O! Autumn Comes...

There once was a path; frost took it away!

O! Autumn comes on purple feet

With falling scarlet tresses,

She dazzles us with bronze and gold

Upon her dancing dresses;

Sometimes she smiles in warm delight

Sometimes she blows and sighs

And other times she draws in tight

Tears flowing, as she cries.

O! Autumn longs for Summer’s touch,

Who left her lone and cold;

And yet she hurries along the path

Towards bold raw Winter’s hold;

But while she tarries, before she marries,

Fall glories do unfold

We breathe in deeply her marvels sweetly:

Englamoured by her craft.

Pre-frost flowers

You can tell this is a poem because it starts with O!; I’m making fun of poems from earlier centuries, when O! would set you up to expect an emotional, overburdened poem from the quivering sensitive poet’s spiritually rendered heart.  The last line does rhyme, barely, with “path,” but by the time you get there, your ear won’t hear it. Now you know.

Kinda like my brain won’t hear the truth: we had our first, killing frost 2 nights ago, and it laid waste to the nasturtiums, and beans, and glorious morning glories. You can again see my compost bins, and now they’re filled with, rather than swamped by, morning glory vines. I can see right into the center of the garden now, including the empty bed that the damned chipmunks cleared of parsnips overnight the night before the frost. They must have had a big party, because the next day I pulled the last 5 roots and dug through the bed, finding nary a one of even partially consumed roots, of the dozens that had filled it anon. And now I know.

Pre-frost Love Lies Bleeding

Yes, anon’s a misuse of another poetic-like word, so when you read the above paragraph, pronounce “damned chipmunks” as “dam-ned chipmunks,” pretend anon means recently instead of soon, and that you’re wearing a long dress and silk shawl or a morning coat and silken ascot, are standing by a rain-swept very long window with a small book of poetry in your hand, as you sigh at the spiritual insights and pain of the poet. After such near-total destruction, verbal as well as chipmunkal, we might as well make hash of the rest.

Sigh. I like parsnips, but I LOVE wintered-over parsnips. Last year the mice got ‘em and I got none; this year the chipmunks have broken my heart. I have one small patch of parsnips still flourishing in the raised bed near the house, and I’m hoping against likelihood that the damned chipmunks don’t find it. So far all they’ve done in that bed is steal bites out of tomatoes and hollow out a couple of giant, ripening peppers, but they haven’t done any tunneling there, so maybe, maybe, maybe… Just let me add that if you’ve never eaten an over-wintered parsnip, you’ve never really tasted the glories of parsnip. It’s like a different vegetable, and you can’t imagine what happens to it after spending a frozen winter below ground.

The last gladiolas

 

What amazes me most is that the cosmos, some of it, and the calendula, all of it, and the Love Lies Bleeding, and the anemones and dahlias and raspberries and a few of the potted plants, including the passion flower, survived the frost, which tipped even the pepper plants nearest the house which I’d covered with remay (a woven garden cloth) against the frost. 

During the day I’d gathered masses of nasturtiums and all the other garden flowers, along with the last hydrangea and hibiscus and okra blossoms, and a big vase of the darkly-purple-leaved scarlet Love Lies Bleeding that got planted late and so has only begun to bleed and hasn’t laid down yet; and all the potential gladiola flower stalks, which I’m not sure will develop and bloom in a vase, but we’ll see. The dining table is covered with flowers, now, and I can’t see the Husband over them when he sits opposite me. Catman thinks I’ve brought him an herbaceous feast.

The catnip, by the way, is still flourishing in the garden, and spreading new babies everywhere. Talk about annoying.

The new Harvest Person at the dog park in Enfield.

 

There is something satisfying about cleaning out the garden, piling the armloads and mounds of finished plants into the compost bins, praising them for their summer bounty and wishing them well in their new journey. It’s rained more than it’s been sunny during these two weeks of my vacation, so the going’s been slow but steady work. As I go, I’ve been planting a few spring bulbs, cussing the chipmunks as I do, fingers crossed that they won’t munch them as little else remains in the garden, and hoping they go to their winter dens and stay put soon. I’ve put down more pavers and bricks in the wet, and cut down scarlet runner vines in the wet, finding, as always, huge pods of lovely beans that I couldn’t see amongst the masses of twisted and twined vines. I’m still not entirely finished; the fava beans don’t mind cool weather, though it’s getting colder enough that they aren’t doing much very fast and I’ll probably yank them out soon. I’ve wrested the remains of the last two rows of carrots from the chipmunks, finding half of them half-eaten; there are still celeriac plants to pull, and a giant artichoke plant that hasn’t bloomed but looks large and healthy yet; and the flowers that avoided the frost, and the two pepper plants near the house, still loaded with little peppers. 

