Bring on Fall

Who doesn't love the season as it changes from late summer to early fall?  I can't imagine not being inspired by the gradually cooling temperatures and the changes we see on our hills and in the valleys as  deep green turns to yellow and orange and red.  The garden is yielding its late season crop of lettuce and beans.  Some tomatoes are ripening and some will need to be picked before frost.

Did I say frost?  I look forward to that first frosty morning.  The wood stove may need to be started  to banish the chill in the house.  Warmer jackets, longer pants, heavier coats.  All hanging in the closet ready and waiting. 

My mother loved fall.  It was her favorite season.  Since she lived in Florida, she always made it a point to make a three month visit from late August until after Thanksgiving.  She loved to pick up walnuts, hull them and leave them out to dry.  She adored the drives we would take up on the Glade Top Trail.  She would talk about her own girlhood in Illinois, a trip to Shook's Timber, walking along the railroad on her way home from school in Panola, hog-butchering time.  It was her time of year.

I guess I must have inherited my affection for the season from her.  Football games where my brothers played in a valiant effort to beat a near-town rival.  As a cheerleader, bundled up against the cold, leading the crowd as we yelled and screamed as the final touchdown was made as time ran out.  Then making my way home under the streetlights...the trees over the road outlined in purple with orange and red leaves rustling in the wind.  Trips on my bike to Bishop Hill.  The little town itself a storybook picture of beautiful homes and a park where we roasted hotdogs and made s'mores.

Now I look out my window and see the leaves of a few trees beginning to turn.  My lighter sweatshirt is ready for the chilly morning even though it will be discarded by noon if not before.  I sense an urgency in me.  I can't quite put a name to it.  Change.  The season is changing.  And I am looking forward to what fall may bring.   

 

Dragonflies

You can't see them in this picture.  No.  They fly so fast only a supersonic mini-cam could catch them in flight.  I am talking about dragonflies.  

In the evening they gather in the air on the north side of my porch.  The low light makes it easier for me to see them spotlighted by the setting sun.

They are just amazing.  They fly in formation...each tiny shape aligned exactly, near but not too close to its neighbor.  Holding a steady speed they zoom toward the west, wings a blur, then abruptly turn 180 degrees and fly, without hesitation or slowing their speed, to the east.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  I try to focus on just one dragonfly but it is hard.  First one way, then a climb up and over and down to again turn backwards and around.  It exhausts me just to imagine how they do it.  

A little research tells me  they have almost 360 degree vision with huge eyes mounted on tiny heads.  Their double wings are endlessly mobile, giving them the ability to change direction in a nanosecond.  

All in search of that thing which all living beings need.  Food.  And lots of it.  Gnats, mosquitoes, tiny pinpricks of bugs that are almost invisible to our eyes.  They fly and turn and climb and disappear, only to emerge again in some far off spot.  They fly down the hill toward the valley...and then come back.  Always following their next meal. They need  a lot of food to keep those engines running.

As I sit there, entranced by the flight of these super pilots, I think about how the smallest things in our world can be the most fascinating.  We oooh and ahhh at the ability of  gymnasts and dancers to turn themselves into impossible arcs and leaps of greatness.  We admire the skill of athletes who appear to walk on air.  But this little insect tops them all. 

The light is fading fast.  One or two still linger, flying back and forth seeking a final mouthful.  I scoot back my chair and head into the house.  But my mind is still full of the show I have seen.  A miracle.  A true gift. It makes me smile..

 

Aunt Tillie's Tea Kettle

I often arrange my flowers in this old copper tea kettle.  It has been through rough times.  Dented and marred with scars, it shows a long and useful life.  I have no idea how old it is.  All I know is that it came over the Atlantic in 1870 from Sweden with my great-aunt, Matilda Burke Myers, and her family.  They settled in Henry County, Illinois, joining a large community of Swedes who had first come to that area in the 1840's.  

Why is it, when you are a child growing up, no one thinks it's important to tell you who people are and something about their life?  I grew up not knowing Aunt Tillie.  I had no idea who she was or anything about her life.  As I have been doing my family history I have come across a few bare facts.

Tillie was born in Sweden in 1863.  I know her mother's name, Louisa.  And her brothers' names, Edward, Emil, and Albert.  She married my great uncle, David Allison Myers in 1910 when she was 48.  

But what else happened to her?  I vaguely remember visiting her in the nursing home before she passed away.  She lived into her 90's which was very unusual for that time.  I recall that she was very white-headed and thin...sitting in her wheelchair.  And that is all.  I have pictures of her that were found after my mom died.  She has a very Swedish look to her.  I know because, actually, I was raised by Swedes, but that is a story for another day.

Back to Aunt Tillie and her tea kettle.  My mom was always the person to rescue family pieces before they were put in the blazing bonfire.  Anyway,after Aunt Tillie died, my mom saved the tea kettle and brought it home to keep.  I assume no one wanted it.  She had no children and I imagine the other relatives were not too keen on taking on an orphan copper tea kettle that had seen better days.

There it sat on the bureau in our dining room.  When we moved, the tea kettle came too.  Many moves later it came to my house.  I love it.  The story goes that it was the tea kettle that was taken out to the fields during planting and harvest time.  It is sooty on the bottom so I can imagine it being suspended over a fire filled with water, ready to be boiled to make tea for the farmhands.  Tea?  That is what I was told.  Do Swedes drink tea?  I always thought they drank coffee.  Anyway, that is the short story of Aunt Tillie's tea kettle.

But there is more to it than that.  When I look at its dented side and bent handle, I see people bundling up all their belongings and packing them in trunks. I see them taking one last look backward  before climbing on a ship. Then turning and  looking west across that vast sea, hoping, wondering how they would fit in.  A new land.  Full of promise.  Full of dreams. 

