Peeking at autumn’s peak

Our growing season is over. Today we pick up our final community supported agriculture [CSA] share. Samhain is ten days from now. Even the oak leaves are reaching peak color. Most of the local farm fields have been harvested. We are deep into autumn and cooler temperatures are finally beginning to show it.

hard to believe oak leaves are this color

Photo by J. Harrington

This year we’ve planted two potted asters that lived on the front steps for awhile in a different location, behind the house rather than near the road in front. Some time in early November, pending the possibility of another Halloween blizzard thwarting autumnal planting, will probably see seed scattering for the wildflowers we hope to see next spring and summer.

After the yard dries from yesterday’s rains we’ll take another pass at mulching and/or collecting leaves and call it a season for the mower deck. All too soon we’ll mount the back blade on the tractor to clean up any slush falls. Then it’ll be time to settle in for long winter’s naps, plus Christmas, winter solstice, New Year’s and then winter’s deep cold and snowdrifts. Our hopes are up and  our fingers crossed that the rest of autumn and all of winter will be more sunny than cloudy. We do not like the way our climate breakdown / global warming has increased the apparent number of cloudy days although we understand that warmer air holds more moisture than does cold.

We’re finding that paying attention to the rhythm of the seasons is slowly helping us focus more on what pleasures the day offers in the present moment, or in the moment's anticipation of future pleasures, than on life's deficiencies. It’s a challenging adjustment for those of us from upwardly mobile middle class backgrounds, trained to always seek more and better than whatever we have. It’s taken the better part of a lifetime to learn that seeking is all too often a distraction from enjoying.

Gathering Leaves

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use,
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

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