Inside, the Christmas cactuses are setting blooms. Does anyone have a Christmas cactus that actually blooms near Christmas? Mine always burst into bloom around Hallowe’en. The bay and kaffir lime and tender hibiscus are trying to get used to cramped quarters, again, and I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to bring the old passion flower vine in or let it go and start over with a baby. Right now it’s out – I’m hoping its 3 buds will bloom before I have to make the decision or a freeze makes it for me.

One of my butternuts has already become soup, a full basket of winter squashes and pumpkins – the latter bought from another grower, thanks to the damned chipmunks who tunneled under my pumpkin plant and killed it – as they did my poppy plants – just as it was getting ready to bloom. Are you sensing a theme, here? – resides under the dining room table. The onions and potatoes, both of which matured early this year, are already half gone. But the smaller freezer is filled with bags and bags of tomatoes, beans, corn, beets, and peppers. I’ve never seen so many peppers, nor so many on one plant, nor such tall pepper plants – a couple reached 4 feet! 

Some of the squashes under the table

It was a strange and truly weird growing season. My asparagus – until this year, three or four spindly stalks that somehow moved from a long-gone bed 10 feet away to the end of the new bed where I grow scarlet runner beans – this year have become a small multitude, and produced a bush of fern that still is beautifully green and lush. The fall raspberries started mid-summer, stopped, and now are producing incredible numbers of flowers and keeping the bees, which are very slow in the cold air, busy busy busy.  The peach tree half died. The apples were mealy and horrid. My pear produced, for the first time, a dozen or so pears. The scarlet runner beans made roots that were as big around, and longer in stretch, than my carrots, which (when not gnawed on) were huge. And one whole bed of carrots produced flowers, instead of carrots – pretty much a genetic impossibility, carrots being biennials. The largest sunflowers were at least a month before their time, and okra blooming in mid-October in NH? Unheard of. Ditto the small summer squashes that I finally ended a few days ago.

Can't get much more gorgeous!

Today is another very cold, wet day – too cold to brave the garden. My feet are frosty, and I turned the heat up to 63, this morning. I’m going to try to stay in and sew buttons that fell off months ago back on, and hem a pair of pants I’ve had for a year and never worn.

Ticks are back – I’ve pulled three off Catman in the last week. Squooshed the nasty pests and flushed them down the toilet. Too bad we can’t as easily rid ourselves of the horrible, pathology-spreading pest infecting the White House and his cohorts in the Administration and Legislature. Don’t forget to vote. We're all Witnesses.

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

October 15, 2018

Below: Two views of a very haunted house in Enfield, October 2018.

 

From the Edge of Darkness 17: Kavanaugh

Trash Can; Charley Freiberg photo

Kavanaugh. Omigawd me boyo, did the Holy Mother watch that dramatic act you put on last week, do you think? If she did, you’re sunk.

Drama. High dudgeon. A show honed to warm the cockles of the President’s heart, and we’re pretty sure he’s the antichrist. Yer on the wrong side of the bench, there, Boyo.

We’re never going to know for absolute certain if our boyo Brett was the drinkin’ bro who scared his accuser – oops, that’s accusers – badly enough to warp her life. It really doesn’t matter if we ever know, and it doesn’t matter that he denies it – in fact, for this discussion, let’s assume it wasn’t him, it was another bro. It doesn’t matter that it was very long ago and so probably not provable one way or another. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or what kind of political bent you secretly hope the next  person who gets onto the Supreme Court leans toward. What should matter is our boyo’s responses – not so very different from the imperatives around ‘fessing up in the confession box – what matters is what he said and, particularly, how he said it.

I was raised Catholic. Take my word for it that all good Catholic girls and boys learn at an early age how to lie without actually lying. Lying is a sin, so it’s wicked important to learn, early on, how to make people think you said one thing when you actually didn’t; to make them think you answered a direct question without actually saying anything worth listening to at all. It’s a useful social skill, so long as it’s not abused: it can save people’s feelings; it can save a person from telling a direct lie; it can get you out of a tight situation. It can make the prevaricator believe that he didn’t actually tell a lie – a prevarication isn’t actually a lie, right?

