Archives
31/10: Halloween Night
For the first time that I can remember we had a beautiful, warm halloween night. There is no fire in the stove, no rain in the sky. There are Halloweens here that we have been trick or treating in the snow, or wind, or rain. Tonight was beautiful. full of rustling leaves. We had a nice crowd, with our usual mexican food, games and readings. One of the wonderful things about halloween is walking around the town with the kids, and touching base with neighbors you haven't seen for a while, and getting a peak inside some of these old brick, stone, and clapboard houses. Many of our neighbors dress up - Margaret, who lives in the old stone house around the corner, dresses as a witch and hands out candy from and old stone urn. At the old train station they had a bubbling caldron and a misty fog with lights in the old buildings. Many leaves were still in the trees, and slight breezes sent them cascading down upon us as we stalked the streets. Flashlights darted through the night, and everywhere you could hear the sound of kids running through the leaves and laughing, and the roar of the nearby river.
23/10: Zoe turning Six
Here you are everyone - Zoe at six year old. I am amazed that she is as old as she is, and as big as she is. Every over used cliche is appropriate, she is growing quickly but she continues to hold onto the spark that makes her Zoe. That twinkle in her eye is unwaivering, she feels everything so deeply, and feels for others so much that we have to watch so closely the things she sees and hears, she hurts for others so much. Zoe grows more independent each week, but still loves for me to carry her to bed. She runs into our bed when light enters her room, and crawls under the comforter, warm in the cool morning, safely in my arms. She loves rocks and gems, watching the clouds, drawing, dancing and talking. She is a wonder and I could never have guessed what a change she would make in my life, when she came screaming into it on that cool Oklahoma autumn day six years ago.
22/10: Flying South
The geese fill the sky through the morning and in the late afternoon. In the morning, when I am walking, I here a few geese in the sky, the are joined by a dozen more from the ground. They circle the sky, and then are joined by yet more. After the group is big enough and loud enough they circle higher in the sky, and fly off - the opposite in the evening. This morning was filled with a heavy fog, you could only hear the geese somewhere off in the white. Later, as the fog burned off we saw a lot of groups of Snow Geese and Canada Geese high up against the fall blue. Zoe's last soccer game was this morning, in the fog. Mom and Dad visited, they brought firewood, and birthday gifts for Zoe and played ultimate frisbee.
21/10: First Frost
Every year its the same race, October starts out nice enough with leaves changing, and we are hoping that they last through Zoe's Birthday party. Usually a wind storm would blow up the weekend before, and the leaves would be gone. This year is different, this morning saw our first frost, and the leaves on many of the maples are just now reaching their peak. Some, like the old maple in front of our house, are just starting to turn. The mornings are crisp and cool, and at last the the skys are blue and sunny. We are falling into the groove of autumn, and even Liz went off to her pre school (two and a half hours a day, twice a week) with out complaints this week, mostly because she wanted to show off her pumpkin tights. For me the routine includes a log on the fire in the morning and a walk for Bodoni along the river and through the fields behind the house. This morning the grass crunched beneath my feet left a trail through the white of the frost. Bodoni easily broke through the thin layer of ice on the pools of water in the fields, left from the rains that have fallen so heavily overly the last few weeks.
11/10: Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals –October 12th and the temperatures are struggling to make it out of the fifties. Its such a dramatic change. After sweating through Friday night a heavy front pushed its way through with rains that dumped 12 inched of rain in some areas of New Hampshire. For us it just provided the grey, cool, wet climate that you grow to associate with fall in New England. The warm, sunny, crisp days are a joy when they happen, but this is the fall I love, the one that provides such a striking contrast to the bright leaves which are just beginning to change here in the valley. I started a fire in the woodstove for the first time this season, it signals a change. A change from summer to fall clothes, and to refuge in the house. The cool wet weather ways down the wood smoke which fills the backyard. The house smells of it as well, mingling with scent of onion soup.
We spent a few wonderful days in Argyle, where we had some great talks with my aunts and uncles. Zoe had looked forward to climbing Todd Mountain and searching for quartz crystals. It looked as if we would not get a break in the weather, but on Saturday the rain stopped long enough for us to make the climb. Before we made it to the top Zoe had her hat full of orange newts, but they were summarily discharged once we started finding crystals.
They were also emptying a beautiful old, long neglected house. It was a huge garage sale, with items pulled from the recesses of the house. I picked up another old cider press among other things. We spent the rest of the weekend at the Onsciota camp. It was a good weekend.
06/10: How many students can fit in a locker?
One. after critique I happily set my students to work printing their projects to the printer in the adjacent room and retreated to my office on the floor below to fill out some paperwork. When I returned there was a lot of commotion near the printing room - and arriving on the scene I found a female student locked firmly in a very narrow locker. It seems she was curious if she could fit inside the narrow space - and it turns out she could. After climbing inside another student playfully slammed the door, but the locker was broken, and the door now firmly locked. After a number of us tried to heavy hand the door open I descended to the first floor where I retrieved a crow bar out of the sculpture studio. It did not take long to pry open the door and release her.
03/10: Its hard to spraypaint a rooster
We have too many roosters. Nearing maturity now they make themselves well known. Even at half the size of the larger breeds the bared cochins have a powerful crow in the morning. They all rush out of their door every morning and proceed to welcome the day. We are forced to consider getting rid of two out of four. But which two? we have two barred cochins and two partridge cochin roosters, we plan to drop them off at a farm in Vermont, but I want to get rid of the noisiest ones. My clever plan? Add a spot of spraypaint to their backside. Lurking behind the woodpile I lept up after hearing the first crow, but I found out quickly that its hard to spraypaint a chicken. I chased it around the pen for quite a while until finally giving up in frustration.The weather has been wonderful for us, warm and pleasant during the day and cooling off at night. We had our annual cider making gathering. I bought a nice variety of cider apples from Pytlak Orchards and we made quite a few gallons of cider. We also had a bonfire and watched walt disney's old version of the headless horseman projected on the side of the barn (we followed it with Arsenic and old lace).
We have been so busy lately, we have taken the girls to mine for Garnet near Gore mountain in the Adirondacks. We have also been hunting for fossils. The growing season is fast nearing an end - and we have a big pumkin and lots of beets and potatoes to be harvested yet in the garden.
I wish this weather would last forever. But the leaves are starting to change (late this year) and I suspect we will see a first frost before long.
