We are soaking up

 each glorious moment of these hazy Autumn days!!!

The garden is packed with fall flowers;  late roses, yellow daisies,

a wonderful array of chrysanthemums, purple asters - 

and here is the last Abraham Darby of the summer!

looking as fresh and lovely as the first bud to open in May.

Charles 'blew the lines' today,

in preparation for the irrigation water being turned off tomorrow.

As he coiled up all the hoses I had a faint feeling of regret

and it was brought home to me that these wonderful warm

Autumn days are a plus, - a dividend, and a wonderful blessing.

I picked a few boxes of Golden Delicious Apples

and on the first day that doesn't draw us outside

we will core and slice them into foil lined pie plates, 

pop them into the freezer and anticipate a winter's worth of 

delicious apple pies.

Tomorrow's forecast is for blue skies and sunshine, - and

the next day too, of course.

It will be Katie and Will's Wedding Day!

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.   Plautus

ABC Wednesday

M is the Magnificent Letter for this week.

M is for Magnolia

He told of the Magnolia, spread

High as a cloud, high over head! 

 Wordsworth: Ruth

Sauntered down the lane to enjoy these marvelous blooms

in the garden at the big house, last April.

We sat on the bench under the big gnarled tree

and discussed the ways of the world and

the beautiful froth of cherry blossoms along the way

and the delicate beauty of the Magnolia.

From Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings....

The Magnolia Tree

"I do not know the irreducible minimum of happiness for any other spirit other than mine own.

It is impossible to be certain even of mine.

Yet I believe that I know my tangible desideratum.

It is a tree-top against a patch of sky.

If I should be crippled or long ill, or should have the quite conceivable misfortune to be clapped in jail

I could survive, I think, given this one token of the physical world."

For more Ms do Move on over to ABC Wednesday and see what

Mrs. Nesbitt and her mighty helpers have to offer.  Here.

Morning Musings

I sit pensively at the breakfast table, watching the moody clouds that wrap the Cawston hills and the slight change of colour as the sun rises through them, wondering if they will develop into a fiery October sunrise or if the light will just fade back to gloomy grey.

Wondering if I dare have a second cup of coffee!

Fingering the Wallace Stegner book that I itch to open - last night I finished

'Crossing into Safety' and now I have this delightful title to tease my impatience 

'When the Bluebird sings to the Lemonade Springs'

I set it aside regretfully.

It is a busy day.

While the sun still shone yesterday I poked around in the garden and then picked armsful 

of asters and sedum and chrysanthemums, a few late shasta daisies

and some of the late roses to take to the church early this morning.

The ladies of the Altar Guild will brighten the church with these lovely symbols

of Thanksgiving.  Apples and grapes, turnips, cornstalks (if anyone is

willing to clean up after them) a cabbage or two and lots of squash and gourds.

If we were on the prairies there would be wheat, but these are the fruits of

 our orchards and vineyards and gardens.

The sky is not going to produce anything spectacular this morning and so I rise, step out onto the deck and snap the light on the clouds before I go to gather the flowers into the SUV.

As I pass the piano I pause for a quick run through of the prelude I have been hoping

to play for the Thanksgiving Service, but alas, it is definitely not 

up to scratch and so (ever the optimist) God willing I will plan on using it next Thanksgiving

and resort to variations on the old familiar hymns that comfort our

aging parishioners - 'Come Ye Thankful People Come' We Plough the Fields and Scatter'

and 'For the Beauty of the Earth'.

Love and Blessing at Harvest Time to all whose hearts are full of thanks,
whether to a Creator or to Blind Chance

ABC Wednesday

The lovely letter L is listed tops today

L is for Love

......and here is a tune about love to stay with you all day and into the night.



For more interpretations of the Letter L linger a while here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her literal helpers.

October 4th, 2010

But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you from the wisdom of former generations." Job 8:10 

Up before Charles this morning, - quite early, and in the quietness of the morning tending to my knitting as I finished off the toes of the sixteenth sock!

While doing so I held quiet communion with my mother on this, the 53rd anniversary of her death.

