If I had a blog, today I would write about the way fall arrives in our home on The Greenwood.
Yesterday fall arrived at The Greenwood. Following a forty-seven year tradition, Mom and I put up our autumn decorations. This may seem like a fairly bland occurrence, but for me, it is wrapped in a thousand memories of happy autumn days.
Our tradition started when my siblings and I were toddlers. In those days, we lived in a little ranch style house just outside Rolla and Mom wanted to fancy up (or cover up) our classic 1970’s brown refrigerator and equally attractive cabinet doors with something that honored her love of the natural world. To that end, she started saving calendar pictures and carefully cutting photos from magazines like Farm and Ranch, National Wildlife, and Missouri Conservationist. Mom changed the pictures every month and we anticipated the changing of the photos with great excitement.
As we grew, so did the tradition. When David and I were in school, our artwork was added to the mix as were more substantial items like silk flowers, seasonal figurines, and fragrant candles in vessels painted with seasonal decor. By the time we were in grammar school, coming home to find that Mom had put up the next season’s decorations was as exciting in September as putting up Christmas in December.
Over the years, I’ve picked up on Mom’s idea and now my part of the house changes with the seasons as well. I honor each part of the year, but I have to say, putting up my fall adornments is my favorite ritual. Whatever the weather outside, once my home is wreathed in leaves and silk mums, fall has arrived.
We need traditions to mark the transitions in our lives. In today’s largely virtual world, it is easy to get disconnected from the cycles of nature, even from the flow of the day. We no longer break our fast together, pause at noon to gather and say grace, or sit undistracted at the dinner table, sharing the news of the day. Our lives are lived together, but apart. The technology that, in one sense, unifies the world also tears at the fabric of family life. We scarcely notice the weather unless it inconveniences us and the change of seasons are marked solely by a change of wardrobe. It is no wonder that the world is in chaos.
Will hanging pretty pictures on the refrigerator stop global war? Will putting out the Ghost Lamp (now almost 50 years old) at Halloween stop suffering and human greed? No. But imagine what would happen if we all slowed down long enough to care that we are moving from one season to the next. If we took time to look for the change in the autumn light, the coming of migrating birds, the silence that comes with the first flakes of snow. If we took time to cherish the world we live in, perhaps we would be less cavalier about its destruction. By the same token, if we took time to cherish our family, to look into one another’s eyes and share the joy and pain that resides within us, perhaps we would stop the senseless abuse, neglect, and violence that escalates with each passing day. I can’t make any promises, but I know the peace of heart and mind taking part in my family’s traditions gives to me and it is something rare and beautiful; something that makes a difference in my world at the very least.
Late this afternoon, after my little piece of the planet glowed with the fires of autumn, I settled into my reading chair, my Labrador Gus snoozing on the bed, and listened to the rain beating a gentle tattoo on the roof. Soft light glowed from every corner and shades of burgundy, gold, and ochre called me to settle in and enjoy this perfect start to my favorite season. I have peace. I have love. I feel part of something greater than myself and it is all because I know where I belong and I have a path to follow that will always lead me home.
I met my first chicken in an ambulance. I was twelve and newly diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes. I had the flu and, back then, in the late 1970’s, if I couldn’t eat, I had to go to the hospital for IV’s. My doctor was two hours away (the joys of rural living), so away I went with Mom by my side.
The first chick I named was called, “Friend.” It was a simple name but it said it all. From the start, this little hen sought me out and enjoyed sitting on my shoulder, cuddled up against my neck. I often wondered if she was the chick I held on the day of their arrival, but regardless, she remained my companion for the rest of her long life.
Over the course of my life there have been many special roosters and hens, of all sizes and of all breeds and they have made my life complete. Chickens are gentle creatures who radiate happiness. Listening to a mother hen calling her chicks to a juicy worm, watching my happy girls scratch in fresh straw, or sitting in the twilight, listening to the lilting night-song of chickens going to roost has lifted my spirits on even the hardest days.
I have been without chickens for almost a year now and it has been a long haul. My hen house sits quietly on its grassy lawn, waiting to see whether we will stay or go. For a time, we thought we wanted a change, a life after farming with leisure time and freedom from the routine of daily chores, but, as it turns out, farming is hard to get out of your blood and we’ve decided to stay.
It was chilly this morning. The Canadian cold front that came through over the weekend brought in brisk, autumnal air on the wings of the north wind. It was fifty-two degrees this morning and walking was, at last, a treat rather than hard labor. The drying leaves shimmered in the breeze and carried one of my favorite sounds: The call of blue jays as they went about their morning work.
