Open Arms to October and other Odds and Sods

Monday, October 1st, 2012

Well, that's as far as I got with that posting, - now it's Tuesday, October 2nd and an overcast sky that had a hint of rain in it has cleared to scattered clouds and intermittent sunshine, so we continue dry and thirsty, well into the autumn season.

After a soggy spring we have had no rain since the first part of July,  unless you count the forty-five drops that fell on the windshield one day last week when a miniscle shower favoured the valley!

Sunday afternoon Charles and I and the camera set off on a small drive to see what was happening in the hills around Cawston, and to the wild fowl in Ginty's Pond.  Alas, the grasses in the hills are sere and brown, and the leaves on the trees are crispy dry, curling up and turning a sad shade of greeny grey.  There is very little colour - only the sumac and the rabbit brush have sparse red leaves and yellow blossom.

Even where the creeks flow down the crevasses and canyons in the hills, and where the colours are usually brilliant and luxurious, there is no indication of the alchemy of water that encourages the leaves and trees and shrubs to have one last glorious colourful fling at life.  So bleak and sad!!!

Ginty's Pond had no water in the farther end, that borders the river, - no birds, no water fowl; dried husks of bull rushes crowd despondently along the roadway and southward towards the mid section of the dry waterway.

At the village end of the Pond a few ducks huddled on logs, while around them the water, covered with scum and slime, lay dormant.  As I captured a few pictures a woman who lives along the edge of the Pond came to discuss this sad state of affairs, and to tell me about the beaver and the culverts and the neglect that has caused the water to lose its vitality and nourishment, and together we remembered when the water flowed freely where now a great fill accomodates a roadway.

I think we need to arrange a Rain Dance!!!  I see that dark clouds have gathered in the east, - perhaps we will have a decent rainfall to nourish the trees and shrubs and gardens as they go into the winter.

Sometimes October can be rather wild, - great wind and rain storms, brilliant sunrises and sunsets and drama in the heavens.  It is too late for colour this year, but we could do with a bit of theatre, - and we do have the memories of other years when all things combined so copacetically and everything was glorious and breath taking......

 

Gracious thanks giving.......

September in the Garden and passionate Weaving

September 28th, 2012

A small record of the town garden in September, - I have to say it is much quieter and more refined than what we left behind, growing in the hillside garden - but equally appreciated and loved!


Here is the little patch of wild flowers that we planted in the spring, next to the compost heap and in behind the Stella D-Oro day lillies.  I expect it will spring up again next year, early in the spring, and we will be able to enjoy it
all summer long.


The delphinium in the back garden are still blooming next to the phlox, and they make a pretty picture at night, glowing in the night lights along the edge of the raised bed. 
Early morning shadows on the back lawn and I am tempted to take my first cup of coffee here in the quiet shade of the willow tree, away from
morning traffic.

I miss the view to the south, where the long reaches of the valley cross the border at Chapaka, and the changes in colours and shadows on the Cawston hills, but this little garden has many compensations as we grow older and appreciate the surroundings as much as the exercise required to keep everything within bounds!

Last year we watched the quail come up across
the meadow from their home in the burn pile of prunings down below the house.  This year their village cousins scurry across the 'parkland' from the old creek bed that runs along the bottom of the benchland to the north of us, eager for the feed that Flo, the neighbour, puts out for them.

This afternoon I saw a dozen of these lovely creatures checking out the walnuts that lie on the roof of the neighbouring shed, just outside the bedroom window....

Yellow is the predominant colour of the autumn gardens -  small daisies, huge petalled sun flowers and starry coneflowers.

A few autumn crocus, some late roses and the ubiquitous Chinese lanterns that I mentioned before, in a previous blog, - somehow smuggled down from the hill garden  to establish a branch in the village proper for all the town blooms.

 

The roses are particularly beautiful.  I want to pick the Abraham Darby but then again, I want them to last as long as possible, and so I leave them where they grow and visit often.  Mister Lincoln has grown very tall and lanky, as befits his name, I guess.  The gorgeous deep velvety bloom atop the highest stem could easily be taken for a top hat.

 

 

 



These are volunteers - cheerful daisies against the blue of the raised bed.

 

As are the snapdragons that hide amongst the roses and shasta daisies.

 



 

A perfect bloom, faintly fragrant and appealing.

 



 

The bee balm is looking as little tattered, but still a great attraction to the bees.



