Gratitude

Hello, November!

Leave a comment
image

Photo I took near a farmer’s field, of geese noisily heading South for the winter

Two quotes of the season by two authors whose work I have enjoyed:

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”  ~L.M. Montgomery

“Wild geese fly south, creaking like anguished hinges…Season of woolen garments taken out of mothballs; of nocturnal mists and dew and slippery front steps…”  ~Margaret Atwood

A Late Autumn Photo Diary

Leave a comment
image

Driving down my street this morning

Many people around me complain about living in upstate New York because of the long, hard winters (and I’m not arguing with them – they can be long and hard). But  there is also so much to enjoy in every season. I’m always amazed at the beauty and variety of Mother Nature and thankful to live where I do to see all the different “moods” she wears.

This is going to a  kind of “picture diary” of my drive into work, with glimpses of sights along the way (I was actually running early for once and so I could safely stop and take a few snaps as I went). 🙂

So the pic above is just after I turned out of my driveway…beautiful mist and golden-russet leaves strewn across the gray pavement…

 

image

Swampy marsh

Next up, around 15 minutes into my drive…an atmospheric marsh with the sun coming up behind it. Sometimes I see Blue Heron flying in or out of it, and it’s got that sort of “gothic” feeling so lovely for this time of year, with the fog sometimes rising from the water and the black tree branches reaching into the sky.

 

A few minutes later, I enjoyed this pretty scene.

image

field mostly in the dark, still, with the sun just peeking over the horizon

 

 

 

 

image

field in the rising sun, backed by blue sky and lacy clouds

The fields were still shrouded in dark and then the sun came fully above the horizon and colors appeared…frosted grasses, brown branches, and a few trees still decked out in their autumn glory.

image

Frosty cornfield

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way down the big hill into the valley where my school is, there’s a cornfield. Even the muddy, rutted area where the stalks have already been cut is made beautiful by the gilding of frost, so that it almost shines in the rising sun.

image

An Amish home

image

Stacked harvest of corn stalks

 

 

 

 

Lastly, there is an Amish community in the area, and their houses are all white and glowing in the misty morn.

 

 

The field across the road from this home is prepared for winter in the old-fashioned way, with the corn stalks harvested and placed “haystack” style. A picturesque and beautiful scene.

 

Mother Nature continually amazes me as she shifts and changes, attiring herself in her new wardrobe each season and slowly but surely adding tried and true “pieces” to her ensemble. First the shock of colors heralded her shift into autumn, and now the gilding of frost is her way of flirting with the garments of snow she’ll wear in another month or two.

I look forward to the transition. What’s Mother Nature doing (and looking like) where you are?

 

An Oasis of Tradition (and some Cathartic Pumpkin Carving!)

2 Comments
pumpkin 3 escape adulthood

Courtesy of escapeadulthood.com

pumpkin 1 pumpkin2So this isn’t a generic pumpkin-carving post. It’s about how carving pumpkins, in additional to being entertaining and leading to some pretty cool jack-o-lanterns, can be cathartic too.

Ma with pumpkin

Ma, enjoying the process of carving out her pumpkin’s eye, LOL

Consider this picture of my dear, very sweet, normally-without-a-violent-bone-in-her-body mother about twenty years ago, when we were carving pumpkins out in the back yard. She’s having a good time carving her pumpkin’s face…and maybe getting out a little aggression too, LOL. My father is clearly enjoying the moment, too.

Pa and Mary with pumpkin

Me and Pa another year, with finished pumpkins on the front steps

Year after year, we’d all have a good time, and it’s an example of the kind of fun I’ve tried to create with my own kids as the years have passed.

Traditions are important. They provide a little bit of something to count on, year to year, when the landscape and the world keeps changing around us (as it inevitably does). We have these moments to recreate and fall back on, to re-center ourselves, bring us back to our roots, and reclaim a little of all the different times in our lives that we participated in them.

Of course traditions come in all forms, whether for other holidays, birthdays, or just things like apple-picking or preparing favorite recipes. Sometimes they are the bridge between people who have drifted apart, giving them a reason to reconnect.

pumpkin and mary

Me around 25 years ago, sitting on the top of the “school bus shelter” Pa built at the bottom of the driveway, kept company by a giant pumpkin and the little orange cat my parents took in

I love traditions, and I’ll probably be writing more about them – at least the ones I’ve cherished – in the future. But for now, since we’re at the end of October, I’ll stick with this one. Although time marches on, our traditions only have to disappear or change if we want them to.

What are some of your favorite autumn traditions, whether for Halloween or not?