I have always loved blue jays. Their wings, with windows of blue and white outlined in deepest black remind me of stained glass windows and their antics at the bird feeders only hint at the deep intelligence that is part of the family corvidae. Most of all, I have warm feelings for blue jays because, here in the Ozarks, they are the voice of autumn. During the nesting season, they are largely silent, but once the kids are out on their own, the woodlands ring with their raucous calls and brings forth memories of crisp days, frosty nights, and the smell of woodsmoke on mellow, restful afternoons.
But now nesting season is over and the blue jays and I move into the autumn season together. As I forge ever deeper into the middle years of my life, I appreciate the blue jays’ determination as they put away their stores for winter. They are caching acorns in hollow trees and I am caching memories. The summer season of my life was rich and I don’t want to mislay a single golden afternoon or moonlit night. I want to remember it all, journal it all, treasure it all before winter takes its inevitable toll. Blue Jay inspires me to keep storing my thoughts, come what may. Some will fall on fallow ground, some will feed my soul, and perhaps a few will grow into mighty oaks – a magnum opus, a legacy for all to share.
I’ve been waiting for days now. Waiting for the moment when the sun would shift just enough to replace the brassy summer light with a mellow autumn glow. I keep track of this day in my journal and some years it has happened as early as August 8th. This year it arrived on August 17th. I was in my reading chair, finishing a chapter of Sigurd Olson’s Reflections From the North Country when I saw it: Streamers of gold filtering through the blinds on my French doors. I took up my journal and penned, in all capital letters, “THE LIGHT HAS COME!” And my heart rejoiced.
The coming of autumn light signals an end to the frenzy of summer. The harsh call of cicadas is replaced with the gentle chirp of crickets along the lane. Birds return to our feeders and fill our days with their winter-songs: A chorus performed simply for the love of singing, now that the rush of parenting is through.
Later on, I drove to Hegman Lake for an evening paddle and to see the pictographs. The drive out the Echo Trail was beautiful. The sunlight sparkled on Burntside Lake and the aspen leaves danced in the breeze and the colors of red maples and golden birch blazed in the forest.
The pictographs themselves were fascinating. The Chippewa who made this their home lived here as long as 9,000 years ago and it is estimated that the pictographs were painted 500-1000 years ago. The Native Americans used hematite to dye their paint red, soot for black, and white clay for white. These particular pictographs were red and depict a moose, a wolf or dog and a man-like maymayguayshi figure. They are higher above the water than many other pictographs in the North, the artist sitting on a ledge high above the lake. Archaeologists think this may be why they are of such high quality.
The most important thing I have ever read came to me just before I started college. I was at loose ends the summer before I left home for the first time. It was 1990 and libraries were still the end-all-be-all for avid readers so I spent my days haunting the stacks for good distractions. On one of my expeditions, I found a book called Light From Many Lamps by Lilian Eichler Watson. It was a collection of quotes, poems, and passages from Ms. Watson’s favorite literary works and I was, in a word, captivated.
The first poem I memorized was, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley. During my first year in college, when I was homesick, I repeated this poem over and over and it gave me the courage to go on. The poem took on new meaning twenty-five years later when I learned it was a mantra of hope for Nelson Mandela during his thirty years in prison on Robben Island.
These are by no means the only words I hold dear to my heart. If I were to count them, they would stagger the imagination. I love Emily Dickinson’s Hope is a Thing With Feathers, Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening, selections from Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and countless passages from naturalists like Sigurd Olson, John Muir, John Burroughs, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, just to name a few.
This summer we have new visitors at our hummingbird feeders: Honey bees. While we could buy hummy feeders with bee-guards to keep the little guys at bay, their urgent need has prompted us to make room for them at the table.
On any given day this summer, you will find the holes around the feeders ringed with bees; six or seven per feeding area, but instead of jealously guarding their bounty, they are more than happy to share with the hummingbirds, letting them sip at will in the center of the ring of bees.
The valley was full of fog this morning. We’ve had rain showers off and on this week and the air is heavy with moisture. Mom, Gus and I walked down to the river valley again and once we left the barn lot, we descended into a world of pale pink mist where every blade of grass sparkled with drops of dew.
This time of year, the main activity in the woods and fields is that of tiny spiders. Their species are many and they create a world of intricate webs through which we pass wherever we go. The most prolific are the orb-weavers: Minute, triangle-shaped spiders who weave beautiful round webs that cross our woodland path and that hang glimmering on the taller grasses in the fields. There are other weavers too: The pasture roses are draped with long festoons of web that hang like strands of diamonds in the dewy morn. Still other spiders make broad, thick mats of web along the ground, complete with little tunnels in which their creators hide. This morning, every gossamer thread was alive with color in the soft, misty light.
To experience the rapture of Nature, you have to be out there come rain or shine. The beauty of the natural world does not appear for our benefit, we must be present when the miracle happens, and miracles are happening every day. No matter how long I live in this little valley, there will always be something new, something rare and wonderful waiting for me if I will set aside my cynicism and get out in The Wild.
If I Had A Blog 