First freeze, first hard frost #phenology

first frozen birdbath of the season

Photo by J. Harrington

It's almost 1 pm as we start this post. The bird bath, which is shaded by the house for much of the day, still has a skim of ice over much of the water. We had a "hard frost" last night. Early morning dog walks revealed sparkly grasses covering the fields. Fortunately, we covered the asters and the mums. Now, if we get some really warm weather, it can bring what historically we have called "Indian Summer."

first frosted fields

Photo by J. Harrington

Maple  and sumac leaves are reaching peak color. Patches of woods have turned chrome yellow, florescent orange and flame red. Oaks are also turning, but more slowly, in more subdued hues from an earth tone palette. This morning's clear, blue skies, sunshine, and abundant splashings of  bright fall colors enhanced by our first really cold night and made us plain old "happy to be alive." (This is also our acknowledgement that today is World Mental Health Day.) How do you suppose we'd react if, instead of Summer's chlorophyl green, tree leaves were Autumn colorful for all the months that deciduous trees have leaves? Would we begin to take the beauty for granted? Would the variegation fade to background, as Summer's greens often seem to? If paradise didn't have four seasons, and dogs, given a choice, would you go?

sourdough-apple-cinnamon flatbread

Photo by J. Harrington

Several days ago we promised to let readers know how our apple-cinnamon-sourdough-flatbread turned out. The short answer is "better than we expected." A longer answer involves noting that there's clearly room for improvement, but it's good enough to be worth the effort to play with. Instead of making an apple-spice cinnamon syrup to drizzle (love that word) over the apples, we're going to mix the cinnamon spices and syrup with the apples and boiled cider, to give the apples a more uniform coating. At least, that's the intent. We also want to work on making the flatbread more uniform in thickness and to keep the edge crusts smaller. One thing we're considering is to leave out the yeast and see what happens with just the sourdough. On a scale of 0 to 10, we'd rate our first effort somewhere near a seven. We'll see if we can bring it up around a nine. Wish us luck.

Indian Summer Ritual

Alma Luz Villanueva, 1944

I was born in Indian Summer,
by the sea, at sun set—

I slid from my mother’s womb,
face to the sea—

I felt a dolphin leap
from the sea for joy—

I cried in agony because
I was naked, cold, beached—

It was Indian summer
and the clouds were purple—

It was Indian Summer
and Venus glowed in the West—

It was Indian Summer
and the moon rose, a ripe, gold melon—

It was Indian Summer
and fire was in the ascendant—

It was Indian Summer
and I danced and danced with dolphins

all the first night of my birth,
until the eagle’s cry brought the sun—

It was Indian Summer,
light wolves and dark wolves howled through the day—

It was Indian Summer
and a snake shed its skin.

Then, and only then, was I properly
human. 

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