Turning over other leaves

Local birds have noticed the persistent wind and drop in temperatures. Visits to the feeders have increased by about an order of magnitude. Visits to the birdbath, mostly for drinking, will be more productive and easier now that we've cleaned the ice and leaves out, plugged in the heater, and refilled it. From what we've been watching the past few days, black-capped chickadees and goldfinches must have had awesome breeding success this past warm season. They're stacked up waiting for an opening at a feeder they way planes get stacked up at busy times at busy airports such as Chicago's O'Hare.

oak leaves often hang on all winter

Photo by J. Harrington

We're still, and on a year to year basis, once again, trying to figure out why and how it is that a West wind can and will blow many more leaves onto the driveway than it blows off of that same drive. We've cleared the drive of leaves twice already this season, so we know it's not just our imagination. Once again the drive needs clearing before the snow arrives and wet leaves get an opportunity to clog the snow blower. It just seems kind of pointless to clear that drive again until we get a couple of days forecast to be more calm than howling. Less than half of the oak leaves are on the ground, although the local maples are mostly bare. Leaf drop that occurs for almost half the year is one of the things we like least about oaks.

Next week is the last for our autumn Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share. Our winter CSA, at a different farm, starts that same week in October. The Better Half also found a reasonably close source of pasture-raised beef. We are weaning ourselves off of CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) meat slowly but surely. The autumn 2020 issue of Orion magazine has a number of interesting and different perspectives on food, people and nature, of which we've only read a couple so far. Also, as a relatively long-time artisan sourdough baker, with our own "made from scratch" starter, we're also looking forward to reading Yes magazine's recent article The Radical Power of Your Sourdough Starter.

happy, home-made sourdough starter

Photo by J. Harrington

With luck and gods' grace, we'll get through the Winter of Our (COVID-19) Discontent aided and abetted by local foods, fresh bread, the joy-full activity  of birds, squirrels and who knows who else, good books, coffee and company and a Blue Tsunami to wash the place clean over the next couple of months.

Autumn Leaves

Marilyn Chin

The dead piled up, thick, fragrant, on the fire escape.
My mother ordered me again, and again, to sweep it clean.
All that blooms must fall. I learned this not from the Dao,
   but from high school biology.

Oh, the contradictions of having a broom and not a dustpan!
I swept the leaves down, down through the iron grille
and let the dead rain over the Wong family’s patio.

And it was Achilles Wong who completed the task.
   We called her:
The one-who-cleared-away-another-family’s-autumn.
She blossomed, tall, benevolent, notwithstanding.

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Changing seasons?

 If I'm reading the map correctly, the gales of November have come to Lake Superior in October this year.

I actually went to the NWS Duluth site to confirm that accumulating snow is in their forecast for Saturday. It is. If this were back in New England when I was younger, I could point out that I'm unaware of any time Boston  got excited about a forecast of snow in Portland, ME. (The distance between Boston and Portland is a little less than that between St. Paul and Duluth.) Then again, Boston, as far as I know, has never come close to October snowfall such as the Twin Cities received in the 1991 Halloween Blizzard. One of the advantages of being located near the tempering affect of the Atlantic Ocean.

October 14, 2018: a trace of snow fell locally

Photo by J. Harrington

On this date a couple of years ago we received a trace or dusting of snow that melted shortly thereafter. For now, we'll hold off for several weeks before we remind folks about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but we have reached that time of year when the "buckskin choppers" get pulled from the cedar chest or the back of the closet and rain jackets get traded for parkas. It's been wet and windy enough the past several days that I've put off climbing up on the roof to clean the gutters and replace the chimney cap that got blown off awhile ago. With luck we'll get enough of a break in the weather to safely finish up autumn's outside chores before winter actually sets in. If not, we'll make do until spring thaw. Meanwhile, we've little doubt that the deer hunters are hoping for some tracking snow early next month to accompany the firearms season.

First Snow

By Arthur Sze

A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway:

           imbibing the silence,

           you stare at spruce needles:

                                          there's no sound of a leaf blower, 

                                          no sign of a black bear;

a few weeks ago, a buck scraped his rack

           against an aspen trunk;

           a carpenter scribed a plank along a curved stone wall.

                        You only spot the rabbit's ears and tail:

when it moves, you locate it against speckled gravel,

but when it stops, it blends in again;

           the world of being is like this gravel:

                        you think you own a car, a house,

                        this blue-zigzagged shirt, but you just borrow these things. 

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams

                        and stood at Gibraltar,

                                                but you possess nothing.

Snow melts into a pool of clear water;

     and, in this stillness,

                        starlight behind daylight wherever you gaze. 

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