Savoring the Season

This time of year makes my socks go up and down....

But it's packed full of activity -- family birthdays, my OWN birthday, the end of Fest followed by all the post-Fest clean-up and the post-Fest art commissions and the post-Fest recovery period. And don't forget my favorite holiday: Halloween.

The season deserves all my attention, though, it's that spectacular. I wish it wasn't so brief.... I could spend whole hours/days/weeks just being still and watching it, feeling the temperature changes, following each leaf as it falls, enjoying the fragrance of loam and woodsmoke, wishing on each milkweed seed as it floats away....

But by the time I stop to do this, it seems I'm already smelling snow. Autumn is curled up and sleeping, and I have yet to rake her leaves! And so I don't.... I don't put the gardens to bed either. I leave them wild and shaggy like little enchanted forests full of burrs and brambles, where rabbits hunker and mice burrow under the leaves....

Maybe it's just that I can't bear to let go of my season. If I rake, if I garden, it's like I've tucked it all away like my Halloween decorations, to be forgotten about until the holiday sneaks up on me again and I hurriedly pull them out and enjoy them briefly without really smelling the candles and tasting the pumpkin spice and wearing the witch's hat....

My season deserves to be savored.

And so THAT is what is on my list today. Savor the season. And do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Join me.

An A-Ha Moment Whilst Walking on an Autumn Day

Catching My Breath

Fest is one big thing I love about my year, but it overlaps everything else I love about it, too. It comes just as my favorite season begins. And by its final weekend, Autumn is close to being spent.

Harvesting the garden, canning tomatoes, planning for Halloween, celebrating my birthday, just appreciating the Fall colors at my leisure -- all the things I long to immerse myself in get shelved or rescheduled or just plain crossed off my list as I deal with post-Fest nonsense: shop flotsam, heaps of costumes, boxes of dusty prints, art order follow-ups, the clearing out and closing up and securing of Mayfaire....

This year was no exception. But it was an unusual post-Fest time for me that involved more on my agenda than ever before, and today feels like my first real day to assess where I am in the grand scheme of my season. I'm upright, which is a good thing; but I can feel the annual bout of respiratory 'fest chest' dancing along the edges of my lungs. It's been there since September and greets me every morning, and so far I've managed to hold it at bay somehow while I deal with more important things that have filled up my days and made time speed by. Ups and downs, highs and lows; a rollercoaster Fall. I've tried holding it together, and I think I've done OK at it, too.

But it's already late October. The trees have peaked and shed their leaves. Mayfaire still needs putting to bed! The gardens do, too. My birthday's back there somewhere, and Halloween is already under way. And I can scratch 'canning' off my list again. I'm so behind....

Every year I imagine my Autumn to be a time of cocooning. A time of retreating and re-assessing, moving slow, going within. I look forward to battening down the hatches while outside the seasons change and eventually snow me in with my thoughts and blank paper. That 'nothingness' is the only thing that fills my well, and right now my well is so done.

But one doesn't need a full well to rake leaves, right? Or strip milkweed pods. Or put gardens to bed. There's a 'nothingness' in those tasks that can be fulfilling.

Full-filling....

Best get to them then. This well is bone dry.
...

Sun In My Eyes

Although all the sun and sky suggested otherwise, there was nothing balmy about my walk this morning. The wind on my exposed forehead was like a hammer blow to my brain -- it shocked me awake, it brought tears to my eyes, it made my cheeks bloom like peonies, it made my nose run. But the return trip, with the wind at my back, was perfection.

Clouds sailed the blue sea-sky and made my day appear springlike. As I walked I recalled similar days in my memory of icy winds and moments spent tethered to a kite string, and the thought had hardly formed in my head before I saw one in a tree. Sponge Bob, upside-down, smiling at the sun.

I walk this route almost every day and don't recall ever seeing it before. Had it been there since spring, hiding in the leaves? Or did someone look outside today and think, like I did, that everything looks and smells like kite-flying weather?

Come On In

Inch by inch, I'm putting the gardens to bed today. It's slow going. Mostly because I keep stopping to appreciate stuff. 

You understand.

I'm behind this year for a bunch of reasons and am having a hard time catching up. And also I can't help but wonder if the gardens even want tucking in so much.... 