Learning to prevaricate takes some practice. First, you have to convince yourself that you aren’t actually lying. Then, you have to learn to use the language in a way that someone who isn’t paying very careful  attention, or hopes for a particular answer, will take as an actual answer to their question. You need to be able to determine what answer your interrogator wants to hear. You need to be able to look like you mean what you’re saying, and look your questioner in the eye while you say it. It’s best to say something that’s actually true – just not the truth that’s expected, or that was asked about.  If all else fails, it helps if you can put on a very dramatic act, or throw a loud and long hissy fit while you’re answering, or even better, instead of answering.

Our boyo is clearly an experienced prevaricator, but he isn’t a particularly good one – he’s ‘way too obvious. But he’s a skillful actor and his hissy fits are magisterial – which means “wicked awesome.” Magisterial may sound like a quality we want in a Supreme Court judge, but not when we’re talking about his ability to throw a hissy fit. 

Kavanaugh prevaricated under oath – about a lot of things, so we know he’s willing to perjure himself for personal gain, and I’m sure he’s convinced himself it’s not really perjury because of the circumstances. He also showed himself to be mean and a bully, attacking individual senators who questioned him – and I’m sure he’s convinced himself that he was pushed beyond human endurance, and he’s not really mean and a bully. He’ll probably confess that one, which will make it ok in his soul. He proved he doesn’t handle pressure well; and I’m sure he’s convinced himself no one could handle that kind of pressure better, so again, it doesn’t really count. He also proved himself to be a bizarre conspiracy theorist, a hater of Democrats, and angrily politically prejudiced, and if those things by themselves didn’t convince you he has no business being on the Supreme Court, then you aren’t paying attention, or you’re so desperate to get a judge who you assume will make decisions based on your kind of conspiracy theories, hate, and political anger, that you don’t care about the best interests of our nation. I have no idea how our boyo will justify that part of his presentation to himself. He carefully thought out and planned to say those things, so all I can imagine is that he thinks those character flaws are actually good things. You listening, Holy Mother?

Let’s agree that whether our boyo was indeed the bad dude or not, whether he remembers it or not (lotta drinking there, me Irish lad), whether or not he deserved it, he was under a whole lot of pressure these last weeks. A whole lot of pressure is something we all hope to avoid, but often we can’t, and how we react under such pressure tells us a lot about our true character. What we hope is that under pressure – under the worst kind of pressure – we can act with grace, calmness, compassion and kindness. 

Our boyo Kavanaugh failed the test. Big time. So has our President. Had he truly cared about our nation, about closing divides and also about saving someone who might be a truly good man, and his family – and a good woman, and her family - from embarrassment, stress, threats and humiliation, he would have withdrawn the nomination when the accusations were first made. Had he been a thinking man, a wise man, he would have realized that continuing with this nominee could lead to nothing but pain and anger and a wider division in our country. 

Had our President been what we hope for – we wouldn’t be where we are today. We would be better.

For the blog. I am One Witness.

 

To Garden In October

Sage. Marjoram. Chive. Thyme, thyme, thyme. Mint. Peppermint. More mint. Calendula. French tarragon.  Bay. Kaffir lime. Summer savory. Nasturtium. Holy basil. Thai basil. Clove pinks. Rose petals. Parsley. Garlic chive. Egyptian onion. Sorrel. Dill. Genovese basil. Parsley root.

Most of these went into my own cooking, but armloads of many went to the chef at the café, and to the baker one town over, also. The garlic chives and chives are two big mounds; the sage plant is as large as the rhubarb plant, which is massive; and the marjoram, busily escaping into the field with the thyme and mint, is as large as a large side table. This warm weird summer, the tarragon grew lush and long. The dill seeds itself and pops up all over the garden; most of it has long gone to seed, but there are several bushy baby dill plants that started themselves at the end of summer. Sorrel is a spring herb, but returns in fall. This year’s parsley is last year’s parsley, over-wintered in the kitchen.

I look out the window near my computer that overlooks the garden and the back forty: the maples are ablaze. And yet, the garden still produces.