Grandpa’s Crows

4 Comments
Crow in the tree edited

Crow in the tree at the cemetery

Well, technically for me, they’re “Pa’s” crows, because the man whose crows are the subject of this post is my father…but my kids and the other grandkids (and there are a lot of them…I’m one of seven girls, and we each have between one and four kids of our own) got used to calling them Grandpa’s crows.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it seems to me that crows get a bad name. They’re often associated with death or darkness, they’re maligned for having one of the least pleasant voices of the bird kingdom, and many people consider them pests. But they hold a very special place in my heart, for a variety of reasons, most of them tied to my father, otherwise known to our family as “Pa”. Continue Reading…

Keeping It In Perspective

2 Comments
image

Happiness today is warm tea in my cheerful rooster mug and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch!

 

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

The Old Button Tin

4 Comments
image

My mother’s old button tin (a reused, 1950’s Christmas cookie tin), a box of threads and some old “Bondex” iron-on material from the 1960’s

When I was little, I was always fascinated, watching my mother sew. She could hand sew or sew on the machine.

To me it was magic. I learned in later years, that it was necessity. With seven kids to raise on just my father’s salary (at least until I was a teen and my mother started a second career in the insurance industry and worked her way up to a CPCU license), it was more economical for my mother to craft many of our clothes and other items by hand than it was to buy them ready-made. Continue Reading…

On Handling Adversity

2 Comments
image

The rising sun peeking from behind a red barn

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

~Maya Angelou

The Difference A Day Makes

Leave a comment
image

Sunshine outside my window this morning

Yesterday I posted about Rainy Days. Today, the landscape is entirely different, as you can see from the picture above, taken from the same vantage point as yesterday’s photo. The trees, decked in all their autumnal glory, seem almost to glow in the sunlight today, backed by robin egg skies and puffy white clouds.

But the change isn’t only in the outside world.

Today, my spirits are lighter. I’m making a concerted effort to focus on the positive around me and inside me, and to take baby steps toward keeping that balance I spoke of before. I, like many busy people who work full time at fulfilling but demanding careers (in my case two separate careers: teaching and writing), while also trying to be good spouses, parents, children, siblings, and friends, have times of feeling overwhelmed and unable to climb from beneath the pile of responsibilities, pressures, and even sadness or sense of helplessness. Lately, I seem to be having too many of those times.

But just as the world outside my window changes, so can I. Not much around us is truly in our control, but that much is.

My dear late father used to tell all us girls that, while we couldn’t control what happened to or around us, we could control our reaction to it. And therein lies a wealth of wisdom. In the years since his passing, I’ve found myself shifting away from remembering that like I should. I continue to miss his common-sense support, his unconditional love, and his wisdom-filled reminders. Sometimes I let the cares and worries overwhelm my days.

Today is a new day. Each day is a new day: a fresh page to fill with the writings of our own stories. Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery captured the essence of this wonderfully when she said, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

I’ve had a version of that quote posted on the wall of my classroom for 26 years. It is nice. And I’m going to try to remember that whether the rain comes down in torrents, the ice and snow blow and bluster, or the sun shines down…life – and each day in it – is what we decide to make of it. 🙂

Autumn Moods

Leave a comment
colors6

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

“Season 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…”

~ from “To Autumn” by John Keats

I’m in love with Autumn, as anyone who reads my blog can probably tell. I also love Romantic Age poetry, and Keats always seems to grasp the essence of what he writes about, whether it be a Grecian urn, or autumn, as above.

colors2

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

Around this time every year, I find myself regularly catching my breath at some new and gorgeous sight, like this bank of trees lining the road north.

I’ve always noticed and appreciated the splendor of autumn where I live, but this year I’m trying to slow down to take stock of it even more. Sometimes it’s an effort to be mindful in the face of my usual worrying, planning, and brewing.

Purples and gold editeds

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

But for some reason, the colors, moods, and textures of autumn help me to do that more easily than other seasons. It’s like Nature is putting on one, final, gorgeous show before the chilly north wind sweeps in, and the monochromatic ice, snow, and leafless trees take over the landscape.

sky edited

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

In the meantime, I’m astounded by the vistas all around me, wherever I drive. I’m sure it helps that while I live in a small city, there is plenty of countryside around me, similar to where I grew up, and the school where I teach is a rural one that allows me to see countless beautiful scenes along the way to and from work. Take a look at these pictures with the varied and to me, at least, breathtaking skies; they almost seem like paintings, they’re so vivid and perfect:

colors5

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

colors8

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

Sometimes I look around me as I’m driving and feel a little selfish for having such lush beauty to enjoy; the realization that so many in the world look out at landscapes far more bleak or violent and war-torn is never far from my thoughts. Since there is no resolving that understanding, I do my best to be grateful and aware.

Autumn swamp on way to work 09 edited

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

colors4

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

Of course, in addition to all the colors of upstate NY autumn, there are some darker, “moody” landscapes as well, like this picture of a kind of swampy area on my way to work. Once in a while I’ll see a few big, dark birds winging through the bare-branched trees.

Sometimes the contrast comes from the sight of dark, billowing clouds in the sky just above a glowing patch of trees decked out in reds, oranges, yellows, and greens. But even these moments are welcome and inspire all sorts of creative thoughts and reflections.

