GARDENING – Page 13 – Skelton Sketches

Heralding October

Posted on October 5, 2012April 30, 2017 by lindaskelton

In all the recorded history of our town never has there been a September so rain-free as the one just past! And now October has come with a token rainfall and the sun lingering yet…

We had our first frost this week and our first fire in the woodstove. I’ve dug out my turtlenecks and my new woolie socks…

We’ve commenced our fall birthday season with strawberry chiffon and black forest cakes and a whole quart of whipping cream consumed between the both of them!

But for this morning I’ve come out to savor the brisk brightness of autumn and see what’s smiling in my garden…

I find honeybees harvesting last pollen and nectar from summer’s merry-golds…

Pole Beans hang on the vine fattening seed for spring planting.

Other more exotic seed pods do likewise. Here’s ‘love in a mist’…

I stumble upon my fall crocus nearly spent from its blooming, its beauty almost overlooked. And I am glad I came out to see the morning…

Nasturtiums ramble brightly still, holding their faces to morning’s cold dew for a few more days.

Jim’s homegrown Christmas trees, backlit by morning sun, await their season of celebration…

While this year’s lone duet of wee pumpkins herald October.

The neighbor’s grapes are plump and tart as ever. Rachel tries her hand at jelly. We’re surprised to see the color green grapes produce!

The firewood’s all dried and split, gathered in to clear the chopping lot for next year’s logs.

And I sit out back in the Adirondack, cherishing the gentled chill of this fine October morning… Whoops, roosting crows in the willow branches straight overhead are intent on making a mess of my meditations…must move on.

–LS

“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Gen.8:22

Fall is upon us

Posted on September 13, 2012April 30, 2017 by lindaskelton

The season has changed though the calendar won’t admit it, yet… I feel it in my bones, this chill, the foraging for sweaters and longer skirts, and wooly socks…

I hear it in the geese calling overhead, the crickets’ fiddling, the quiet of outdoors abandoned and children gone back to school.…

The rich earthy smell of leaves’ decay, of sweet peas’ final hurrah, of damp cool earth, all tell me that it’s come—Fall is upon us.

The plums are gathered, tart yet sweet, to save them from marauding bears by night. Apples too, for pie and crisp and sauce and all things cinnamon. Last blackberries simmer into jelly.

The pole beans too are mostly picked and frozen. It is as though the sun lingers just long enough for the harvest to be gathered, the potatoes dug, before fall settles in completely.

Summer’s feast of ‘zucchini wonder’—garden basil, oregano and thyme, fresh tomatoes, sauteed garlic and onions, and of course, zucchini fried till tender, topped with cheese–declares that summer, fully matured, is passing on into the fall.

It comes with brilliant blue of sky and golden yellow nodding heads

–the warmth of sun staying for just a bit to usher in the cooler nights, to soften the grief of summer’s leisure gone, to ease us into routine– with bright countenance and cheery backdrop.

And then sun too will leave. The rains will return. The bright world will pass into a silver sleep. But for today, we cannot help but welcome fall’s arrival, rich with fruit of summer and sweet reminisce…