The month is coming to an end as the warmest September on record, and the state drought monitor has labeled us “abnormally dry.” The garden is looking a little droopy and so am I. It was one of those weeks that, while not insanely busy, was constantly busy and had little down time. James and I both arrived at Friday night a bit shellshocked and zombie-like. The weekend has been restful, but not rejuvenating. The body feels fine, but mentally I long for a stretch of days in which I have nothing planned and nothing that has to be done. I think that’s usually called a vacation? I have a solid two weeks of vacation scheduled for the end of December, and even though it will be here before I know it, it still seems far away.
The warm month has been messing with my seasonal senses. It is clearly autumn—the leaves are turning, the light has changed, the birds are migrating—but it feels like August. I want to put on a sweater and curl up with a pastry, hot drink, and a good book. I just want to be cozy, but the weather is not cooperating. Maybe that’s why I feel so tired, it’s the dissonance between expectation, desire, and reality.
What I have been enjoying this week are the birds. Goldfinches mainly. The hyssop is going to seed and the goldfinches are all over it, chowing down. They are on the tall yellow coneflowers in the front yard too. Such a pleasure to watch and their cheerful chirping is music to my ears, never failing to make me smile.
I have learned some bird hierarchy while watching the water dishes on the deck. The goldfinches will be drinking and a chickadee will swoop in and chase them away. I am surprised by this since chickadees are pretty much the same size as the goldfinches, but they puff up, stick out their chests, and aggressively hop at the finches who then fly away, ceding the water dishes to the chickadee.
But then a couple of sparrows come swooping in and chase off the chickadee.
Waiting in the wings is a little chipmunk. Once the birds have left, the chippy comes up for a quick drink.
Squirrels are still visiting the water too, but they seem to be fewer than in the spring. I see them running around the garden and one of them devoured one of the ripe pumpkins sometime between sunrise when the chickens were let out of the coop and late morning when I went to out to pick it. Perhaps because there is so much critter activity in the garden, the squirrels are not able to dominate it like they did earlier in the season? I’m probably delusional and they are all secretly plotting something that will take me by surprise.
I did get three small pumpkins. These are naked bear pumpkins. The seeds have no hulls—pepitas—but the pumpkin flesh on this variety is also supposedly pretty tasty. I’ll find out after I let them cure for a couple weeks.
The butternuts are also getting ripe. I’ve got three picked and two more on the vines. Not bad! Growing them up a wooden ladder turned out to work really well and I will be doing it again next year. The variety is “North Circle” from North Circle seeds, and is good for shorter growing seasons.
I’m thinking about growing sorghum next year. The amaranth—the eff you plants—I grew a couple years ago thinking I would harvest the seeds for grain, but the seeds turned out to be incredibly tiny and threshing the seed heads and separating seed from chaff is so tedious and time consuming, that I gave up trying to use them for grain. They continue to happily seed themselves around the garden and their leaves make a decent salad green early in the season, but other than that and their amusing middle finger, they are weedy and somewhat of a nuisance. But sorghum, maybe? The grain is larger and I can grow pole beans up a taller variety. To thresh it, one can allegedly put the seed head into a pillow case and beat it with a stick. Presumably since the grain is larger, it is fairly easy to separate it from the chaff? Then there’s the possibility of making syrup from the stalks, but that is secondary at the moment. If you have experience with it, please let me know! I wish I could grow corn, but squirrels make that impossible.
Reading
- Humor: McSweeney’s was kind enough to send me an email reminding me that It’s Decorative Gourd Season Motherfuckers. This never gets old!
- Poem: Dedicated to All Human Beings Who Suffer by Yang Licai
- Blog: The Nine Lies of the Fake Green Fairytale by Jem Bendell. “Our vulnerability to self-deception has been hijacked by the self interests of the rich and powerful, to spin a ‘fake green fairytale’. Their story distracts us from the truth of the damage done, that to come, and what our options might be. Indeed, their fairytale prevents us from rebelling to try to make this a fairer disaster, or a more gentle and just collapse of the societies we live in.”
- Book: On Strike Against God by Joann Russ. This is a republication of a not science fiction novella by Russ. It includes a great introduction, an interesting critical essay afterward, a couple essays by Russ, and a letter from Russ to Marilyn Hacker and a letter from Hacker to Russ talking about On Strike Against God. The novella itself is a bit dated, but remains historically interesting, has some good humor, and lots of literary references. It’s a good and worthwhile “collection” if you are interested in Russ or 1970s lesbian feminism.
Quote
Landscape has a dangerous and deceiving repose, unlike cats or dogs who have eyes with which they can (gulp!) look right at you and sometimes do just that, as if they were persons, looking out of their own consciousness into yours and embarrassing and aweing you. Wild animals are only mobile landscape. Until you learn better, you think that a landscaped world can’t hurt you or please you, you needn’t bother about its soul, you needn’t be wary of its good looks.
Until you learn better.
~Joanna Russ, On Strike Against God, page 51
Listening
- Podcast: The Way Out is In: Bridging Being and Doing. After my busy week this podcast was exactly what I needed to hear. They discuss the practice of being and doing and how being is doing. The takeaway gem for me was the idea that one’s quality of being affects one’s quality of doing. In other words, being is the foundation of doing, and your being has a direct impact on everything you do.
Watching
- Rewatch: Pride and Prejudice. Thirty-five years ago Colin Firth blessed us with a swim in a pond. Oh, and also some fine acting with a fine cast, one of whom had a pair of fine eyes. We watched the first episode Friday night and it remains as delightful as it was the first time I saw it and wore out my VHS tape set and was thrilled when DVDs were invented because I couldn’t wear those out. It’s been ages since I’ve watched it, and now I am looking forward to episode two next Friday night.