 

 

colors

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

colors 3

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

colors7

Photo by: M. Reed McCall

Mostly, though, this season fills me with a sense of awe.

The colors and transitions make me slow down and appreciate what’s all around me, while reminding me to take stock of what matters. To pay attention to the cycles of life in my own little world. Every life has its sunrise, its seasons, and its sunset.

sunset on lake

Sunset on the lake, as seen through the picture window in the living room at the Homestead (Photo by: D. L. Reed)

I don’t want to miss the experience of any of my seasons by looking too far ahead or worrying too much. It’s up to me to enjoy the here and now in all its incarnations – and in autumn that experience has its own vibrant flair, that I wouldn’t trade for all the sun-soaked beaches or palm trees in the world. 🙂

 

Early Autumn Tradition

2 Comments

I’m the kind of person who loves traditions.

When I was a kid, I loved – no, I guess needed – routine. I liked to be able to count on things, and I thrived on the sense of security my parents and large family of sisters (there were seven of us total, no brothers) provided. Change rattled me, so much so that when two of my older sisters left suddenly, according to my six-year-old perspective (one for college, and one who basically eloped), it threw me for a tailspin emotionally that almost prevented me from finishing my first grade year.

That sounds ominous, I know, and perhaps makes this blog post sound like it’s going to be about doom and gloom, but it’s not.  Everything worked out, and life went on more or less smoothly in the long run (well, I’m still a little odd, but that’s just me, LOL).

applepicking edited 2014

Apple Orchard near my home, picture taken in September 2014

This blog however, is about a tradition I’ve enjoyed for decades and that is one of the perks of growing up and living in upstate New York: Apple-picking! I’ve gone apple-picking every single year of my life. In fact, the joke around my house now is that if we don’t go apple-picking, I don’t make any apple pies that year. Except it’s not a joke. ‘Cause that’s my rule and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I’m not fussy, though. We don’t have to go to a full blown “real” apple orchard like the one pictured at the left. In fact, before I was married we hardly ever went to a commercial orchard. No, we’d take a drive north to Buck Hill and the state land there, where there was a wild apple orchard, created by nature. The apples were almost always smaller than apple orchard fruit, or pocked and imperfect in other ways – but they also had no pesticides on them and they were tart and crisp, resulting in pies, applesauce, and other baked goods that tasted amazing.

Front Apples edited

Pa took this picture of the apple tree in the front yard, full of fruit

10 apple tree with apples on it in fall editedl

Shaking the tree for fruit

with the applepicker edited

Me with the apple-picker and a bag full of fruit

at the table edited

Kitchen at the Homestead, with the long table and Pa at his usual place, just before supper

My parents eventually planted two apple trees in their yard, one in the front, and one in the back, of different varieties. These ended up being very similar to those we’d find in the wild (probably because my father never sprayed them with chemicals). Still plentiful like in commercial orchards, but smaller and imperfect on the outside.  The picture on the left is from quite a few years back, when my father was still alive, and one sister and I  gathered with our families one weekend at the Homestead to pick apples and have supper with Pa and Ma.

Here I am, getting ready to use the apple-picker lying on the ground near me (more on that handy tool in just a minute) and finally just below is one of Pa in his place at the table, talking to my sister before supper.
Okay, so here’s more about the apple-picking tool: When I was dating my soon-to-be-husband, he’d come to visit me at the Homestead, and we’d pile into the van to drive up past Steuben and a Revolutionary War monument there where a tall, wild apple tree with gorgeous golden apples grew. My husband earned a reputation for his skill at wielding that awkward-but-very-useful apple-picking tool….a long wooden handle topped with a curved, coated wire “basket” of sorts, with little spiky fingers of wire to help grasp the high fruits, pluck them from the branch, and bring them safely to the ground. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has strong arms and back (yeah, I love my guy!), but he could get to just about any apple I asked him to get for me. 🙂

applepicking with Pa

Pa and me, having a good time – and sampling the fruit – at an orchard years ago)

Over the years, apple-picking has become a beloved tradition that is more about the family and memories made together, than it is about the fruit we gather and pies  or other baked goods that result.  Pa’s death brought those memories into even sharper focus, knowing there will be no new ones to add to the collection.

Mary and Ma 2014 applepicking edited

Me and Ma at the commercial orchard near my home this past weekend…taking a ride on the tractor back to the apple barn!

And so each year the act of going apple-picking, whether at an orchard, at the Homestead, or in the wild, is both familiar and new – a kaleidoscope of images, feelings, laughter, and the comfort of sharing a simple pleasure with loved ones, and I’m so thankful for the many years I happy times I can think back on.

Traditions like these mark the moments in our lives, giving context to the whole and adding to the beauty of the tapestry. When times are challenging, such memories can bring joy that helps to balance out the rest.

As you can see, I’m a believer in the beauty and value of traditions. 🙂 Seasonal or otherwise, do you have any that you love?