween. I have asked a few neighbors and have been told not to expect any trick-or-treaters. It's too bad because I would love to decorate the walkway with pumpkins and corn stalks and lights.

It is getting quieter here. My sister and her husband have gone home to Florida. The garden, as I said, is put to bed, my husband is considering going back to work. What will I do all winter? Could I load the wood stove all by myself if I had to? What if I get snowed in? As I ponder these questions, fall deepens its hold on Michigan and the skies are turning the familiar November-gray that lasts all month. I am already thinking about spring and wishing I had planted more bulbs in my fledgling flower garden. The ones I did plant, white daffodils and deep red tulips in the main garden, small blue scilla and miniature yellow daffodils in the shade garden, are peacefully slumbering under dark, cool soil. I also got rid of the rocks and removed the plastic tarp from a small bed by the barn. I filled it up with leaves and manure, underlaid with newspaper and hope it will be rotted down in the spring. I have visions of the "Spring Celebrities" hollyhocks growing there next summer. A red barn should have hollyhocks next to it.

Terra Firma, Terra Farma

We have been gone for a week. We went to South Carolina to see Don's family, and then to Boston to see our daughter, grand-daughter and son-in-law. We had a wonderful trip, a great time in both places. It was good to get away from the farm for a while. She is sometimes an unrelenting task mistress. But after 6 flights in 8 days, I was ready to stop moving. It was good to have my feet on the ground.

The trees had all turned yellow and the grass was disappearing under a carpet of leaves. The garden was put to bed, manure added, leaves piled on top, a half bushel of green tomatoes in the garage.

Compared to spring and summer, fall is going to be a breeze. We brought in the potatoes and popcorn and onions this morning. The garage will eventually freeze and I want everything to be okay. Plus the mice had been at the popcorn and we wanted to save it. The trees are yellow in the sun, the house is full of food, my children are happy, healthy...life is good.

October 15, 2011

Don left for the day, so David raced out to dig up the okra skeletons. Amazingly, they still had blossoms on the top of the stalks that were over 5' tall. Nature wants to succeed. Things want to grow. Flowers, vegetables. . .even children. My children are both grown now and have families of their own. I am amazed that I can still be hurt by the fact that I don't see them as often as I'd like. Especially my grand-daughters. When they visit their other grand-parents I always ask, why can't I see them, too? I am possessive, have trouble sharing. Kahil Gibran said "Your children are not your children. They are life's longing for itself." Well, he certainly got that right.
To take my mind off this, I head out to the almost non-existent garden to pick a few tomatoes. Here's what I came up with on the 15th of October!

Twenty-three pounds of tomatoes! The tomato plants themselves are threadbare and mostly just stalks standing inside their cages. But they are still producing. At the last, we will pick the green tomatoes and have fried green tomatoes and watch football and drink beer.
I planted three oriental poppies in my new flower garden. They came to me all carefully labelled. They better be right. In the past, I've purchased poppies that were in delicious sherbet shades, only to have them spring up wildly healthy and day-glo orange.
October 15th. 50 mile per hour winds outside. My sister is baking wild rice bread and I made cookies this morning. We baked a pumpkin and hope to have pumpkin pie soon. I love fall.

Summer Gives Way

Are you one of those people that drives around the country sometimes? Do you see small farm houses and wonder who lives there and what it would be like if you lived there? Do you sometimes long for the peace of your imagined farm life? I used to do that. My husband used to love driving in the country and looking out over the fields and the farms. He especially admired the perfectly neat farmsteads, where the grass was always mowed, the weeds were non-existent, and the barns were freshly painted. I've never liked driving that much, but I used to gaze out the window and wonder what is was like to live in those places.
Now I know.

This is the view from the windows of the sun porch where we sit having morning coffee, making our plans for the day. It is early October now and you can see the faint reds through the trees. Our trees are still mostly green and I am waiting for all of the maples to turn red or yellow. Every day we get up and have coffee and eat breakfast and decide what we are going to do that day. Finish taking down the garden. Mow the lawn. Again. Put up more tomatoes. Again. Our freezer is overflowing downstairs.

This doesn't even show the door of the freezer, which is also full. So here's one of the secrets about "what it's like to live on that farm out in the country."  It's a lot of work. I guess in my mind I had fantasies about sitting on a lawn chair in the shade, sipping iced tea. And granted there was some of that. Oh the meals we ate at the outside table under the shade of the 300 year old maple! We set the table with table cloths, linen napkins and dishes of food that mostly came from the garden. So there were times when we sat down. But there were also many times when we worked and worked. Plus we were still trying to get settled so we had to continually clean out the garage because things kept collecting in there. My garden gloves had holes in most of the fingertips. The shovels were notched at the tips. Many of the tomato cages were snapped and broken, groaning under the weight of our six foot tomatoes. Most everything grew. And grew and grew. We had a few failures -- the celery, spinach, and lima beans never really came up. But everything else did just fine.
Now we are taking down the garden. Don tills the empty rows. We added manure -- free from our neighbor who had the baby Holsteins. Susan and David have begun to gather the fallen leaves to heap on top of the rows. I planted garlic. It is still warm here. We don't have the heat on in the house yet. But the end of the gardening season is coming. The chores are lessening somewhat. Only the tomatoes and the zucchini and the Swiss chard are left in the garden. The skeletons of the okra are still standing because Don can't believe the okra harvest is over. They look vaguely "Halloween-ish" so I am leaving them.
But winter is coming. It looms ahead of me. What will I do all winter?