animacy

I come here to listen, to nestle in the curve of the roots in a soft hollow of pine needles, to lean my bones against the column of white pine, to turn off the voice in my head until I hear the voices outside it: the shhh of wind in needles, water trickling over rock, nuthatch tapping, chipmunks digging, beechnut falling, mosquito in my ear, and something more--something that is not me, for which we have no language, the wordless being of others in which we are never alone. After the drumbeat of my mother's heart, this was my first language.

 

Learning the language of animacy

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

California dreamin'

 All the leaves are brown

And the sky is gray...

why?

 We're still walking, but not so much of a morning walk, at least for me, anymore. It's too cold, wearing a wool cap and vowed to bring gloves when I go out today. Steady tap, tap, tap of rainwater on the leaves that remain above the Crossroads. Most of the leaves are gone by now. What remains is interesting to me.

Very young and small trees keep their leaves a little bit longer than the full grown variety. I wonder why that is? Is it because they are just so close to the ground that the sap from trees has less of a distance to go to get to the roots where it is stored during the winter? The spring ephemerals (wildflowers) appear very early because it's the only time that sunlight appears on the forest floor. Do small trees hold on to their leaves just a little bit longer in order to take advantage of a little bit of extra sunlight, now that the larger trees have lost their leaves? I don't know.

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Stephen Hawking

later in the fall

 Sheltering in place has many disadvantages. One of them is that I don't get around as much as I used to. Drove through Chippenhook the other day and saw that the tamaracks have already started to turn. I thought that was something that happened later in the fall.

When I drove up north last week, I saw that the trees at the tops of the Green Mtns. have already lost their leaves. The mountains will be brown and grey for quite some time. There was even snow on the top of Camel's Hump.

The only regular mode of transportation these days is the walk around the block. Many houses have pallets of wood pellets in their back yards which is the most modern method of burning wood.

Pellet stoves are pretty slick, but, believe it or not, they require electricity. Old fashion wood stoves are still operable when the power goes out which is a nice feature.

Asters and Goldenrod

 If a fountain could jet bouquets of chrome yellow in dazzling arches of chrysanthemum fireworks, that would be Canada Goldenrod. Each three-foot stem is a geyser of tiny gold daisies, ladylike in miniature, exuberant en masse. Where the soil is damp enough, they stand side by side with their perfect counterparts, New England Asters. Not the pale domesticates of the perennial border, the weak sauce of lavender or sky blue, but full-on royal purple that would make a violet shrink.

Why do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone? Why this particular pair? There are plenty of pinks and whites and blues dotting the fields, so is it only happenstance that the magnificence of purple and gold end up side by side? Einstein himself said that "God doesn't play dice with the universe." What is the source of this pattern? Why is the world so beautiful?

Asters and Goldenrod

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

miniature

 Even the plants in the asparagus patch are showing the colors of the season.

 

 They have always reminded me of a miniature version of the tamaracks which turn later in the fall.

murder of crows

 Recently we woke up to a warm and sunny day, and headed out for the daily walk a little earlier than usual, about sunrise. As we got to the top of the hill, we heard the cacophonous calling of a murder of crows, they truly sounded murderous, from somewhere in the forest canopy. After the noise died down, I started to see them heading out on their daily rounds, groups of three or four at a time. I remember seeing this activity back when I was a working person. It seemed that on times of the year when my arrival and departure from work were around dawn and dusk respectively, I would see them heading out or returning to the pine forests near work. They seemed so purposeful yet mysterious in this daily commute to wherever it is that they go. On the one hand I felt that I could identify with their activities, we were both heading commuting, but on the other hand, their lives seemed so far away and distant from mine.

hdnicewallpapers

going going...

 At some point falling leaves become fallen leaves. More of the latter these days. Pine needles fall all year round, but especially this time of year.

Aspen leaves falling now. They cover the cross roads in some places like shiny golden coins.

The romance and the beauty of the season is followed by something else.

Somebody is going to have to pick these up.

gratefulness

As your true self grows in the space of gratefulness, you can't help but feel more alive and receptive to the beauty that surrounds you.

Oprah Winfrey

page-a-day calendar on gratitude

Gratitude

 Life seems simple and straightforward right now. Country roads and falling leaves. 

 

Hours mowing brush in pastures seldom visited; sun, sky, clouds and mountains. Visitations and supervision by red tailed hawks.

The term student program at the Vermont Zen Center.

Gratitude

smell of wood smoke

 A cold and rainy day yesterday. Smell of wood smoke as people fire up their wood stoves. It's kind of counter intuitive, but the changing leaves actually seem brighter on a cloudy and rainy day.

We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention.

Diane Ackerman

Page a day calendar on gratitude

the neighbors know

 When the tractor was delivered the other day, it was backed off a trailer and left running for a moment. It didn't take too long for the two hawks that live here to make an appearance over the hills in the back. They circled each other in a pattern that slowly made its way in our direction, finally circling directly overhead not more than 50 feet above us. I'd never seen that before. Andy, one of the farmers who delivered the tractor, said that at his place that raptors would appear when they were working fields, looking for rodents scattering from their usual routine. Over the next few days, I would see the hawks, sometimes from a distance, sometimes very close. When I was in one of the westernmost fields, one of the pair swooped in very low and settled in a tree nearby, and watched me for awhile. On Sunday when I was mowing, the same thing happened. 

