Autumn Selections

Yes, we’re having Christmas at the store already. Come in for your thoughtful, beautiful ornaments. Some of these are handcrafted by artisans in India aiming to alleviate poverty. Some are made right here at home in the USA and the proceeds go to help orphans. These are not of the usual glitz and glam for the tree, but still beautiful and unique.

This thistle is being its best self out by the trash bin at work. No one cares apparently or maybe we’re each quietly rooting for it as we walk by enjoying it. Bloom where you’re planted and such-like little proverbs come to mind. You can think up your own life lessons, I won’t bother you with mine.

Cheney Lake on a recent Sunday evening.

From my hammock I could hear the fish jumping as they fed. A friendly red-breasted nuthatch kept landing on the ragged jack pine bark nearby apparently feeding, but I think he was snoopy, too.

Eventually, we sat right by the waters edge and watched the minnows swim by flashing silver. A king fisher kept up a squawking din, diving and fishing just up the shore about 150 feet away. We stayed quiet and listened as the sun went down.

I wanted to see a bear because we have before, over there, safely across the lake from us. Elv got up just for a minute and as his back was turned going over to the pickup, I got my wish. Right where the king fisher bird was scolding, a bear and her three cubs stepped out of the woods and down to the water.  Elv was missing it, so I got up to call him softly. He didn’t hear me, so I started toward him calling him to look and wishing the bear to not run off on us. But she spooked anyway, and ushered her little ones back into the woods with her. She stood for a few seconds, a black shape just behind the brush, but then melted away.

Feeling triumphant, we settled back down to wait until the whippoorwills sang. This is always our goal for the evening at Cheney. Dusk came and with it the cool damp. We heard fish jumping, now the night bird sounds, a train in the distance, and at last the whippoorwills calling back and forth. It’s a fine way to spend a Sunday evening in autumn.

We now have plenty of cutting flowers to keep our vases fresh and full. I picked my first dahlia flower today, a pink, not red, which means that finally one of Twila’s precious, favorites has finally happened. The rabbit that had set things back by weeks of nibbling is still at large, I’m sorry to say. He was crouched broad-side in the glare of my headlights when I pulled up to the house this evening. I’m not Beatrix Potter, because I wished fervently for my Daisy in the moment; but I might as well be as far as the life of that villainous rabbit is concerned.

These days are enormously satisfying. The light is golden, the colors crisp, and it’s much cooler, at last. Fall is lovely and to think, winter is soon coming, the best yet.