The last of the maples have been stripped in the past few days, victim of the strong winds and heavy rains and a few hints of sleet mixed in here are there. When the car refused to start, I opened the hood to find a little mouse nest on the positive terminal of the battery, leaves and grass and bits of fabric. Likewise, in the basement, I reached out for a log, and my eyes caught the quick movement of a mouse, who scurried through the paint cans and ran into a small hole in the cobbled wall of the cellar, and peered out at me. These are not ugly grey city mice, No, these are handsome deer mice, with their round black eyes, brown backs and white bellies, seeking shelter for the winter. It would take a hard-hearted person to snap these little guys in Victor trap. Or maybe a person without the two small daughters, who watched closely as I rummaged around the broom cupboard for our “have a heart” traps. I did not find them, but instead the old wooden contraption. They looked at me with eyes that mimicked the mouse “your not going to use that are you?” So, for the mouse, short reprieve until I can borrow Vera’s Trap.
The tide has turned, and the cool is winning. Night has made a huge leap forward, with daylight savings stealing away an hour in the afternoon. The rain drizzles on outside and the wind howls through the trees, knocking about the rocking chairs on the front porch, and sending the dogs up and barking at the late fall spirits filling the early darkness. The dogs peer through their reflections in the darkened glass away from their own warm nests by the fire.
So, we dropped off Elena at the airport, and drove through the drizzly fall rain to the fairy, and then to the house driving up after dark. The fire was nearly out, and the sewing machine stood quietly in the corner. In her wake she left sprigs of lavender, a half dozen skeleton dolls, a lingering scent of roses, and two granddaughter's who miss her but have a wide range of new handcrafted clothes. So, after the bursting fullness of the house in the last few days, it seems now strangely empty. With the girls sleeping quietly in bed Tory and I are left to move about each other in our big little house.
And yes, perhaps you might mispell ferry if you were surrounded, as I am, with the trappings of the creatures.
The season has slipped into an end, light frosts have come and gone ove rthe past few weeks, but only this morning did a hard frost settle on the plants, the cars, everything - coating it all white this morning. So this weekend in the early morning spit of rain, I pulled the tomato plants, and we have burnied the garden, hoping to avoid the rust that plagues my plants in the new season. Fridays drizzle turned into a steady downpour and in the evening, at the time I drove my two witches to a Girlscout halloween party, Thick heavy chunks of snow were falling from the sky. The snow was so heavy that it was hard to see at all. Zoe one an award for best wicked witch, and came home very happy. The snow lasted less than an hour, and by the next morning the snow and rain had passed on, and we arrived at Zoe's last soccer game of the season. I went to an auction in the late morning, and watched as the sold of everything out of an old carraige repairshop and blacksmith. The air was still cold, and the location was remote, and so there were no more than twenty people there and prices were cheep. I came home with very little all the same (I don't do much blacksmithing or wheelwrighting these days.) But it was a fun auction to go to, one where you dig through the lofts and uncover treasure among the trash. But I suppose the season for outdoor auctions has also now come to an end.
So, we had our fall gathering, late after the rain out of weeks ago, and combined it with an early birthday party for Zoe for a Friday the 13th October Party. Though Buffalo received two feet of snow, the day brought sunny skies, but cold weather. We hauled out the cider press, borrowed a old Case tractor and wagon from our friend Mr. Atwood down the road, and a big harvest table and we were ready for the party. the kids came dressed, and we had a corpse bride, skeleton, vampire bat, four witches and several other creatures of the night floating about our backyard. We took our wagon full creatures for hayride throught the West Chazy Cemetery at dusk and made many gallons of cider, we showed "the Corpse Bride" projected on the side of the barn and had a bonfire under the starry, and very cool skies. We had a a great time our friends, and everyone complimented Elena's handiwork - little felt pumpkin purses and skeleton bags holding halloween candy. I started a fire in the stove for the first time this year last night, to ward off the cold, and today, as we cleaned up the chaos in the yard, the sky was full of geese. The sound of snow geese and the smell of the fire burning make we very aware that winter is creeping quickly on. Tory and I took the opportunity to use the tractor to load the remains of the tall poplar that fell to the tree cutters yesterday. as you approach West Chazy from the North you notice the Poplars, thats loom high above the other tree tops, this one stood sentinel near the bridge, but it became clear that it was decidedly dead this summer, and our neighbor Geoffrey had it removed. Instead of a cherry picker the Tree surgeons climbed it and took it down in pieces. We moved it to our woodpile and returned to our warm house, and to the whirring sound of Elena's borrowed Bernina sewing machine in its spot of light by the window.
These are beautiful days, the sun shines in a blue sky backdrop of the changing leaves. In the day the sun beats down, and sends the temperatures into the seventies. Quickly, at night the clear skies let the warmth escape up to the stars, and Tory and I are sent scurrying about, covering the tender plants with old white sheets to cover them from the frost. The sheets glow eerily in the icy light of a full harvest moon. No hard frost yet though, just light ones, fringing green weeds and red leaves with lacey white in the secluded still hollows. The girls set to work making a scarecrow today, but after stuffing the plaid shirt and jeans with hay we couldn’t coax the scarecrow into standing up straight, and so he sits forlornly in an Adirondack chair, hunched over and slumped to one side.
If you want to find monarch caterpillars you need to to look on very young milkweed plants - that spring up in fields that were cut about a month before. They lay flat against the center vein of the botton leaves of the plants, and suck all the white sap out - I remember snapping off those stems as a kid, and watching the white. thick fluid ooze out, it tasted bitter and acrid, and I find it hard to believe that these curious little caterpillars depend on the stuff. We gathered about ten, from a field behind our friends house at the beginning of September, and watched as they all, one by one, turn. It must happen at a furious speed, as the caterpillars dangle suspended for a couple days, and then, the next time you look they have created a beautiful, vibrant green cacoon. Now, in this last week, they have emerged, shaking out their folded wings, crumpled at first, like a tent out of the bag. And now, the letting go, to join the thousands of others, that seem able, somehow, to dodge traffic and ride the winds south before the weather turns cold.
