Life

A Late Autumn Photo Diary

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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…

 

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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.

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

 

 

 

 

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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.

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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.

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An Amish home

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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?

 

Hubknuckles

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hubknuckles

A sweet book from a simpler time

When they were in elementary school, this was a favorite book for both my girls, especially around this time of year. It has some lovely black and white, soft-edged illustrations by Deborah Kogan Ray, and it was originally published in 1985, purporting to be based upon a slightly spooky but also sweet and ultimately positive experience had by the author, Emily Herman, when she was little.

My younger daughter so enjoyed the details and descriptions in the story, that from the very first time I read it to her, she begged for us to have “spaghetti and meatballs” for supper that Halloween, since that’s what the narrator and her family have in the story on that night.

We’ve been having spaghetti and meatballs for Halloween supper ever since. 🙂

Here’s the book’s description:

“Every Halloween, Hubknuckles pays a visit to Lee and her younger sisters and baby brother. The children watch the ghostly figure from the safety of their warm kitchen, experiencing delicious little tickles of fear.
But this year, Lee has decided that Hubknuckles isn’t real. “Hubknuckles is just a sheet and a flashlight,” she tells her sisters. “Either Ma or Pa makes him dance.” And she is determined to prove it.
What Lee discovers after an eerie dance on the lawn with her silent, shadowy partner is sure to delight young readers, who will be enchanted by the softly glowing illustrations of this unusual Halloween happening.”

I recommend it highly if you have or know of young children who enjoy reading or being read to, say from kindergarten age to age 9 or so. It remains one of my older daughter’s favorite stories. And my younger daughter, who is a decade older than she was on that long-ago Halloween when we first read Hubknuckles together, is now an avid reader in own right, in large part due to the way books like it triggered her imagination. This story is available for kindle or in hardcover (though the link I’ve provided in the title here leads to the hardcover version at amazon.com).

One of the things I miss, now that my girls are no longer so little, is the loss of those opportunities to read to them like I used to. Seeing this book brings back many happy memories of times together, snuggled up and enjoying a good tale. But I’ve ordered copies for both of them, so they maybe they will be able to recreate that magic when they read it to their children one day.

Grandpa’s Crows

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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…

The Old Button Tin

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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

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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

An Old Adirondack Hermit

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water pump (2)

The picture here is of the rusty old water pump on the “shallow well” in the backyard at the Homestead…Pa found it in an old Adirondack dump back in the 1950’s and we’ve used it “decoratively” ever since 🙂

When I was just a little kid (before kindergarten-age), there was an old Adirondack hermit living in the woods up and around our area. He had a grizzly beard and looked around 75 or older; he walked with a sort of stooped gait, wearing a cap of some sort over his white hair.

For quite a while he had a “shelter” built deep in the woods, and he camped out there pretty much all year round. We didn’t know his name, but continue reading…

The Real Things Haven’t Changed…

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A favorite quote by one of my favorite authors:

Laura

“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”
                                                                    ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

Autumn Moods

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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Photo by: M. Reed McCall

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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.

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Photo by: M. Reed McCall

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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.

 

 

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Photo by: M. Reed McCall

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Photo by: M. Reed McCall

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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.

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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. 🙂