Approaching Samhain

Great clouds of leaves have floated away from their homes of origin. They now clutter the ground and complicate the last grass cutting of the past growing season. Bare branches begin to dominate country skylines. Halloween / Samhain arrives Thursday. Candles are lit at dinner time. Autumn is here and next weekend we begin to anticipate celebrating Thanksgiving in hope that “our fellow Americans(?)” will leave US something to celebrate after November 5.

All Hallow's Eve visitors

Photo by J. Harrington

Not only was Halloween itself more fun when I was a kid, I didn’t know enough in those days to worry about elections and outcomes. An example that getting older doesn’t always mean getting wiser? Anyhow, I’m anticipating that, again this year, we’ll have at least one Trick or Treater, our 4 year old granddaughter. I think she’s the only one that’s shown up in the 25+ years we’ve lived here. I’ll spend some time over the next few days debating whether to bring in our political signs for the haunted evening rather than leave them subject to pranks or vandalism.

Flocks of Canada geese and sandhill cranes are still to be seen in our local airways. So far there’s still plenty of food and open water so no reason for them to head south. The Son-In-Law has captured some pictures of a nice buck oor two on his trail cam. I tried deer hunting off and on over the years. I just don’t enjoy sitting that still for that long to get good at it. When I was younger, I’d rather bust brush for grouse or fiddle with decoys for ducks than sit in or on a deer stand. If I had had an enclosed stand, I’d probably been guilty of too much napping. This reminds me, after Samhain, I need to send Santa a letter asking for more accommodating weather next fly fishing season.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

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The autumn leaves drift by my window

The local leaves are just about at peak color, sliding past peak any day now as the colors drift down with the leaves. It sure is pretty around here for now. Yesterday I noticed a new dandelion blossom. Today there’s a small cluster of little white flowers. Garter snakes are out and about. I wish they’d feast on more of the mice that keep getting into the house. We must have trapped almost two dozen since last Sunday.

Autumn's silver and gold

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half, plus our son, plus me, have all voted early. I wonder how long post November 5 the suspense may continue and how long after that the prospect of violence may hang in the air. Meanwhile, critical global and national issues continue to fester instead of getting the attention deserved and needed. For example, a report issued this past week calls to our attention, inter alia, the following:

Most gravely, while itself a victim of climate change,

the degradation of freshwater ecosystems including

the loss of moisture in the soil has become a driver

of climate change and biodiversity loss. The result

is more frequent and increasingly severe droughts,

floods, heatwaves, and wildfires, playing out across

the globe. And a future of growing water scarcity,

with grave consequences for human security.

Nearly 3 billion people and more than half of the

world’s food production are now in areas where

total water storage is projected to decline.

We’ve seen examples of these issues with recent hurricanes and flooding in major parts of our country. Most Republicans I’ve read about claim climate change is some kind of scam. Of course many of them also continue to incorrectly refer to the 2020 election as “stolen.”

Things got more than a little hectic around the homestead this week, especially today. The Better Half noticed one of the kitchen cabinets needs major repairs. An electrical circuit that, about this time last year,, started tripping the breaker for no reason that we or the electrician could figure out, is doing it again this year. My theory is that mice in the garage are biting into a hot wire because the breaker can be reset after a few hours. Anyhow, I’m tuckered so this posting is short and as sweet as I can make it. More next week.

Neighbors in October

By David Baker

All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon

with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting

chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.

Down the block we bend with the season:

shoes to polish for a big game,

storm windows to batten or patch.

And how like a field is the whole sky now

that the maples have shed their leaves, too.

It makes us believers—stationed in groups,

leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters

over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,

bagging gold for the cold days to come.

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On the eve of Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Last Friday I was doing some outside chores and, as I looked up from time to time, it seemed as if I could actually see colors changing in the maple leaves. We are rapidly approaching peak color and the area is looking mighty pretty.

St. Croix River Valley colors

Photo by J. Harrington

Today’s clouds and wind served as backdrop to flights of Canada geese and sandhill cranes either heading south or practicing for the trip. Another sign of autumn’s progress: increasing numbers of mice getting into the house and caught in traps. This past week we eliminated about a dozen and a half. I don’t remember ever, in 25+ years here, dealing with as many mice as this year. I’m not sure what happened over the spring and summer to produce such a bumper crop. It would be better for all concerned if they’d settle for outside nests and get fat on the acorns that have dropped everywhere.