I remembered her teaching me to crochet and to tat, but mainly it was knitting we did together; her with her needles flying, me much slower and laborious.  During the hard, hard years of the depression she added to the household budget by doing exquisite custom knitting for friends and friends of friends.  Beautiful dresses and skirt and sweater ensembles.  

In later years, - the years she spent in a wheelchair, she turned her talents to petit point.  Some of her pictures were small and delicate, - others of incredible size to me, who found it inspiring how she spent those years of pain and immobility, patiently creating beauty and always with grace and courage.  She taught me to knit, but most endearingly she taught me to live by her beautiful example.

In Memorium

Dorothy Emily Grace

ABC Wednesday

The letter we all admire this week is K
K is for the Kettle Valley Railway

G. Williamson

A Train crossing the Trout Creek Trestle at Summerland

Sometimes called Mculloch's Wonder after Andrew McCulloch who in 1910

began construction of the Kettle Valley Railway that would

connect the Kootenays to the B.C. Coast.

When silver was discovered in the Kootenay Valley of British Columbia the Canadian government were dismayed that because of a lack of access they were losing silver ore to Americans, who had easier access from the south.  Ever one to meet a challenge the Government commissioned the building

of a new railway, and Andrew McCulloch was appointed as Civil Engineer in charge of this project.

The building of the railway was completed in 1916, after four years of
extraordinary engineering involved in its construction.

.

A picture of the Penticton Railway Station at the time of the first
passenger train to use the line in 1915.

Until 1949 when the Hope-Princeton Highway was opened there was a daily passenger and freight service from Vancouver to Nelson.

The Coquihalla section of track was closed in 1962 because of desperate winter
conditions and the expensive involved in keeping it open.  In 1946 my mother-in-law and I were stranded when the train could not make it through the Coquihalla, and
we had with us our oldest son, who was only a baby and who
we were taking to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.  A frightening time.

The Myra Canyon is one of the most scenic sections of the Kettle Valley Railway, - there are 16 wood trestles, 2 steel bridges and 2 tunnels.

Today the Kettle Valley Railway Line is an extended hiking and biking trail

Some hikers emerging from the Othello Tunnel just above Hope in the Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park..  High Canyon walls tower above and the river below thunders as it cuts
its way through the wilderness.
The tunnels are dark and damp and carrying a flashlight is advised while exploring the
tunnels, especially if one has children and the are afraid of the dark.

The only section of track where one may travel by rail is found at the Prairie Valley Station
in Summerland, British Columbia
A 1912 locomotive called the 3716 or a 1924 Shay powers the train with two passenger coaches and three open-air cars.

It is a marvelous tourist attraction and I have written in an earlier post about the
scheduled train robberies that are part of the summer adventure.

For more interpretations of the letter K go here
to ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her Associates.

What am I reading - What am I listening to.....

While looking for something entirely different I came across a small leather bound Bible that belonged to my Mother, - so finely scripted on delicate gold edged paper and inscribed 'To my dear wife, Easter 1931'.

As you can imagine it is a book I treasure, and  am concerned about the condition of the cover, which is badly worn.  It came to me that on the bookshelves beside our bed there was a small handmade cloth case to hold such a book, and so I went to find it.

I was surprised to open it and find within Muriel Spark's first novel, The Comforters, published in 1957 (the year my mother died).  I cannot remember ever having the book, or reading it - but then that is not unusual.  When Charles and I were first married he had his uniforms and the clothes he left behind when he joined the Airforce, - I had my trousseau and some other old clothes, and we had our wedding presents!

Today!!  Oh, today we have accumulated so much STUFF.  With six children and 65 years of marriage it is no wonder I come across things that are a total surprise to me, - things that I can never remember having seen before, and have no idea how they were acquired or spirited into the place where they were deposited, found comfort and settled down to stay for the duration.

I like the Muriel Spark novels I have read, and The Comforters is a small book, a paperback, easily handled in bed (not like John Fowles Wormholes) and so I tucked my Mother's bible in the cloth case and have just started The Comforters.

And what am I listening to?

