Autumn – Page 7 – Skelton Sketches

Plants yielding seed

Posted on November 15, 2012April 30, 2017 by lindaskelton

The evenings are longer now. Sweet opportunity to sit by the fire listening to books on tape and shelling beans for next spring’s planting…I love the finished product—this year mixed varieties, but each with its characteristic shape and color. And I’ve been reflecting on this idea of bearing fruit—not just summer’s ripe off-the-tree or vine edible product, but the latent seed for future generations of fruit. Latent fruitfulness, each after its kind…This is a wonderful design.

Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed,

and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed,

each according to its kind, on the earth. And it was so.

The outer blemish and imperfection of this forgotten last-apple-of-summer matters not to the seed which has every potential to grow to be an outstanding tree bearing a bounty of beautiful apples…

You shall have them for food.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone…

but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jn.12:24

Take up your cross and follow me…

At this time of year, as living things give away their life energies to nourish the next generation of growing things, I am reminded that what looks like death, or a fading finish, or an insignificant old pod, bears the seeds of a new creation. All is not lost.

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.I Cor.15:36

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. II Cor.4:10,11

May the One who ‘supplies seed to the sower and bread for food… supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.’ (II Cor.9:10)

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. I Cor.15:58

–LS

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us…II Cor.4:7

“Home again. Home again.”

Posted on November 8, 2012April 28, 2017 by lindaskelton

That’s what we’ve always said as we’ve pulled up with relief to our ‘home sweet home’ at the end of a trip. It is good to travel and very good to be home.

We take for granted the easy travels we make these days, from Pacific rainforest in the golden fling of autumn to snow swept prairies hunkering down for the winter, all in a day’s drive. Our greatest hardship is the price of gas at $1.33/liter (that’s $4.43/US gallon) in the west and $1.12/liter on the prairies. Oh, and the potholes and occasional road debris that beget flat tires. And the having to lose precious hours waiting to get a tire fixed… Then there is the hardship of getting sleepy while driving all this way and the weariness of sitting still so long. Ahhh the hardships of travel in our times.

But storytelling made the miles slip away as we traveled vicarioiusly by horseback and stagecoach with Spanish vaqueros and settlers moving west, establishing wild little cowtowns like Los Angelos. Louis L’amour weaves a fine tale.* We are caught in so many gun fights we lose count. We imagine the austere grandeur of the California deserts, and their unrelenting heat. We assuage our imagined thirst with our handy Gatorade bottles. And the miles pass as the Lexus rolls on…

…till we are safely home once again to our home sweet home at Willow’s End.

I slip out back after breakfast to see the morning mists rising as the sun strikes the chill wetness…

New catkins hang from the hazelnut tree. Had they been there all along? I hadn’t noticed.

Love notes have fallen again.

Long shadows mark the rising sun as misty corners give way to light

Shaggy ‘Ink Caps’ rise from nowhere.

Maple leaves fall in profusion on our acre now, thanks to this little sapling we rescued years back from a clear cut forest. He has grown to make quite a display and what a lot of fine compost these will yield…But the raking will be for another day. My fingers and toes are freezing. The fireside beckons. I have seen the morning.

It is good to be home. All is well under God’s blue heaven

“For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” Ps.135:5,6

–LS

*Need a cozy read for the long evenings? I commend to you the audio version of: The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour. Read by David Strathairn.

The Sound of Fall

Posted on October 25, 2012 by lindaskelton

Fingers stiff with the damp cold of morning, I’ve just returned from roving about gumbooted in the yard taking pictures of morning…

…the sun lazily rising through cloud making all the cool wetness shimmer…

There seems not much to be seen this morning, not much worth leaving my hot cup of tea for and wandering about in this damp coldness…

The early risers among the crows are back to their nut fest. All day long while the walnuts last they will be about their aerial stunts, flying high, nut in beak, only to drop it and spiral down in swift pursuit to snatch it as it hits the pavement and extract the nut meats. These early birds are lucky, very little competition. But they decline having their stunts photographed…They work for live only audiences. And such was I one lazy afternoon this week.

Meanwhile the last crab apples hang onto their cheery hue…

Out back, the willow tree is busy laying down leaves to ensure we stay active as fall settles in…

The lilac lingers golden…ho, hum.

But the clothespins are transfixed with morning dew, every drop a lens!

These last hardy blooms bedecked with dew brighten a forgotten corner of the garden, but is there nothing else of note?

Then I hear it overhead, the migrating squadron of what I at first take to be geese… But listen:

Trumpet call overhead…

Now that was worth braving the morning chill for ( ;

And as I type I hear the real mcCoy—passing geese, making a ruckus as they get into formation for the day’s flight…This, and the croak of crows, is the sound of Fall…

The sound of Fall

Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power….
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

–LS