Winding down

Another week of October lies behind us, and yet another week of beautiful autumn weather. While it is a little cooler than it has been highs are still around ten or twelve degrees, and the warm colours haven’t completely faded yet.

I’d love to have this kind of autumn every year, the very slow decline, the very slow shutting down. I don’t mind the shutting down at all, just as I don’t really mind winter (except for its length sometimes) – but why does the beauty of autumn so often have to end with a big bang towards the end of September instead of lingering almost into November? It is lovely to see the blossoms of the sunflowers wilting one by one instead of being burnt to a crisp by a hard frost in their prime. There were still enough left for two small bouquets yesterday, but I’m afraid these were the last ones.

For a while I will be able to pick pale yellow and lavender pansies. For years they have been growing right out of the red shale on the west side of the house, originally from seed scattered long ago from the big planters, now self-seeding every year. They are such hardy things; every summer they brave the harsh conditions, blazing sun without much shade, unprotected from strong west and north-west winds, rarely if ever watered.

I brought in one more big bouquet for the copper vase in the front entrance, and I can’t feast my eyes enough on its glowing beauty: faded corn stalks, pale green topped with delicate blossoms the colour of unbleached linen, paired with a few bronze-and-gold leafed branches of the Evans sour cherry.  It is at its most glorious when the late afternoon sun slants in through the tall window; then, the leaves take on a life of their own, seem to be giving off light instead of receiving it. 

Slowly, the garden is getting emptier. With a forecast low of -6 for tonight I finally caved in and harvested the six huge heads of red cabbage, piled them onto the wheel barrow and brought them to the shop. The biggest of them weighs about five kilograms! While I am pretty sure they could have withstood those temperatures I didn’t want to take any chances, now that they made it this far.

All that is left is a bit of broccoli (a meal, no more), a row and a half of carrots (which, I hope, can stay where they are for a while, because they never taste quite as sweet as when they come in fresh from the garden, with a bit of dirt still clinging to them), almost all of the leeks, which can also stay out since they are not prone to freezing unless it freezes really hard, the beautiful Swiss Chard plants that provide as much aesthetic as culinary pleasure, a bit of lettuce – and, last stragglers in the fruit department: strawberries! I can gather only a scant handful at a time, and they are a tad leathery after the recent mild frosts, but their sweetness is unsurpassed.

Colour is now largely limited to the cherry trees, and today’s strong winds have done their utmost to  strip them, too, of their leaves. Chickadees still frequent the dried sunflower heads; not all are empty yet. The squirrel seems to have a storage chamber under the front deck: several times in the last while I have watched it disappear there with something in its mouth. Leo, raw energy in a sleek young dog’s body, chases both chickadees and squirrels enthusiastically, but so far without success.

Now I can see where new nests have been built in the lilac hedge and the poplar grove during the summer, the intricately woven masterpieces of gold finch and robin and several kinds of song sparrows, often with a piece of string threaded in, the messy abodes of magpies and crows, and, high up in one of the old poplars, the lair of the red-tailed hawks. 

Often geese are passing overhead in the evening now. They don’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, and why would they be when the table is still so richly set in the stubble fields?  They fly in small groups, in formation even if they only return to their temporary home for the night. Sometimes they fly so low that I can hear the soft whistling song of their wings, accented by a quiet honk by one or the other goose in the flock, a reassuring little sound as the day winds down.

How long, I wonder, will this all last? Long enough, hopefully, that even the last fields will be harvested, that combines and tractors can be put away for the winter, another year’s work done.

Digging potatoes

After three days of muted light and soft drizzle last week sunshine and wind have returned. Incredibly, not even the full moon a couple of days ago has brought a hard frost – strange, when sometimes we fear for our crops in field and garden even at the time of the full moon in August. Tender plants like beans, cucumbers, and squash, of course, wilted in the light frosts of mid-September, but everything else, if it had been touched at all, has quite recovered. How much longer can this last?

It is early afternoon, and like the two preceding days I am digging potatoes. I am on my hands and knees in the soft, dry dirt, cool, but pleasantly so with the sun warm on my face and back. The plants have long ago wilted, the reddish-brown stalks, now leafless, just firm enough still for me to pull, which breaks open the slightly crusted surface. Most other gardeners would now use the garden fork to expose the yellow tubers, but I use my hands to carefully pry them out of their hiding place. I have not ever quite mastered the art of using the fork without spearing any potatoes, and I hate the sound of a tine entering the crisp, moist flesh. It feels like an act of barbarism. Only when I feel I have unearthed most of a plant’s chiIdren I push the fork in from the side to catch any escapees.