Looking around me at the rest of the neighborhood I see leafless lawns and plants trimmed back, and then I look at mine and see tiny purple petunias and fresh phlox blossoms with their faces to the clouds. I'm just going to leave them there to enjoy this trying-to-snow day.

Garden flotsam gets to enjoy the day now, too, as the tall and leggy milkweed stalks are now podless and have died back. If the snow holds off until the November weekend, I might just get to add some spooky Halloween decorations to their autumn garden party.

 











And what's this? ~ a fairy stone in my fairy garden? How appropriate. :) Perhaps it's a gift from whomever has left the door open? Such a sweet little lantern must be used to having something magickal take up residence in it, candle or no candle.... 

And now I'm chilled. Must go in for a cup of tea. 

Oh look -- the kitchen's warm and steamy. You go first, 'k? Ignore the horizontal surfaces all covered with books and dust and art supplies. Mind the shoes that have piled up at the door. And prepare to have your lap filled up with kitten....

Almost forgot: Earl Grey or Darjeeling? I'll put the kettle on.

:)
 

Thought for Today (10/26/13)

Half past autumn has arrived.
Gordon Parks
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/autumn.html#vr0lZADvbvEMQBGA.99

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” ~Albert Camus
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Appreciating the Season

Got my walk in early today, out to Postage Stamp Pond and back again. I arrived there just as an arrow of Canadian geese landed spectacularly into it, and the mallards swam out to investigate them.

'Postage Stamp' is the name I gave the little pond years ago when I first encountered it on the walking trail near my house. It was more of a lake then, albeit still stamp-sized. And immediately after my discovery, the whole thing drained into a mud flat and stayed that way for ages, only moistening for a bit in the spring.... This year has seen some fortunate changes to Postage Stamp, and I'm happy to say that it's held water for much of the summer. Its centerpiece, Birds-Eye Island (another of my names), is back to being an island again.

Of course, I remembered to pack a collapsible canvas bag in my jacket pocket, just in case I encountered something take-home-worthy. And it was put to good use, of course, to the tune of another bagful of milkweed pods. I've always wanted to try spinning the fluff (yes, I now know that the stems and their contents are what's usually used for spinning), and the idea is crowding up my head so it's best that I give it attention....

The recent hard frosts have caused many leaves to fall before they've reached their autumnal brilliance. Much of the area is cloaked now in shades of brown. Occasionally, though, there's a burning bush all afire in the drabness and I'll have to pause to appreciate it. Like today.

Clouds dogged me as I returned to Tumbledown, and I'd begun to anticipate some hot coffee and a warm kitten and a good book. But before I could even unlock the door, a drop of red in the garden caught my eye and made me reach for the camera again: a currant not yet discovered by birds, yet so apparently appreciated by my Green Man that he's shed an oakleaf tear for it.

And now, hours later, the day is shadowed. Inside, all is silent. I prepare to write letters, finish some sewing, grind flax seed into meal, bake a squash for supper.

But before I do, I'll finish this post to you and let you know that you're in my thoughts, my friend. Here's to the season! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
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Harvestime at Tumbledown

Frost predictions. Snow in the forecast. Salt already on the sidewalks in the City! Just another October day here in Minne-snow-tah....

Many folks are putting up storm windows and picking the last of their tomatoes today. But me? I'm drying milkweed seeds.

I picked the pods a week or so ago. And yesterday (a Sunday) I dealt with them proper. It was the perfect day for it, too; rainy and cold. My kitchen was toasty, my house was shadowed. Downstairs the dryer tumbled bluejeans and sheets, upstairs the lovebirds chewed happily in their sleep. And I was at the sink, my fingers flocked with milkweed fluff as I shelled seeds into a bowl.

And it'd have been super-smart of me to be outside at the patio table as I worked, but there was the rain thing, of course. And when you have neighbors like I do -- ones who have manicured lawns and spend fortunes on pesticides and weed control chemicals -- keeping your milkweed fluff to yourself ('in an enclosed area,' in other words) is probably best, as no one enjoys having a complaint issued against them, not to mention a formal visit from the city's Weed Inspector. However, shelling pods indoors poses a special problem: beware the fluff!....