I have had to take myself in hand, so to speak, regarding the socks I am knitting for Christmas presents - thirteen pair!  The summer was so desultary, - I was not in the least inspired to knit, and told myself that I could soon catch up my knitting schedule in the fall, and easily be finished by Christmas.  However, my old nemesis, procrastination, has sprung unbidden into September and I find myself sitting with idle hands in any number of places where I could be clicking the needles and getting on with the job.

I hit upon the clever (I thought) idea of multi-tasking in the evenings, and listening to an absorbing e-book while my hands unconsciously turned heels and cast off toes.  I downloaded Wallace Stegner, whose writing I am enamoured of but whose book "All the little live ones" I have somehow missed reading.

And just as soon as I am finished in the kitchen tonight I am going to put it to the test.  Unfortunately I have been known to fall asleep while listening to e-books, but I am hoping the combination of gripping the knitting needles, and finding the book gripping my imagination, will be enough to make the venture successful.

Do think of me now and then and send encouraging thoughts this way....

The Last Day of Summer

Only a few more hours to go before Autumn officially arrives to set up house.

She has sent a few preliminary reminders of her intentions

to visit, but overnight we will watch the season change from

a glorious summery day to the first day of an equally glorious fall.

Singing day for Charles, and my plans for the morning

involved a lot of rather distasteful chores, like vacuuming and making order out of chaos 

in the linen closet.  No picture, - you really wouldn't want to see it!

But what is one to do on the last day of summer when it dawns clear and bright

with nary a cloud in the sky, and an early morning survey

finds the sunflowers heavy with little birds feeding,

the apples hanging ripe on the trees in the orchard,

the sky so deep and rich a blue

and a dozen or so things crying out for attention in the garden.

A perfect day for transplanting the barn flowers and the yellow daisies

into the bed where the poppy bloomed in July

before the coutch grass invasion.

I spent an hour digging out the grass, searching for every small prolific inch of it that just itches to

 re-establish itself and spring up to greet me in March, and then replaced the grass with the plants, which should have lots of time to put down roots before the serious frost arrives.

Although Charles and Sid both tell me that it is going to be a long cold winter, judging by the width of the stripe on the woolly caterpillars - this way of judging the coming season passed
on to them both from Charles' father, 

and though unique probably quite a dependable sign.

When the planting was done I went and got the camera and a cup of coffee, wandering around in the garden, tidying the iris and pulling out the little mint plants that foiled me in the spring.

The asters and sedum glow in the sunshine, and the white of a shasta that I had cut down earlier when it got unruly provides a lovely contrast.

I spent the last half hour of a wonderfully contented morning  gathering some windfalls
from the Mac tree just across the fence.  So many people love
this old variety, - it is sweet and crisp at this time of year,
a joy to bite into and marvelous for apple sauce.

As I finish this post there is just six minutes to go before summer turns to
wave her last farewell, - I imagine her going west, with the moon just coming up behind her
over the Cawston hills.

The forecast is for rain tomorrow, but today was a warm and well loved treasure.

ABC Wednesday

The VIP letter today is J

J is for Jingo

And here is Hugh Laurie together with Stephen Fry and others to entertain you in a less irascible manner than he does on House, with the song Oh By JINGO



For more J's -  by Jingo, ABC Wednesday is the place to go - here.

And for more entertainment by Laurie and Fry visit some of the fun Videos posted on Youtube featuring them as JEEVES and Wooster........

Autumn

We go for a lovely drive today, taking the camera along

I am not expecting to see so many colourful signs of fall until October, but through a rain spattered windshield and the occasional bit of sunshine Charles and I drive along the Cawston Bench, and then down the back roads around by Ginty's Pond, and he is so patient about stopping and so sharp-eyed about seeing things that I miss, that we ended up snapping almost two hundred pictures.

Here are a few........ other pictures of a wild unsettled sky I have posted 

at Similkameen Skies.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof;  there thou may'st rest,

And tune they jully voice to my fresh pipe;

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lust song of fruit and flowers.

William Blake, To Autumn, 1783

Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun'

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run'

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more;

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease;

For Summer has o'er brimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats, To Autumn