Hopeful October tomato plant

 Still there are flowers: carrot – an impossibility, but this was a summer of miracles – coral and lime green Love Lies Bleeding and some red that was planted late and is just now starting to bleed. Clove pinks in raspberry and pale pink, cosmos in magenta and in pale colors, orange and yellow and cream nasturtiums vining and bunching and climbing; calendula in yellow and orange and burnt orange; magenta hardy hibiscus, purple salvia, purple sage, blue, blue hydrangea. A purple aster from last fall has rebloomed in full glorious purple, some perennial I planted this summer has grown high and is covered with magenta flowers, and the purple and rose morning glory flowers still cover the scarily healthy vines that still engulf one compost bin and twine amongst the scarlet runner bean vines and fall clematis that themselves twine about the back fence. Orange California poppies still emerge and shine amongst the glads and the morning glories that are creeping across the middle of the garden.

The scarlet runners, heat-loving plants, are still blooming a little, as are the tomato plants, the fall raspberries, and a summer squash. I pulled half the carrots last weekend, and the results have totally filled the vegetable bin in the frig; I’m not sure what I’ll do with the other half. Fava beans, which like cool weather, are also in full bloom again, producing their black and white flowers and their strange, padded pods. One lone buttercup squash still hangs from the tomato cage it crawled up; I brought in two big ones to harden and wait in a basket under the dining table until wanted in the winter. There may be another hiding amongst the raspberries, but I won’t know for sure until the fall berries are finished and the slow-moving bees have hived for the winter, when I’ll be able to cut down the old canes and see what’s hidden deep in the patch. 

Working the fall raspberries

Sixteen sweet dumpling squashes have been piled in another basket, and between us and friends, we’ve already consumed 9 of these little wonders. Seven butternuts also came inside, and four have already been eaten by us or friends; the last three will wait in the basket with the buttercups until all the sweet dumplings are gone.

The green pepper plants are waist-high and still flowering, still covered with small fruits; I’ve frozen about a dozen, chopped up into useful sizes, and the two I hoped would ripen and turn red – and had half done – were cut short by the chipmunks, who chewed a hole in one side, climbed in (yes, they were that big) and ate all the seeds, then chewed an exit hole on the other side. I cut off the hole rims, rinsed out the inside of the peppers well, then chopped up the remains and sent them to the freezer, too.

From the bathroom window I can see one tall, multi-flowered sunflower still abloom in the raised beds near the house, and another  - last one – in the garden. Most of the garden ones have been thoroughly eaten by chipmunks and birds, and the giant flower remains – stems, roots, giant leaves - are slowly moldering in the compost bin. 

Unknown Perennial

Unknown plant - tomatillo? Ground cherry???

I’ve frozen endless bags of tomatoes, shell beans, green beans, yellow beans, zucchini, summer squash, and beets. I’ve made 17 pints of zucchini relish, four of dilly beans, and 20 of tomato juice – these from tomatoes I bought. There are still six celeriac plants, parsley root, and half of two rows of carrots in the garden, with the slowing but not finished scarlet runners, one lone green bean plant producing a couple of beans every few days, and okra plants still producing pods. A basket of green tomatoes resides in the dining room, slowly ripening, and another basket’s worth still hang from their plants outdoors. Maybe I’ll make green tomato mincemeat. Maybe I’ll make piccalilli. Maybe I’ll just pick them and let them slowly ripen indoors. 

Two patches of parsnips will stay in the garden over winter, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the chipmunks don’t eat them during the winter, because there is nothing so wonderful as over-wintered parsnips, and nothing so destructive as this year’s excess of destructive chipmunk colony.

A few onions still hang from pegs in my kitchen, with several skeins of shallots. A half-basket of potatoes still rest in the pantry. The bee balm is gone by; the Sweet Annie is picked and sweetly drying in a vase on the table. Many of the new perennials are blooming in the garden, though small in size yet.

Late Love Lies Bleeding

Here’s the big tally: This summer I moved 276 bricks, 325 pavers, 52 bags of pebbles, 109 bags of cedar, and 66 big rock-like chunks; and that doesn’t count the actual rocks I hauled home from the backside of the town’s deserted sand pile, or that I found on walks with the Old Barkie Boy before his demise. I have 2 pavers and 10 bricks yet to place. I could use more. I know where I’d put them; but I told the guys at the building supply place, if I come down here and try to order more, send me home and tell me no more this year. No. No. No.

It’s was cold the last few days. Some of that bounty’s going to end up in this week’s soup. And I will marvel at how long this growing season has lasted, and all the things that grew that were impossible, or improbable, or fantastic.

Beastreau spends a lot of time on the wart in Catman's chair

And wonder why I can’t get an artichoke plant to produce even a single bud!

For the blog; October 2018.  All photos Deb Marshall.

Still in bloom on the wart: