Light the lamp

November days are dark and damp. Come inside and light the lamp

How To

Doesn’t it look like the little girl is trying to teach the chickens how to fly? I painted her in gumboots but where’s her sweater?! Must be a typical fall day.  

Falling for autumn

 I am still astonished that I can pick up my phone and with a few taps, begin to read something written moments ago by someone on the opposite side of the globe.  The nature of social media means that one can stand in a circle  with others who are happily chatting and just nod and smile without saying a word though. In fact, they will not even realize you are there as a tiny but happy fly on the wall. Now, there is nary a thing wrong with observing and absorbing  kindness and creativity found in others but in the absence of knowing looks and warm hand clasps I’m resolving to speak up now and then with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘well done.’ 

Some time ago I came upon a blog called Small Treasures, written by a gentle and warm hearted woman in England. There was a pause in her posting but she is back now and creating a daily post, working her way through the alphabet. What a marvellous idea!! 

I was instantly seized with a desire to do likewise! Thank you Pensive Pensioner for the inspiration! 

This blog post is brought to you by the letter A. 

The first thing I think of when presented with a letter A is autumn. I tend to think of these misty, musty days as autumn and not fall as many do. When I consulted the Wise Man of the Mountain (google) about the seasonal alias, autumn AKA fall, I was informed that autumn is British whereas fall is more commonly used in North America.  And if you go back through the mists of time, no pun intended, you find a connection to the French word autompne and the Latin word autumnus. There is apparently a connotation to the passing of the year.

Well that’s good to know I guess. Autumn or fall; bring on the sweaters. 

(Now there’s another word worth pondering. Sweat-er? Sweating for sure? Apparently the original sweaters were for competitive boaters and were meant to bring on sweating and weight loss. Google seems to have an explanation for everything.

Hello september

We’ve walked at Aldergrove Lake Park when the trails were the only haven, the meadow a swath of scorching light.  

But today the rain has turned down the volume. No glaring blaring all surrounding brightness. 

Instead, trails cool and fern fresh. 

Vine Maple glow and blackberry glisten.

The meadow inhales and exhales as it pulls us along. 

We surprise a tiny baby rabbit and an even tinier frog. 

We pause on the wooden bridge and spot crayfish waving their lobster like claws. 

Hello September. 

Wonder of wonders

Rain fell overnight. Oh wonder of wonders! Yesterday was heat pressed and steamed, but today, all is freshly laundered and air dried. 

Doesn’t the change from the heat of summer to the cooler days of fall fill your heart with hope? 

all there is

 November fog is my favourite. It holds you close in a comforting embrace. Far away is forgotten. Nearby is all there is.

along the river

 

We followed a path along the river yesterday, certain that around the bend would be a trail leading down to the sandy shore. We followed a path along the river with our eyes ahead on the next bend, and then the next. We followed a path and followed a path and followed until very suddenly and unexpectedly, there was no path at all, and twinkling through the trees was the expanse of river. Not a grain of sand or shore in sight. 

The day seemed warmer, the path dustier and longer. Back we trudged. Back and back we trudged. And there, at the beginning, the grassy verge tipped over the sandy bank, down to hard packed shore and then mud flats along the river. 

Every wild animal that lives in B.C. had left its prints in the sand and we added our own.

their prime

Leaves are crisp and curled in November.

Maple red, Alder orange, Birch yellow.

But not the fern.

They are in their prime.

Lush and lacy green

 Catching the slanting sun of Autumn.

sweet and clear

They had been to the rec center, the young father and his little girl. Now they were hastening to their car. Rain was steadily falling and puddles stretched far and wide. Especially wide. I heard him ask her something and then her voice answering, "I was jumping for joy,' she explained, her voice sweet and clear.

october

strangest thing

Yesterday,
crossing a street in Fort Langley,
leaves blowing on the wind,
I felt the strangest thing.