 

I spoke of the passionate weaving, and the passion arose when I found I had been too hasty and enthusiastic when I was tying on the warp by myself, and had made a real mess of getting it tight and even.  So evenutally I faced up to the problem, unwound the back beam, inserted new brown paper to separate the rolls, rolled it up again, carefully and with great attention, and now I have about six wonderful inches woven.  And I am as delighted as I was when I first started to weave, forty years ago.  This is a funny little loom, with quirks all its own. but I think we will manage nicely together.

 

Life is good.....

Happy Songs with Doris Day

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

In case you're out of sorts and feeling peckish here is a happy song to cheer you up!  And who is cheerier than Doris Day!!!  Smile!

 

 

 

Blue Monday

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Yes, Monday....why is it so often a gloomy day??? 

 

Not gloomy weatherwise, just spiritwise, it seems to me.

 

I did finally make the apple sauce first thing this morning, and that should have been enough to raise the spirits, but somehow, after I had done the floors and the beds and the bathrooms the day seemed to get away on me and I napped a bit in the afternoon, and was just generally out of sorts......

 

So I will post some pictures I took in the garden at coffee time,

and they at least will be cheery and upbeat. 

 

 And perhaps I will find a few sweet words to say at the end.....

 

 

Charles took this photo of Mr. Lincoln against the morning sky

 

 

 

 

and Abraham Darby is looking quite chipper these days

 

 

 

 

 

Colour in the peony leaves, and another of Charles' pictures -

the Mountin Ash against the blue sky

 

 

 

Fiddling about with a cloud photo from long ago

I included an excerpt from the New Zealand Prayer Book

which seems like good night time advice.

double click to enlarge and read unless your eyes are exceptionally good.....

 

 

Hopefully I will awaken tomorrow feeling more like Pooh Bear and

less like old Eyeore!!!

 

 

Welcome to Autumn

Friday, September 21st.

A faint blush in the Eastern sky where autumn makes her first hesitant steps through the  hills and vales of the Lower Similkameen. 

 

Along the creekside waterways the poplar and the alder leaves are golden in the sunshine, where summer still lays claim to the afternoon, tossing her head at the calendar; warming the valley to shirt sleeve and shorts weather and leaving to autumn the alchemy of frosty nights.

 

In the garden once more the Abraham Darby delights

with its tightly packed petals, its perfume still as perfect now,

in its third flush as it was in June, newly blossoming.

 

 

A few feet away a passenger from the Chinese Underground Railway

alights at the new Depot, securely established as a Branch

from the hillside garden!

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon I visited one of the many fruit stands

that line the highway west of Keremeos

looking for farm fresh eggs.

 

The market was bustling with travelers

and crammed with colourful bins of apples, pumpkins, squash

and nectarines side by each with all the wonderful fall vegetables.

 

Sid brought us two boxes of apples and I will set a large pan full of MacIntosh to simmer

for apple sauce and enjoy the marvelous combination of

apples cooking and cinnamon.

 

'By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

with summer's best of weather

and Autumn's best of cheer'.

Morning Road Trip

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Up early and on the road to Penticton to keep an 8.30 driving exam appointment.  The sky was the deepest blue and the sun was brilliant, - still low over the hills and shining directly into one's eyes,  which made things difficult for Charles, who was the one being examined, esecially as his eyes are very sensitive.

I find that one of the drawbacks to growing old is the enthusiasm the licensing people have for getting the elderly off the road and into a taxi or on to a bus, if your rural area happens to have such amenities.

The other is the sly way young whipper snapper clergy have of encouraging the elderly out of the traditional church to make way for The Emerging Church (secular...) - 'clearing the decks', the Archbishop called it.....

But I digress from our Road Trip.

We didn't linger in Penticton and on the way home I opened the window and snapped pictures as we flew along.  For the 632nd time I missed the lightning fast view we have of  Marron Lake and
the Kaleden Dam, through the trees and hundreds of feet below the road edge.

Charles, sweet man that he is, turned in a few yards up the highway, on to the Marron Valley road, which runs midway across the hills, through the Indian Reserve, coming out at Kusler's Ranch and joining the Green Mountain road through Allen Grove.  We never did get a view of the Lake and Creek, but what a beautiful drive we had.

The fall colours are not yet flamboyant, but rather soft and subtle and gently blended.  Here and there a clump of Rabbit Brush is a radiant yellow globe, crying to be taken home and turned into dye for sheep's wool, carded and spun and woven into a warm incandescent blanket.

 

 

 

We came home and had a nice afternoon nap.