Early voting has started. Election day is three weeks from Tuesday. Pundits torment US with their assessments of races depending on a handful or two of battleground states or congressional districts, all within a polling margin of error. If candidates were at all comparable in their capabilities and integrity and sanity, I’d be less troubled. Regardless of the election outcome, the fact that one of the major presidential candidates is a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, among other unsavory attributes, seems to me disqualifying on its face, and yet....

At least we have three months with joyful holidays to celebrate. This month it’s Halloween and Samhain; next month it’s Thanksgiving; and, come December, Christmas. They’re all better if shared with family and kids and we’re lucky that way.

Tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Information about activities and resources in Minnesota can be found here. My personal celebration involves starting to read Louise Erdrich’s Original Fire, selected and new poems.

That Pull from the Left

By Louise Erdrich

Butch once remarked to me how sinister it was   

alone, after hours, in the dark of the shop

to find me there hunched over two weeks’ accounts   

probably smoked like a bacon from all those Pall-Malls.

Odd comfort when the light goes, the case lights left on   

and the rings of baloney, the herring, the parsley,   

arranged in the strict, familiar ways.

Whatever intactness holds animals up

has been carefully taken, what’s left are the parts.   

Just look in the cases, all counted and stacked.

Step-and-a-Half Waleski used to come to the shop

and ask for the cheap cut, she would thump, sniff, and finger.   

This one too old. This one here for my supper.   

Two days and you do notice change in the texture.

I have seen them the day before slaughter.

Knowing the outcome from the moment they enter   

the chute, the eye rolls, blood is smeared on the lintel.   

Mallet or bullet they lunge toward their darkness.

But something queer happens when the heart is delivered.   

When a child is born, sometimes the left hand is stronger.   

You can train it to fail, still the knowledge is there.   

That is the knowledge in the hand of a butcher

that adds to its weight. Otto Kröger could fell

a dray horse with one well-placed punch to the jaw,   

and yet it is well known how thorough he was.

He never sat down without washing his hands,   

and he was a maker, his sausage was echt

so that even Waleski had little complaint.   

Butch once remarked there was no one so deft   

as my Otto. So true, there is great tact involved   

in parting the flesh from the bones that it loves.

How we cling to the bones. Each joint is a web

of small tendons and fibers. He knew what I meant   

when I told him I felt something pull from the left,   

and how often it clouded the day before slaughter.

Something queer happens when the heart is delivered.

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The month peak color comes and goes

It looks like the weather may have finally turned the corner from Summer to Autumn, more than a month after the start of meteorological autumn and a couple of weeks after the equinox. Maple trees are showing more color. Pines are shedding their needles. Aspen and birch leaves are mostly gold. Seed heads from purple love grass are flying everywhere and the last few really windy days have turned a few trees almost leafless.

maples starting to show color

Photo by J. Harrington

Today we saw another wooly bear looking very much like the one we reported on last week, about four ginger bands in the middle and each end black. No frost yet locally. Most birds coming to the feeder are year round residents like woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals and goldfinches. Every now and then a pair of bluejays stop by.

We’ve been going through an extended dry spell for the past month or so. Fire danger has been high enough that I’ve not even thought about torching the back yard brush pile. If it sits until spring, that’s no big deal although I would like to get it gone so we can replace it with more of the downed branches lying around. The electric weed whacker we recently acquired is helping to bring a modicum or orderliness to some of the overgrown areas around the place. That’s going to be a continuing project. We may see if the battery-powered chain saw diminishes the buckthorn that’s trying to overrun the woods.

All in all it’s been a mostly pleasant week up North here. We celebrated the Granddaughter’s fourth birthday and her parents tenth anniversary. No signs of Helene but we may well pay for it come blizzard season, or might climate change temper our upcoming winter? We’ll see.

Autumn's Gold

by George MacDonald

Along the tops of all the yellow trees,

The golden-yellow trees, the sunshine lies;

And where the leaves are gone, long rays surprise

Lone depths of thicket with their brightnesses;

And through the woods, all waste of many a breeze,

Cometh more joy of light for Poet's eyes—

Green fields lying yellow underneath the skies,

And shining houses and blue distances.

By the roadside, like rocks of golden ore

That make the western river-beds so bright,

The briar and the furze are all alight!

Perhaps the year will be so fair no more,

But now the fallen, falling leaves are gay,

And autumn old has shone into a Day! 

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.