I fill the kettle with my beautiful flowers.  I hope that Aunt Tillie knows that a part of her lives on here in the hills of Ozark County, miles and miles away from her beloved homeland, across the sea. Tillie's tea kettle has a home... right here with me.

 

Sharing

As I was driving down the street in Gainesville today I passed our former home.  I had noticed before that the surprise lilies, AKA naked ladies, were blooming to beat the band.  They are such a treat to see in the latter days of summer.  Boom.  There they are.  Bare stems topped with impossibly gorgeous blooms.  They come from bulbs.  When the leaves emerge in the spring they are nothing to look at.  Just your common ordinary plant leaf.  They die back and leave nothing to mark their place.  But in the driest and hottest month of the year...here they come...bursting through the hard and dusty soil.   

Alice Lord gifted us with two bulbs when we moved to our house in 1983.  She told us that we needed to take care of them.  Sometimes they would refuse to thrive.  Sometimes they were just contrary.  Just like a lady.  So we put them there by the fence.  We watched carefully those first few years.  They bloomed...just a few flowers.  We nurtured the ground where they were planted.  Tried hard not to plant anything that would compete with them in that place.  And year after year..more blooms.  Until, when we spent our last summer in that house, they were spread all along the fence line.  Alice was very serious when she shared those two bulbs with us. We are glad she did.  They make me smile when I see them.  And remember the one who gave them to us.  Sharing beauty. An amazing treat to see in this most unexpected time of year. 

 

Homecoming

Ten years.  Has it really been ten years?  I remember driving up the county road, climbing higher and higher.  The trees beside me were lit with the magical light that comes near sunset.  Their tops were touched with amber and gold, the trunks shrouded in deep gray and purple.

When we reached the top of the hill we got out and looked around.  Breathtaking.  That was the only word I could think of to describe what I saw.  For a full 180 degrees I could see hills, and houses, and fields full of cows.  One lone tree stood in the west.  A massive oak with bent branches and fluttering leaves that seemed to be guarding the place.  We walked around the field a little as the sun was going down behind the hills of Caney Mountain.  I don't think we said a word for a long, long time.

I turned to Andy and nodded my head.  Yes.  Yes.  This is where I wanted to be.  He understood what I said.  The feeling was mutual.

And as we celebrate our tenth year up here on the hill we are thankful for the chance that has been given  us.  A good life.  Good neighbors.  Wonderful places to explore and use.  All this beautiful  vista that unfolds before us.  It changes by the hour, the day, the season.  Soon it will be fall.  Then winter,  Then spring again.  Fulfilled.  That is how I feel.  I wouldn't want to be any other place in the world...but up here on top of the hill.

       

  

 

A Memory That Lasts

And so it is not to be.  No Hootin an Hollarin this year.  No funnel cakes.  No costume parade.  No Big Parade.  No music in the Gazebo.  No booths.  No tacos.  No....square dancing.

The last item hurts.  Even though we have not danced since last year, it hurts.  It makes our eyes fill with tears.  It's just almost too much to bear.

The picture you see is from a long, long time ago.  We were all younger.  We could dance all night...trying to wear out the band and the fiddler.  Midnight and beyond...the bleachers would be empty..most people had left ...yawning and stretching...saying that they would be back tomorrow night.  And still, there we would be...Just another tune please, we would plead with the musicians.  Just another one until we too had to leave.  

Mist rolling in from the hills.  It would filter down around the street lights as we stomped and yelled and made our way through Grandpa's Baby and Whirl like Thunder.  On and on and on.

This is what I am doing now.  Right now.  And I am determined to do it every day...until this thing is over.  I take my wishes.  I imagine a bright colored balloon.  It can be red or orange or yellow..and maybe even green.  I close my eyes....I envision the thing I am missing ... and carefully, carefully tuck it into that wondrous space called The Future...and let it go.  

It helps me  know that somewhere..sometime...those lovely things will float down and be here again.  But until then, I dream and hope and plan.  A future full of memories.  Memories that last.

Cheerleaders

The days are hot and humid.  I have to get out and walk when it is barely daylight.  I try to wait until I can see a the road clearly....too many snakes crawl out and stake a claim to the green centerline with out giving you any warning.  But I am careful and don't go anywhere without testing the shrubs and grass.  

The flowers that bloomed along the way have all gone.  It was a pleasure to see the Queen Anne's Lace and other early blooms for a long time.  But they now bow their heads and give in to the changing season.

Yes, it is getting on toward late summer.  Or mid-summer.  I really miss the color and variety of flowers that I saw earlier.  But there are some we have planted.  Zinnias bloom in a patch down in the garden and also up in the field where the cane is growing, lush and green.  I love zinnias.  Nina had them as her flowers for her wedding 7 years ago in September.  And we have continued to plant them every year.

Birds have taken the place of flowers for my walk.  Today I saw a goldfinch, winging its way, dipping and diving...sitting in the tree I passed.  Singing and singing.  Hopping down for a quick bite of seed..or a bug.  And then flying over and up, coming to rest in a high branch of the oak tree.  He was so brilliant...the yellow of his body and the stark black of his feathers stood out above the brown and dull green of the field.  I know there are other birds that accompany me on my walk.  I am not good at identifying them...and they are hidden in the green leaves of the trees along the road.  But today they were cheering me on.  It was almost like a crowd that gathers at the side of the road when you are in a race.  "Come on," they chirped, "just a little more and you will be on your way home."  

I don't know about you,but I can use all the cheering I can get during these days.  

Thank you little birds.  I appreciate your enthusiasm.  And I will keep on keeping on.