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Showing posts from October, 2021

Snowy Speculations

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If I could paint, I would have tried to replicate the landscape very early this morning. Illuminated by the faintest hints of light and hours before sunrise, the cold, stark landscape lay completely still in its snowy blanket. Naked trees stood proudly and quietly against this backdrop, this palate of pure white an unforgiving place for any creature, big or small, to attempt to cross without drawing attention to its existence at this time. Even our ancient tire swing looked sleepy and droopy, suspended precariously close to the ground, as if the effort of hanging from a tree limb was too much for it. To the east, the only rays of light visible were the ones coming from the across the river, and even those seem hushed and muffled, like a child tired and murmuring not to wake them up just yet.  The young families down the road have gone all out with Christmas lights this year. Bright colours adorn the night skies and my neighbours even have a Christmas Cat and a Christmas Dinosaur that i
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Cathartes Aura

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  Along our morning walks this summer, my friend and I continuously passed by an abandoned house on one of the Lines. It was situated on a larger lot and it looked like someone had purchased it with plans to eventually build a home there. It was a tear-down if ever there was one! The windows had been smashed to pieces, the roof had huge chunks missing and the peeling paint on the old wooden siding looked tear-streaked as if the house had been crying in sheer loneliness and abandonment.  As we passed the house quite early one morning, we were both astounded at the row of silent shadows perched on the rooftop. We both shuddered involuntarily at their presence. They looked like something from a horror movie, like black ravens against the blue morning sky, the stuff that would have inspired Edgar Allan Poe. My friend remarked that she had heard that they hovered around places where death had occurred, making us walk past the house at a much quicker pace than we had been walking until then.
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Under Autumn Skies...

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I know Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal south of the border, celebrated later than our Canadian one. But I am happy that we can enjoy ours earlier, right at the end of the traditional harvest time when the last of the fall tomatoes are ripening, the pumpkins abound and the vibrant fall foliage is a background to our celebration! A big plus is that most years we can even enjoy afternoon appetizers outside in the warm autumn sunshine. Last year's Thanksgiving took place right in the middle of lock-down and I wrote then about my previous outdoor Thanksgiving dinners where I enjoyed setting a festive table almost as much as I enjoyed seeing smiling faces gathered around it. There is such a selection of natural decor to pick from when you drive down our country roads. Purple branches, golden leaves and gnarled vines showcasing burnt orange foliage are abundant and merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the natural selection out there to choose from! I placed our outdoor table close
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Homegrown Happiness

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  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! But what about apples and plenty of them? Cider would be the obvious choice! For years we have tried our best to use the apples from the trees that were planted years before we moved here. But this year, the trees seem to be groaning under the weight of their rosy-cheeked crop. Today, of all days, the sun was shining and the temperatures soared like a beautiful summer day. But our day consisted of a true fall activity. We pulled out the old wine press that my father had given us years ago and our day of making apple cider began. Jim and I worked tirelessly to the background noise of his favourite movies playing on the garage TV behind us. Around noon my father-in-law stopped by to drop something off and pulled up a chair to the tables we had set up, grabbed a cutting board and joined in. It was a lot of work! We quartered the fruit for the food processor, then put the mashed-up apples into the press and watched as the elixir of the gods bega
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