I used to hurry to get this work done, under time pressure as for so many others, trying to fit as much into a day as possible. Small children needed attention, my help was needed with field work, meals needed to be cooked, and snow and hard frost could be just around the corner.

This year I am taking my time. The harvest is finished, children are grown, have moved away from home or don’t need much attention anymore, meals for two or three are not much work, and snow and frost are no immediate threat.

It is good to do this slowly, to feel the crumbling earth under my knees, the smooth potato skin in my hands, almost free from dirt since the over-abundant rains of June and July gave way to almost perfect summer weather for August and September. The wind rustles the drying leaves of the corn behind me, from time to time a small yellow poplar leaf is slowly coasting down from one of the trees in the bush beside the garden, settling on the heap of potatoes I have just dug. Now and again the sound of a grasshopper’s clicking legs almost creates an illusion of summer, just like the distant quiet hum of a small plane. It is very peaceful work, and not a single car passes by on the road during this time.

Yet there are signs enough of fall, of the season drawing to a close. Once, a tiny frog, the smallest I have ever seen, not even an inch long, with tiny limbs, emerges from the ground, moving very slowly. What a rude awakening for the little fellow, probably quite settled in his hibernating quarters until I pulled up the potato plant. I see him push back into the loose dirt. This time he doesn’t have anything to fear from me.

A little bit further down the row I find more evidence of winter preparations: a handful of dried peas emerges together with the potatoes. I find no mouse nest; I probably destroyed the tunnel without knowing it was there, but surely this must have been a mouse’s cache. Like the squirrels who hurry back and forth between the big spruce trees on the lawn and the bush, often carrying small cones in their mouths, they need to make sure they won’t starve in the long hard months ahead.

I get up and stretch my back, surveying the row of golden potatoes waiting to be picked up later in the afternoon. Their gold matches the glow of the yellow poplars, is joined by the crimson of the dogwood, the pink blush of raspberry leaves and the first signs of bronze on the cherry trees that are still deep green for the most part. Only the little oak trees are standing totally bare, their brittle brown leaves spread like a dropped skirt around their trunks. 

Soon enough the bush will have shed its colour, but today I can still enjoy the different hues and, like grasshoppers and chickadees, the warmth of the autumn sun. 

Night walk in the mist

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

(Wendell Berry)

There it is again, the unexplainable urge to go out into the dark, to step away from the light. Today, some of it probably has its origin in the weather: the mist, covering the trees across the field with a thin veil when I first looked out to the west this morning, stayed with us all day. From time to time it lifted a little, but just when the planks of the deck had almost dried it gathered its folds again, got denser, and evolved into a thin drizzle.

To me, this is lovely weather, gentler even than a sunny summer day. So long has it been dry, and I am thankful for that because we needed sun and wind and low humidity to bring the crops in. Now, however, I feel my whole being open up to this moisture, a quiet presence that touches skin and hair with a loving hand.

This is what calls me outside after a late supper. I put on rubber boots and rain jacket, but push the hood back when I realize it is not really raining: I want to feel the droplets settle on my head and face, want it to cover me like a magic cloak. For the first few moments I cannot see my hand in front of my eyes. I debate if I should use the flashlight I brought, but by the time Leo has arrived at my side my eyes have got used to the dark, and I can make out the contours of the spruce trees lining the driveway. There are degrees of darkness, and the trees are much denser than the sky. The driveway and the road into which it turns glisten from the moisture, but are firm underfoot, not muddy and without puddles.

Leo and I walk in companionable silence for a few hundred meters north on the road. No car, no human being is out, only the faint hiss of the highway two miles over to the east provides some background noise. Here and there a few yard lights in the distance, muted by the fog, try in vain to illuminate the night. Not even the city to the south is more than a dim reddish glow.

I step under the trees at the side of the road and listen. The drizzle whispers quietly among the leaves, their glow, so glorious under a deep blue sky in the sun, gone now: this is a monochrome world, reduced to the bare essence of lighter and darker grey, a world bled of all colour.

A sudden breeze stirs the branches over me, sends droplets tumbling downward from the top leaves, joining others on their way down, gathering into drops that splash on the ground beside me, on my forehead, my hands. Just as suddenly the wind dies down, and again there is only a whisper, the rustle of leaves like a quiet conversation which I don’t understand, but feel invited to listen to anyway.

The dog pushes his head against my knee: it is time to go home, go back towards the light shining its welcome from the kitchen window.

I touch my hair: it is covered with tiny droplets. Like spindrift they will soon be gone, but they will leave my hair as this walk has left my heart: saturated and softened, grateful for this gift.