I have lots of milkweed plants in my gardens here at Tumbledown. And friends have shared with me many different varieties of them, too. I have the usual Swamp Milkweed and Showy Milkweed, which grow everywhere here in the Midwest. But I now over-winter some tropical varieties that wouldn't survive our cold temps here. I always think that they'll come in handy someday should our weird new weather patterns prevent a future year's local crops from growing in time for the Monarchs to need them upon their arrival in the spring....

Harvesting pods is a job I wouldn't want for a Job, I don't think. But once a year it's a special pleasure. I'm That Person who enjoys shelling ears of corn and running my thumb along columns of fat peas (maybe you like to do this, too?), and this is similar. It's also a lot like preparing full-blown dandelion blossoms to become Liquid Sunshine (aka dandelion wine). Sticky and messy. But satisfying, too. While I'm knee-deep in it, there's nothing else to do but go away in my head.

On Sunday as worked I thought of past seasons' Monarch butterflies and the people I've talked to about them at Fest. I happily recalled the looks on the faces of both kids and adults alike as they studied my hatchlings and asked me questions.

This Fest season I couldn't believe how many adults found the whole butterfly process gross! One little girl (whose mother was asking me a question about my artwork) was standing near the butterfly tent and eyeing a chrysalis when it began to hatch. She stepped back in absolute open-mouthed awe, trying to draw our attention to what was happening. The whole event took a millisecond, I swear -- then the fat butterfly was out, suspended, its tiny wrinkled wings moist and curled.... "What's wrong with it??," her mother asked, now eyeing the very-unbutterfly-looking creature, and I explained how the latex-like substance that it consumed while eating milkweed as a caterpillar would now flow from its fat abdomen into the veins of its wet, floppy wings, extending them completely before stiffening and hardening, like a plastic. The mom grimaced while the little girl smiled with fascination.

A while later, when the wings had taken on as much fluid as possible, any leftovers were jettisoned in a blurp of Monarch 'afterbirth,' staining the paper towel at the bottom of my butterfly tent. The mother and her daughter were gone now, but a fresh set of adults were sickened and aghast. "How gross!" they complained. Oh well....

Over the seasons I've found that most adults are ooked out by the process, sadly. Not all, but most. However, every kid -- no matter what age -- seems fascinated. To them it's a messy and magickal miracle. Makes sense, right? Life IS messy.

This season I got the bright idea to bring my cache of saved milkweed seeds to Fest. I separated them into tiny Ziploc bags that I doled out to anyone interested. A number of folks took some home for planting. And any leftovers were scattered around the Site after the season had ended and I'd closed up my shop for the year.

Pods waiting to be opened

Have you ever been interested in saving a pod of milkweed for its seeds? You'll get dozens of them from a single pod, and you can scatter them in your own gardens, if you'd like. The Monarchs will love you forever if you do (and I will, too!). Here's what I do:

Collect ripe milkweed pods. You'll know they're ready if you spy a couple that have 'burst' a bit. And you'll want pods that haven't opened completely yet because they'll just be easier to handle. (I usually have to harvest mine way earlier than I'd like, but that's only to keep them from wreaking havoc with my neighbors....) If you're not going to harvest the seeds immediately, keep the pods in a paper bag so they get some air circulation.

Stem-side down; seam is on top

To open a pod, hold it in your hand with the stem away from you, facing down (the pointed end of the pod will be toward you).

Split open the seam. The seeds will be in a cluster at the stem-end of the pod and their fluffy ends will (hopefully) be gathered tightly at the pointed end, kind of like a seed bouquet. The goal is to grasp the bouquet in your fingers so that the seeds stay tightly together and no fluff escapes. Pull this cluster from the pod. It will look kind of like a pinecone.... (Don't forget to shake out any loosened seeds that have collected inside the pod.)

Separate seam to expose seeds and fluff

Holding the fluff-end of the bouquet tightly in the fingers of your left hand, gently 'back-comb' the exposed seeds with a finger of your right hand. If they're stubborn and refuse to fall away from the fluff, go ahead and scrub them between your fingers. You won't get them all, more than likely. (I'm guessing that they didn't separate from the fluff easily because they weren't dry enough.) Collect what you can before dropping the remaining fluffy mess into another paper bag. When the last pod is finished, close up the bag of leftovers to allow them some more Dry Time. As the leftovers age a bit, you can occasionally shake the bag to loosen the seeds from their fluff. Then after a time simply cut off a bottom corner of the bag and pour the seeds out. OR, sometime before winter arrives proper, grab a child and have them help you scatter the leftover fluff and seeds into a nearby field while you both make a bunch of wishes!