That the wind could blow
and there I would be,
18 again and a student at Trinity,
walking in Fort Langley without having experienced all the things that have happened in the interval of time.

under the wire

I raked autumn leaves today. Well, actually I swept autumn leaves. It was my token spring cleaning.
My grandson told me that the first day of summer is still off in the distance but I could hear a bell tolling. I figure the end of May is about as late as I can leave things go and still get under the wire. Still call it spring cleaning.
We had exceptional winds this past winter. They stripped leaves from trees far and wide and swirled them up our driveway and wedged them around the foundation right in our home's entryway.
Looked pretty in October. Kind of festive.
Looked wild and wind blown in November and sort of 'bleak mid-winter' in December. I distracted visitors with big pots of cedar and holly.
More leaves arrived in January, brown and curled and crisp.
More in February too.
By March I was averting my gaze.
Still, April came and went without my lifting a finger.
And May too.
Almost.
And then inspiration struck.
My grandchildren were working their way through a stack of post-it-note chores for my daughter.
They seemed to be having a grand time.
I'm a joiner I guess.
What's good for the goslings is good for the old gray goose.
Hey! I just had a flashback. I remember a book from days of yore that had a picture of an old gray goose on the cover. It was Mother Goose of course and she had a gaggle of laughing children on her wings as she sailed above the clouds.
Sign me up.

carry the torch

Is October supposed to look this fresh?
All up the street, lawns lie green as ever.
The sun is slanting down from a summer-blue sky.
Roses still bloom, a haze of pink on branch tips,
while the white anemone flutter like a dozen butterflies.

My pumpkins glowing at the edge of the garden say 'autumn' loud and clear though.
And so do the blueberry bushes.
Blueberry leaves don't just turn color, they flame.
Blueberry bushes carry the torch for Autumn.

wind

I love wind, especially the winds of Autumn. They sweep in, cool and giddily fresh after the heavy stillness of a long, hot summer. That swirling air always lifts my spirits.
Wind arrived yesterday morning out of a clear blue sky.
It howled and prowled around the corners of the house, sounding like a car trying to start. rrrr, rrrrrr, rrrRRR, rrRRRrrrRRRRR.
It blew all day and seemed to surround us with sounds; huffing and puffing, whining and wailing.
"It doesn't want to have to go around the house," my mother observed. "It wants to go through."
Sure enough, window blinds rattled and curtains blew into the room in frothy billows of lace.
Welcome Autumn. We're glad to see you again.

slow starting

There's a band of light along the eastern horizon. Even though the mountains below are almost lost in moody, broody cloud, the edges of the great circle of sky are lightening and brightening like time lapse.
Out on the highway the traffic is picking up for the day.
A boy is walking a dog.
A crow scolds.
It's a slow starting September morning.

just like an apple

I'm always surprised when it rains at last at the end of a long dry spell.
For weeks, heat has been the word of the day.
The garden has dried to a crisp.
The lawn crunches.
Even the weeds have succumbed to powdery decay.
But rain will change all that.
Sweet, cool rain.
It will wash the dust from the blackberries and they'll glisten black in the September sun.
Lawns will inhale and a flush of green will creep down to the sidewalks.
The buds of dahlia and chrysanthemum will swell and burst with colors rich; wine reds, russet, melon gold and coral.
And the air will be fresh and crisply sweet.
Just like an apple.

always the sweet

I've always had a fascination with autumn leaves. I can remember scampering around the school yard the year I was in grade two. We had been instructed to find as many different kinds of leaf as we could. It had something of the thrill of an Easter Egg Hunt about it, a sort of botanical version of I Spy.
My whole heart was in the search. I can still remember the excitement of pouncing on one leaf after another, clasping my treasures in warm little hands.
The leaves in Blue River never attained the size we have here on the rainy coast but we made up for that lack with colors rich.
It's the yellow that I miss.
Those glowing hillsides.
Quaking birch leaves the color of ripe pears.
Golden flakes, spinning and twirling and falling.
Robin's egg sky.
And always, the sweet wood smoke scented air.

bottled

If I could save time in a bottle.....

bulging eyes

I suddenly screamed.
Last week as my grandson and I were loping along at the edge of a a field, my voice became the sound of angst.
Those wavering notes seemed to echo all around me.
My grandson looked as startled as you might expect.
When he dashed back and asked me why I'd screamed, I told him it seemed like the right thing to do when you have a big spider hanging from your hair.
Such a big spider too, with striped legs and bulging eyes.
Bulging eyes staring into bulging eyes.

magic seeds

Sunflowers have always seemed as astonishing as Jack's Beanstalk to me. They spring up in that brief interval of golden summer as we slumber unaware, wakening to discover autumn looming overhead.