James’s Kitchen Wizardry
We bought a pie pumpkin and James cooked it up this weekend, made some pumpkin butter, froze some puree for pumpkin pie later, and roasted the seeds with pumpkin spice. I have all the ingredients for cozy except the weather!
I’ve been loving the warm autumn. I can do all the cozy things without having to be cold and put on sweaters, which is the best of all possible worlds.
Love the photo o-f the goldfinch! I’m looking out at nasturtiums and morning glories (it’s cloudy despite being a bit past noon, so they’re still out there glorying).
We were walking through a little garden this weekend, one called the “secret garden” outside the festival theater at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and when I came inside the theater, my friend found a large white spider crawling on my hair. He was brave and knocked it off with his bare hand!
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I envy that you don’t need cold for cozy things Jeanne! I need oversized sweaters and thick and blankets. If there’s a possibility I might sweat, I can’t be cozy 😀
The goldfinches have been an unexpected delight this year. I’m so glad your nasturtiums and morning glories are still going strong. I feel like they are so common they don’t often get much love from people, but they are wonderful flowers.
So good of your friend to relocate the spider from your hair! I’ve never seen a white spider before so barring the creepy-crawlies, the critter must have been interesting 🙂
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I looked up white spiders in southern Ontario and think it must have been a goldenrod crab spider. They’re more common in late summer but as you say it’s been a warm fall so far.
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So I had to look them up! They are big! But also really pretty.
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If my husband has a bug on him, especially a spider, I cannot tell him because he will freak out. He has learned that when I say, “Don’t move,” he should literally just stand there. It’s taken years of training.
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This was such a lovely post. I’m with you in the anti-summer weather in September camp. It’s bizarre. The birds are leaving, the soybeans are yellow, the leaves are falling, and I’m sweating my tits off. SIGH. Just recently I was lamenting that I haven’t gone on a vacation since last year. Then I thought about it and realized that the way my life is organized, and will continue into the foreseeable future when I become a freelance interpreter, is every day is shaped by how I allow it to be shaped. What a gift that is, one I never expected. I do think rewatching the Pride and Prejudice mini series is perfect for the fall because you can have a lazy weekend indoors and watch the whole thing. I would add the original Anne of Green Gables with that. Well, the new Anne of Green Gables on Netflix is also wonderful, but it’s not one of those British-y mini series of my youth.
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Thanks Melanie! We’re looking at 80 degrees for Saturday but it was only 40 when I biked into work this morning. Worst seesaw ride ever! It is a wonderful gift to be able to shape your day. Still, don’t forget to take vacations sometimes, time away to just do nothing is still important 🙂
I’m going to be a heretic and say I am not an Anne fan. I have never read the books nor have I watched any films and at this point in my life I am not interested. I do, however, hope you get to have plenty of cozy time with Anne and P&P 🙂
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No judgement! I just mean they have a similar vibe and place in people’s hearts/youth.
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I’m going to add that podcast episode to my lineup – sounds like something I need! So glad you get to enjoy goldfinches as well. I guess they’ve all gone up there to your neck of the woods. I haven’t seen one around here in a while.
I hope you get some good rain soon. We did get a good soaking rain but not the horrific flooding as in upper East TN and Western NC. It’s a nightmare there. A climate-change-fueled nightmare.
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I hope you enjoy it Laila! Actually, the goldfinches are migrating south from further north. They have mostly moved on now and I miss them already. Sadly, still not rain. I am glad you only got a good soaking from Helene and no major flooding. What a catastrophe that storm was. 😦
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I have everything crossed that you will get your cozy weather soon! We are tipping into autumn here and have had some cold rainy days and some still hot ones. I am definitely getting bored of hot and have preferred the rain, so I know exactly what you mean about wanting to be in the next season – though you put it a great deal more eloquently than that! Your harvest is beautiful and I envy you the butternut squash in particular (I love them). I feel mildly alarmed, however, at the thought of what those squirrels might be plotting!! Love the quote – gosh yes that IS what cats do. Deedee just sits and judges us, all day long. And earlier this year, while we were in Somerset, I rewatched Pride and Prejudice and loved every minute of it all over again. You have such a treat in store. I hope so much you’ll have the perfect weather, too, to enjoy it in.
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Thanks Litlove! Cozy weather is finally working its way in with cool nights. Days are still mostly warm, but it won’t be long now! The squirrels have so far not revealed their plot. They are waiting for me to stop being on alert! Cats are experts at silent judgment 😀
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I had to get right up to the screen for that sneaky little finch. I’ve heard that the chickadees are the mean girls of birds, but I can’t believe it cuz they’re so damn CUTE. Ok, nevermind, that just makes sense now.
We’ve just got the first pie pumpkins too. I was going to make it up the same night but, like you, I’ve more in the mood for a vacation than pumpkin guts and seeding (but I’ll get there in a couple days, I will!) and December feels like FOREVER from that perspective. Do you literally use Pumpkin Spice for your seeds, a purchased blend, or do you mix some spices? I’ll have to try that. I always do savoury spices on them (which is also good of course).
(I made a mistake with my Feed Reader and I think I’ve missed a couple of your posts, but I believe it will fine here on out once more.)
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The female goldfinches are great at blending in and we often didn’t see them unless the stems bounced up and down or we walked outside and startled several away. Interesting about chickadees. They are so darn cute, which made me all the more surprised at how aggressive they are.
James mixes the spices. Buying already mixed pumpkin pie spice is apparently verboten. He usually just salts the pumpkins seeds, so it was a surprise to have them pumpkin spiced. But they came out so tasty I might not let him just salt them again 😀
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