Silence

The quiet song of rain on the roof might be soothing, but when sound seems to stop altogether and the world suddenly becomes silent it can be more disturbing than storm rattling the window panes. The silence I am talking about is not the kind that comes after a summer rain, the splash of an occasional droplet like an afterthought. No, if silence comes after a rain on an October night I will go to the patio door in the kitchen and switch on the outside light to see if my suspicion is confirmed, not surprised at all if it is so. Silence now might mean snow. 

Oh, it was a light, fluffy snow, a gentle whiteness that started to descend on the world the night before last, and it took a while before it started to accumulate on the still-green grass. By the evening there were maybe two centimeters – not much, and certainly not too much to go away as quickly as it came. Still, something important has happened: the illusion of the world glowing on and on in its autumn beauty is gone. Winter has knocked on the door. 

The garden has not yet been put to rest completely. Cucumbers, of course, are long gone, their vines and tender leaves dried up before the first real frost hit last week when the temperature went down to -3 and the following night to -5 Celsius. Tomatoes – more than I’ve ever harvested – are continuing to ripen in boxes in the house, picked in time to escape the grim reaper. A few days ago I dug the last remaining row of potatoes, and when the forecast called for snow, followed by even colder temperatures at night, I decided to bring in at least one row of carrots as well. They probably would have been safe under the mass of sweet pea vines covering them, the supporting fence too low to contain this tangle. Sadly, the frost put an end to the never-ending supply of beautifully scented bouquets which we had been enjoying longer than most years. Sunflowers, too, hang their heads, and zinnias and dill and the seven feet high corn stalks rustle their song of loneliness stirred up by the wind. 

Yesterday, snow accumulating slowly, I looked around to see what might not withstand the cold. Five heads of red cabbage and an armful of beets – forgotten, too, under the sweet pea vines and thus grown to the size of a small child’s head – are now waiting to be processed, piled on the wheelbarrow in the shop. Only the steadfast leeks are still standing at attention, as always  the last to be harvested.

And yet, many of the golden poplar leaves still shiver in the cool breeze, and there are the reds and oranges of dogwood and high bush cranberry, the creamy salmon of the wild raspberry, the pale yellow of the hazel. How much longer until they, too, will stand bare?

If the forecast can be trusted it will warm up on the weekend, and I will likely have a chance to clean up a bit more in the garden, even though it seems hard to believe when the ground is firm, the soil a bit crunchy after a day below zero, and I removed sheets of ice a couple of centimeters thick from the horses’ trough this afternoon. I trust that this was just a reminder of what will expect us eventually, and not yet the real thing – winter will be long enough even if it starts a month or six weeks from now!