'Back-comb' seeds into bowl

It's my understanding that milkweed seeds need the winter season in order to germinate. You can scatter the ones that you've just 'shelled' now before winter. Or you can store and then refrigerate them for a period before sowing them in the spring. Before storing, make sure they're dry! Otherwise they may get moldy. (Mine are currently spread out on a sheet of newspaper.)

Dry completely before storing

And guess what I recently learned about milkweed seeds that I hadn't known before? 'Shocking' seeds that have been refrigerated seems to improve their germination rates! To 'shock' them, simply soak them in warm water for 24 hours before planting. Who knew?


The Pollination Station has all sorts of cool info on how to store and when to plant milkweed seeds. You can also purchase seeds there as well as sponsor a future butterfly and/or caterpillar. Cool beans!

Happy harvesting!
...

My Golden Day

Penning letters, fielding messages,

Writing down ideas, 

Finding a penny on the sidewalk, chatting with the mail man,

Picking up acorns 

and clusters of leaves....

Reading Ray Bradbury, watching a cobweb spider at work, checking up on a friend,

Spying an albino squirrel, inhaling the smoke-scented evening air.

Following pathways of the season.

And now home once more.

There's hot ginger tea. And a softly lit lamp. And Mr. Bradbury again, following something wicked.

Think I'll join him.
...

Happy Hallowe'en

Time's playing tricks again; suddenly it's one of my favorite days of the year. And now that it's here I don't want to miss a single moment of it....

These early morning hours are brittle. Overhead, the Woman in the Moon is full and fabulous, and the stars pinned to her velvet cloak are brilliant. Standing in her light, I can hear leaf rustlings and smell woodsmoke. And I can taste winter on the wind....

Tomorrow there will be tombstones to set up and trick-or-treat bags to fill, a pumpkin to carve and a front door to flock in spiderweb. But for now, some sleep is in order.

So may I be the first to wish you a very special Hallowe'en, my friend, and share my hopes for a new year that is full of promise and prosperity.

Let the magick begin!

:)
...

Inching Forward

It's a late October day of clouds.

The neighborhood's been fairly silent this afternoon. No deafening leaf blowers and lawn mowers, no droning street sweepers and wood chippers. Just birdsong. And the static crackle of leaves dancing down the street.

My house is dark and still, as though not even I am here. I have no substance today.

My invisibility has been coming on steadily by degrees since before Fest was even over. At that time I'd been reduced to just a hologram, powered by a rechargeable battery that was in the process of irrevocably losing its memory. Every smile started out bright and began fading at once, and it hurt significantly just to pull enough juice from somewhere to generate another.

And today there are few smiles. My post-Fest agenda has burned me out completely. It's been a difficult month....

But I think it's a good sign that for the last five minutes I've been writing.

I may feel depleted. I may feel as though my well's gone dry. But it amuses me to notice that as soon as I'm able to function at all it's not a sketch pad and a pencil that I turn to. It's not even my books or my pets or my music. It's words.

And who do I write to? You.

I have missed you.

...

Snowflakes and Smiles

(Would you believe we're supposed to be napping?)

There are snowflakes in my village today! Only a few, but still.

And I have yet to pay attention proper to my favorite season of the year, so if they know what's good for them, they'd better make their visit brief. Just sayin'.

Because there are still loose Fest-related ends to gather and tie, belated birthdays to celebrate, Halloween flotsam to gleefully wade through, and so much battening down of hatches to do before the snow comes.

And dang if this girl's battery isn't down for the count....

But it's not so depleted that I can't enjoy a Bug Day. And yesterday was IT. I got to pick my eldest Bug up from preschool and hold her mittened hand all the way back to my house, stopping repeatedly to check out fairy-sized holes in oak trees and add acorn caps to our pockets. Every step of our walk was a cold and blustery adventure, its soundtrack one of wind in the trees and the crunch of leaf piles underfoot and the enthusiastic, run-on sentence delightfulness that is the Grandbug's communication style, itself animated dramatically and told in notes that only dogs can hear.

