Turning a new leaf into October!

Welcome to October and Happy International Coffee Day! Today is also the 98th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter. We wish him many happy returns of the day.

oak leaves in October

Photo by J. Harrington

Oak leaves are just beginning to show color, more subdued than the maples, or, if you prefer, less flamboyant. The bur oak dropped acorns about a month ago. We’ve seen no acorns on other  oaks this year. Roadside asters are still in flower, although with fewer blooms than mid-month last.

Yesterday we got all wound up thinking about an honorable harvest and missed sharing our share of the weekly Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share we picked up. [Remember that the Honorable Harvest includes sharing.] Here’s what was in our box:

• BROCCOLI SIDE SHOOTS
• CAULIFLOWER OR EGGPLANT
• GREEN ONIONS
• KABOCHA SQUASH
• LETTUCE
• RAINBOW CHARD; and,
• TOMATOES

We got cauliflower instead of eggplant but it was purple cauliflower, which I don’t recall ever seeing before. The tomatoes are the last for this season. Another sign that summer is truly gone for the year. Soon even the local Drive In restaurant will be closed for the winter so last night we enjoyed dinners from there. As we were driving home, we got to watch a flight of eight or ten geese traverse the cloudy sky. That helped make my day.

October is National Arts & Humanities Month (NAHM). Here’s the Presidential Proclamation. We’ll see what we can manage to share on that theme. One point is that we’ve signed up for an online nature nonfiction writing series that runs this month on Wednesdays. Among other benefits, it brings me into contact with writers I might not otherwise encounter and causes me to actually think about my writing.

October

By Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

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