Saturday, October 6th, 2012

But see, in our open clearing, how golden the melon lies;

Enrich them with sweets and spices and give us the Pumpkin Pie.

                                Margaret Preston          

Thanksgiving Weekend here in Canada and I have just popped the pumpkin pies into the oven!

 

My very favourite, - a pie that floods me with memories of my grandmother and the pies she kept in the cooler, down in the basement - along with the doughnuts and the cookies and all the other delicious baking that she magically produced from the small fold down baking table

in her tiny pantry.

       I used to do pumpkin pies from scratch, - from growing the pumpkin to the choice of spices.

But now, alas, I rely on E.D. Smith and canned milk to make the filling.  Nevertheless, they are declicious, and I made two so that I would have one left to use for Thanksgiving dinner and the other one to grace the dinner table until the big turkey feast.

 

Alas, I am cheating on the apple pies as well, and buying them from the fantastic supply of pies the ladies from the local assisted living complex make and offer at their pie sale.  I say the ladies, but perhaps they lett the gentlemen pare the apples. 

 

 In our kitchen Charles manages the machine that runs around the apple, removing the skin, and he does it with great dexterity.

 

I smell the lovely fragrance and I hear the bell tinkle, - the one that tells me

it is time to check the oven.....

 

I will put on some nice music and save you a piece of pie if you come quickly!!!

 

 

I whisper back to my darling mother

October 4th, 2012

 

Dorothy Emily Grace

 

February 16th, 1902 - October 4th, 1957

 



The past cannot be forgotten while memory lasts

and love preserves.

Janette Hospital

 

 

I quote from Julian Fellowes

 

"One of the strangest parts of growing older being that

ever-increasing Team of the Dead, who stand behind your shoulder

 and take it in turns to jump in and out of your head. 

A picture, a shop, a street, a clock that someone gave you,

an ornament that came from this dead aunt

or a chair from that dead uncle,

and suddenly for a second they're alive again,

whispering into your ear. 

There is a religion somewhere in the world

 that believes we all die twice;

once in the normal way

and the second time

when the last person who really knew us dies,

so one's living memory is gone from the earth".

 

And so I keep my mother's living memory vibrant,

full of the grace and courage and love

that sustained her.

 

Weather Report et al

October 3rd, 2012

After a restless night I waken late, spring from bed to unlock the door for our daughter's early morning coffee visit, and as I do I hear a plaintive sigh throughout the hills and orchards - the night has come and gone and still no rain;  no frost to redden the apples and change the drying leaves to gold.  The clouds have departed and the light from the sun brightens the horizon in the east - come to sweeten the grapes, no doubt.  At least no 'sour grapes' to complain about, but even they could do with a long refreshing night of rain.

That is the weather report for the day!

As I went to click the coffee pot to 'on' I passed the little loom on the kitchen table, and patted the woven part fondly.  The rachet on the back loom doesn't hold the warp as tightly as I would wish, but we soldier on carefully, and I lose myself in the pleasure of the familiar back and forth of the shuttle and the closing of the reed.

It is Senior's Day at the local grocery shop and I have a great long list that astounds our daughter!  "How can two people require so much"???????  Well, sometimes I forget Senior's Day all together,  but this month I resolved to take advantage of the savings and added everything I could foresee we might need during the month, and that is how I will spend my 'free'morning, while Charles goes singing.  He has had his regular Scott Joplin concert while he showered, so it is a musical morning for him and a social one for me, depending upon how many friends I meet at the grocer's..........one never knows how much time will be filled with chit chat during a shopping expedition.

Charles is off to sing, and I am off to shop and the sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, reminding me that it is time to clean windows!

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.......