California Poppies, end of October
A Witch stole 3 of my leeks.
It must have been a Welsh witch; or maybe my garden gnomes/gremlins are Welsh.
At least, that’s what I assume happened. There were 6 waiting for me to harvest the night before Hallowe’en, and only three the next morning when I’d decided it was finally time to pull them and went out to the garden to do so.
One of the things leeks are said to do is keep away evil, so maybe it was the gnomes. Or a good witch.
Or maybe the gnomes are Scots and they needed them for cock-a-leekie soup; I don’t raise chickens, so I don’t know if any local hens went astray on Hallowe’en night. Or maybe it was a Scots witch, who wanted to add leeks, for their protection against wounds, to her cock-a-leekie eye of newt stew – rich and warming nourishment after a night spent flying around in below-freezing temperatures under a nearly-full moon.
I do know the cats were very interested in something they could see out the south-facing windows that night. They aren’t allowed out after dark, I have a dark enough imagination to fear cock-a-kitty soup makers. The garden and compost bins/gnome winter housing is visible out the south-facing windows.
I’d put the gnome’s bottle of whisky in the garden shed a couple of days earlier; I should check to see if it’s still there. Whisky would be a fine addition to cock-a-leekie soup.
It’s looking very like November out my windows: lots of bare tree branches, but there are also bright flashes of earlier seasons. A lovely maple just across the street is still in process of turning orange and rose, with many green leaves yet; the grass is still very green; the puckerbrush on the edge of the kitchen pond is bright yellow. Rasta is busy pursuing and eating late-season crickets, and the calendula is still in full bloom, but the CA poppies have finally succumbed. Monday – day before Hallowe’en – I sat out on the porch in the sun for an hour, wearing a winter vest, hat and polar fleece gloves, reading and drinking coffee milk, and it was lovely until a breeze picked up. There were crows calling, I heard ravens in the distance, the wind chimes gave an occasional melody. In the background, as in all backgrounds in the country, was the omnipresent growling song of chain-sawing.
I am, however, going to have to break down and start wearing socks again.
Crow; Clare McCarthy photo
Monday at dusk I picked a pint of fall golden raspberries. I had to brush off a number of sleepy, slow-moving wasps as I was picking. I must go out and see if the canes and their emerging fruit got frozen during the past two nights. If not, I’ll be picking again this weekend. I still see the rare cricket when the sun is warmest, and the pollinators, though slow, are still about. I haven’t seen a toad or heard a frog, or seen a snake – except the slumbering one I disturbed when I shifted a rock a week ago – for several weeks.
My garlic is planted and bedded down with straw; my asparagus beds are covered with compost and straw, with fresh shavings in their pathways. I’ve started to put manure on the perennials, and come across many worms in the manure. This weekend is supposed to be a little warmer – I’ll finish that job then, so the worms can dig in and find winter homes before it all freezes solid. Raspberry canes need to be cut down; straw needs to be mounded around some of the perennials. If there’s time, there’s a lot of weeding to do. If there isn’t time, I’ll curse the lack come next spring.
I have 57 books on my list of books waiting to be read; all but one that I stole from my F-FL friend have been read and passed on; and I admit I’ve added a bunch more used books, and a few new books, since I made my list in the spring. But I’ve also passed 40 from that original list on to other readers, as well as a dozen I’ve fished off my bookshelves that I know I’ll never be interested in reading again.
One used book that I got from…it was probably Thriftbooks, but may have been a different used-book source, came with a return address of a previous owner pasted inside. On a whim, I sent her a postcard telling her that her book wound up in NH and that I was enjoying it greatly. The book was one of the series that the British tv series “Call the Midwife” was based on; and I mentioned to the past owner that my grandmother had been a nurse who for a number of years ran the maternity department in our small local hospital, and her stories of that time made the book series that much more interesting to me.
A couple of weeks later I got a nice letter back from the original reader. She, too, was a retired nurse; and had recently down-sized and moved closer to grandchildren, out in the great Midwest somewhere, thus getting rid of many of her books. She also enjoyed the Midwife series because of her profession, and we had a short correspondence about that.
I wish I’d know these books when my Nana was still alive. She was a constant reader, and besides enjoying a good story, she was an excellent storyteller. I think she would have loved this series.
But what a good thing to remember on el Dia de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead, when our dead relatives can cross the barrier and visit us, just after Hallowe’en, which the Celts also believed was the one time of the year that the dead could pass between the worlds.
I wonder if we could all share a bowl of cock-a-leekie soup together, and a dram of whisky…
So long as I could be the cook!
For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com, 1 November 2023
Photos by Debra Marshall
Late October roses and Bells of Ireland
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