Tag Archives: fall

One Fine Fall Day

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think,

Guinivere and Gemma show up on a crisp autumn morn to hang out with Nonna.  Gemma runs to me, squealing with joy, “It’s Nonna!  I found Nonna!”  I pick her up and twirl her around and she squeezes her face to mine.  Guini sneaks by to head straight for the toys and snacks.

Outside there is a fairly strong wind, and though the sun is the brightest bright, we determine quickly that something warm to drink will be in order.  I supply my sweet-petites with hot chocolate.  They add a crystally sugar cube (because Nonna is out of marshamallows and you must add something) and begin happily stirring and sipping.  I join them on the patio with my piping hot coffee.

We discuss all manner of fun topics as we watch Sandy-the-Dog chase birds, and bees are drawn to the pink, sparkly shoes they are wearing.  Our steamy hot beverage party moves from under the canopy on cushioned chairs to the stairs to the antique bed/couch (temporarily not in its’ rightful patio space due to a social function held here recently).   At some point Gemma divines that if she has a blanket, she can just sprawl on the patio concrete and be quite content.

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Suddenly the grandbebes are hungry.  I grab a bag of tortilla chips and, for myself, some homemade salsa (the hot stuff).  Grown men were unable to eat it the other night, yet Guini devours salsa’d chip after chip saying, “It isn’t too bad.  It’s not too spicy.”  That’s my girl!

“Nonna, can we watch Sprout?”  Yes. 

5 minutes later, “Nonna, can we have lunch?”  Seriously?  Well, maybe a snack, I decide, and as we go through the list of everything we have in the house, they settle on hot dogs.  They each have 2.  With mustard AND ketchup (ick).  Did I not train their mother correctly on acceptable hot dog condiments??!?

Energized by food, they make quick work of the family room, grabbing every pillow and couch cushion, making a circle around the coffee table.  Now it is time to run like banchees and scream at the top of our lungs.  Round and round the table we go, running on top of the pillows, which, is actually pretty dangerous, let me tell you.

After they tire of it (and I am nearly dead), they pull out the play cell phones and it seems that everyone who calls them wants also to talk to me. I do my best to have believeable conversations into dead phones, as Guini and Gemma follow the chatter quite closely, nodding their heads as if they knew exactly what the phantom-person on the other end wanted to discuss with me.   Tara and Tredessa “called” a lot.  That is all I am saying.

“Nonna, I have to go pottie,” Gemma would excitedly exclaim.  This happened at least 17 un-event-filled times (and did not happen twice when it should have), but we did have quite the chatter-filled bonding time.  Guini-the-Flower girl informed me that cameras were not welcomed.  And even though I tried to tell her it would warm my heart to have memories of this beautiful, crisp, fine, fall morning together, she was resolute.  Softly, yet without apology she said, “I told you no pictures today.”

But it is captured in my heart and my mind’s eye. And I did sneak a couple of shots.  Think she’ll forgive me?

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September Garden

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , ,

“But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness.  The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head … The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on.”
–  Robert Finch

Pearl has beautifully cleaned her garden and cleared it away.  My cousins in the midwest, I have heard, have done the same.  But I always struggle to let go, to actually let summer pass into fall.

Early last week I thought the zucchini looked weak and perhaps were nearly “over,” so I watered them once more, gathering an arm-load of fruit, planning to uproot and end their time over the weekend.  The very next day, however, they were alive again with large yellow blooms, shouting their worth and prolonging their stay.

Some of the garden will make it through the cold.

But these cold days and cold, cold nights are going to do all the tender plants in.  Ultimately many of the flowers, including the petunias and nicotiana and zinnias, will make it through this frigid spell and will shine like stars in the universe in October as Monarch butterflies dance around them, captivating my fancy while I should be doing something productive.  And if I cover my tomatoes and peppers, which, of course, I will, they will suffer some, but keep producing – almost until Thanksgiving, the Lord willing and I remember to pay special attention.

Some of the garden won’t make it through the end of the week.

But the cucumbers, the zucchini and the spaghetti squash will likely not make it past this week.  Their tender leaves are taking a hit that will be irrepairable.  I have already pulled  most of the green beans. 

It’s so hard to say good-bye.