I was sure that when I approached it on the tractor, it would fly off, but it didn't. It certainly wasn't afraid of me. It watched me for a long time. I wonder what it was thinking.

After my first day of mowing, I ran into Barb, one of our neighbors from across the bridge. She mentioned that she had heard me mowing, and thanked me. She walks her dog there along with some other neighbors, and they really appreciate it when the brush is leveled. The next day, after my first close encounter with that hawk. I saw her walking her dog in a newly mowed field near the creek. I couldn't help but think how the neighbors, human or otherwise, really seem to notice when the tractor appears in the fall.

mowing

 It arrived on Tuesday afternoon. The farmers who normally have cows on our land during the summer let me borrow their tractor and brush hog in order to mow my fields in the fall. Let the brush hogging begin!

This is one of the most enjoyable chores that we landowners have. It's a little bit like stacking and building your woodpile. It looks so good when you're done. 

It's also similar to cutting up wood with a chain saw because it can be a little bit dangerous, especially if you're mowing hilly areas. You have to be careful and pay attention. It's a chance to spend some time in pastures far away from the house and yard. It's a wonderful opportunity to commune with nature, especially this time of the year.

Telescope

Got a call from my son, John,the other day. He had purchased a new telescope. We spoke about red dot finders and right angle scopes; Saturn, Jupiter, and the Andromeda Galaxy.

Yesterday Louise Gluck won the Nobel Prize in literature. VPR presented a piece where she read her poem: Telescope

There is a moment after you move your eye away

where you forget where you are

because you've been living, it seems, 

somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.

You've stopped being here in the world.

You're in a different place,

a place where human life has no meaning.

You're not a creature in body.

You exist as the stars exist,

participating in their stillness, their immensity.

Then you're in the world again.

At night, on a cold hill,

taking the telescope apart.

 

You realize afterward

not that the image is false

but the relation is false.

 

You see again how far away

every thing is from every other thing. 

 

                                                                                                                                                                   

What!?!?

 We have a fairly large picture window in the kitchen that faces the back yard and the pastures and hills beyond. I do a lot of looking out that window. The bluebird house is out there. 

I haven't been paying any attention to it. There's no reason to. The breeding season ended months ago, and I hadn't seen any bluebirds in quite awhile. Figured they'd headed south for the winter. Then I saw one the other day, no big deal. Then I saw one head over to the bluebird house a couple of days ago. Again, not a real head scratcher, who knows. Then yesterday I saw a couple of bluebirds hanging around the bluebird house in the way they do in the spring. Looks like they are planning to breed again.

 What is going on here!?!? First it's forsythia blooming in October and then there's bluebirds breeding in October which seems like a really bad idea. I have to figure that climate change plays a part in this except the temperatures haven't been abnormally high. I don't know what is going on here.

blog housekeeping

 

I've had three interesting emails recently regarding this blog. One person indicated that on Saturday she was working outside up in Shelburne and saw about 3,000 geese pass overhead over the course of the day. What a sight that must have been. Another person mentioned an experience of having a crow flying low overhead, and hearing the swish, swish, swish of its wings. When your in a certain state of mind, those kinds of experiences can be moving and mysterious. He said this blog "creates another, albeit virtual, community."

Personally, that's also the way I see it. I am fortunate that I get so many comments back that enrich my life, and hopefully the lives of the rest of the participants.

I got another comment where the sender said that she's getting so many emails these days that she wanted me to stop sending this to her. Of course, I'm happy to oblige. Sending these along in the manner that I do is certainly presumptuous on my part. Awhile ago another participant indicated that she wanted to get the blog, but didn't want to get any follow up comments. I think I was able to accommodate her on that score. 

My hope is that people feel free to respond to my blog whenever they see fit. I find those comments uplifting. I also hope that if people don't want to get it anymore, or would like to make any other adjustments to how they participate or not, to please let me know.

blossoms in October

 Finishing up the painting the other day, and contending with a forsythia bush in the front. Saw something I'd never seen before, blossoms in October.

Allyn looked it up and found that sometimes this happens if you have a cold snap followed by warm weather.

geese

 Mowing on Saturday, probably for the last time this year. I stopped and turned off the mower to get my jacket which I had left on a fence post. I heard them before I saw them, wild geese heading south for the winter. There were about 50 of them. Saw three or four more flocks that day. Their cries are stirring, deeply felt.

Wild geese, wild geese, fly in line, show me the way home...

Japanese lullaby

a scenic drive

 Yesterday I drove to Manchester through the Metawee Valley, a beautiful part of western Vermont.

I was reminded of a drive that we took through one of the western states a number of years ago. I was driving and Allyn was doing the guidance armed with her trusty Rand McNally Road Atlas. At one point she mentioned that the atlas said that the road we were on was designated as a scenic drive. As she looked around, a puzzled look came to her face. With her wonderful Ally Cat honesty she said, "So then almost every road in Vermont should be labeled as a scenic road." She turned to the Vermont page and found that, indeed, that was the case. Almost every road was labeled as a scenic drive.
 

Can't argue with that.

Signs of fall

 

Halloween decorations appearing in houses, on lawns. Orange and black caterpillars crossing the road. Political lawn signs sprouting like mushrooms. Field hockey and soccer being played on high school fields in Brandon and Proctor.