Before our coats were even off at our destination she was cleaning pet dishes and dispensing foodstuffs (she takes her jobs at my house uber-seriously), and then we were on the floor together, re-enacting at her suggestion her favorite moments of this year's Festival. A stuffed chicken became the Piccolo Pony. A toy firetruck was the ladder for our dolls to mount it. (One doll was afraid she'd fall, but another said in a cute cartoon voice, "I will hold onto you. You'll see -- it's FUN.") Then a plastic bowl became the Butterfly Ride. As Avery gently twirled the bowl in the air she said to me, "Gramma, remember when you took me on the Butterfly Ride? That ride was awesome." (Said with her characteristic lisp -- 'awe-thumb.' The ride is a no-frills device made to rotate as a result of two adults in the center pushing it manually. This girl has already been on theme park stuff that would give me nightmares, but she remembers the Butterfly Ride. And it was awesome....)

Later on, Grampa James surprised her by arriving home early (I'm not the only one who thinks a Bug Day is worth dropping everything for) and he suggested we all bundle up and walk to nearby Hardees for lunch. Avery explained to him that her walk with me from preschool earlier was all fun and stuff but "my armth and legth and feet and handth got really really tired!", so he dug the stroller out from the garage and tucked her into it for the trip. Hamburgers got cold what with all the excited talking, but milk was consumed so I called it a satisfactory lunch. And on the way home we took a more scenic route and I asked her what her favorite part of the day was so far and she said, "All of it."

Once back again at Tumbledown, Avery informed us that she was tired and demanded that all three of us cram into my bed for a nap. But a book must be read first, of course. Bless her, she picked Where's Waldo and searched each page with serious intent, which allowed me and Grampa to, ahem, 'rest our eyes' in turn. (Because there's a brand of tired that only Bugs can manufacture, and it'll knock.you.OUT.)

No napping occurred. No surprises there. But there's just something about spending a chilly Autumn afternoon curled up on a candlewick bedspread with a book and a Bug.

I may have felt even more tired afterward, but my heart was charged to the absolute max. :)
...

From Me

Dear Mother Nature,

You totally nailed it today!

The biggest of thankyous.

<3,
...me.

Renaissancey Ramblings

Mayfaire in the rain -- :)

Only two weekends of Fest left. I can't say I'm not sorry.... It takes so much out of me to do this for the entire Fest season, and I half wonder if it'd be any easier if I did the Circuit and made every weekend a Fest weekend. The thought gives me the shivers. I'm sure I could do it, but I doubt for very long.

 

Autumn is my favorite season of all, and by the time Fest is over for the year I've pretty much missed its highlights. My gardens have peaked, the leaves have turned, Indian Summer has left the building -- the works. I'm still in a sort of post-Fest recovery when my birthday comes and goes and Halloween appears. But I know if I didn't have Fest to do come August every year I'd miss it in spades. It's just that now that I'm older, it's more difficult for me to Do It All.

 

This year, Fest has been sweet and rather uneventful. And as usual, I've learned a lot. I've learned that framed art is a luxury few can afford in a crappy economy, and that my lifetime customers will purchase from me regardless. Some have even saved money to commission something special. Others have drawn during the year and are eager to show me their work because I've specifically asked them to.... Some new customers are now my friends and have already visited me multiple times. Why someone would pay the admission price just to see me and have a Scotch Egg is unimaginable, but there you have it.... Strangers have stopped in for a smile and a hug. Little kids have stopped by to tell me what books they've read since I asked them last. And some customers have even brought me books(!) because they know how much I love them, bless their hearts.... The people I meet and take the time to get to know -- no matter how difficult that is for me -- are some of the most amazing and heartwarming folks on the planet. But it took stepping out of my cocoon to learn that.

 

The remaining two weekends will be easily the busiest by far unless weather interrupts attendance. Barring that, I expect to be pulled thin and feeling especially apologetic. Friends and family often wait until the last minute to attend, and by then I barely have time to wave and acknowledge them let alone enjoy a proper visit, and I feel bad when I can't give everyone my undivided attention. But it is what it is....

 

And -- believe it or not -- I'm already planning for and looking forward to next season. :)

...