But it is hard to let them go.  It is difficult to watch the yard begin to retreat into its winter-ready clothes where once it danced merrily in dazzling color and sizzling heat.  It’s hard to hear the sound of dry, rustling leaves where children once splashed in water to the frog, toad and cricket’s song of the castinets.

The harvest is dwindling.

Today I brought in 2 armfuls of baby zucchini, lemon and English cukes and some other variety of cucumber.  I ate a couple of small beans right there amidst the soil and fading green.  I grabbed some huge, very happy-looking peppers (where a fridge full of their colorful cousins await being used), and I grabbed the reddish tomatoes, which are too soft inside to expose to such cold, but will continue their ripening on the counter and be delectable in the next 2-3 days.

This is the September garden.  It dwindles.

 

Alright, already, it’s fall!

3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

*Sigh.

I will miss the summer.  I will miss the long days and short nights and profuse blooms and iced tea while I swing on the patio.  I will miss swimsuits and beach towels all. over. the. yard!  And the sound of kids playing with dirt and rocks and dangerous yard tools when there are plenty of good toys to be had.

But just in case I was going to hang on too tightly, just in case I was going to pretend that summer was not over in spite of the calendar saying it is so this 22nd day of September (the Autumnal Equinox), the weather has forced me to face reality and it is freaking cold!  What on earth?!

So, that’s it.  Summer is over.  The fall has descended upon me like a heavy, wet, soaked 1960’s green canvas camping tent.  So, I shall drink myself into beautiful oblivion with the beverage I once heard called “liquid pie.”  Yes, that smooth, creamy, cinnamony Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks.  This shall be my reward for a summer which has left me.

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BTW.

Happy birthday to Elise-the-Niece!

Wind

1 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , ,

Threatened by a forecast of freezing rain turning to snow, we are actually hosting a magnificent and sunny day fully lighting the multi-faceted palette and texture of fall.  Fluttering madly in the autumn breeze and dancing to the tune of the wind chime, the once-emerald leaves of the Aspen clump are becoming more golden by the hour.  The burning bushes are flaming as scarlet as they can be and potted flower heads are bowing in reverance to the power of the season as it blows by, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes as a roar.

Psalm 65.9  The Message
O, visit the earth – ask her to join the dance!
…fill the God-river with living water.  Paint the wheatfields golden.
Creation was made for this!
Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods with rainfall…
Set the hills to dancing! dress the canyon walls with live sheep,
a drape of flax across the valleys!
Let them shout and shout and shout!  Oh, let them sing and sing!

 

 I am singing my head off to You, O Lord, and trying to sing as loud as the trees which are clapping their hands and the bushes which are dancing (the twist) for your pleasure.  You have made all of creation so holy, so set apart for Your glory.  Can I live my life as free, as abandoned? 

God and all He has created are glorious!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  See His glory.

Transition

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

I doubt it could be any more beautiful a day if I’d put in my very own order.  A warm, bright sun with the gentlest of breezes sweeping periodically through adorns my world.  The grass is brilliantly green, something you have to work for during the summer months, but comes easily these early fall days.  The tomato plants are loaded (I have a pan in the oven roasting as we speak – remember last year??)  and the annuals are enjoying a resurgance of color before their final farewell over the next few weeks. 

The sedum (from one near-dead clearance plant about 4 years ago) have gone from their hot-weather chartreuse to the light pink of a couple of weeks ago to a blazing cranberry, dotting the yard here and there in at least 12 places, growing ever larger and more glorious, the current social centers of the honey bees’ universe.

In between.

The disarray of the pool midway down, being dried and packed up for the year is rather unsightly and the shadows and sunlight dance differently now across the fences and gardens.  As the year has gone on, I have learned to let some weeds co-exist with desired produce and have let the grass enroach where I had earlier ordered it not to.

The shorter days are bringing into focus the beauty of each one, the fleeting nature of the minutes and hours that create the lives we are leading.

At 1:10 am yesterday morning, having just dozed off not long before, I was awakened abruptly and fully by an acute sense of my mortality.  At exactly 1:10 am, I realized I am closer to my death than to my birth.  I am past the middle, maybe way past.  Who knows?

I hope my colors are becoming more brilliant and more defined, less rigid and controlled.  I hope the shortened days bring more focus and appreciation for the beauty of each one.

Today she waxes melancholoy – as always, when autumn arrives…Jeanie

It has happened before… (melancholoy re: fall, I mean)…

pictured: google image, but not far from where I live