Fall Chores

 

               The seasons are shifting. We wake up before dawn these mornings; put the rabbit in by seven.  I wore my newly handknit wool socks this morning while reading the paper. Last week, we watched the golden  Harvest moon rise while the sun set over Mary’s Peak. The chores are also changing; along with the weekly housecleaning, we are snugging in for the long, damp winter.

                Last Saturday, we took on the wood pile. Almost exactly a year before, we had the two fruit trees—a cherry and a yellow plum— down. It was time. They had been planted when our house was built. One was growing Chicken of the Woods mushrooms, the other losing branches. I was worried about the power lines across the back yard in an ice storm (which happened this past winter). The arborist left us a pile of cut but not split logs which dried down all summer. We rented a wood splitter, asked a friend with a hitch to pull it over and back, and went to work. It was satisfying. By the end of the day, we had a huge pile of split wood, which I have spent the last week, between meetings and dinner, moving into the basement or into neatly stacked piles, as well as putting some of the truly funky pieces around the garden as habitat. Mark is sweeping the basement as the final touch to the project.

                While we were splitting wood, I was also processing tomatoes—cut them up and cook them down in the crockpot without a lid for hours to make a chunky sauce. Thirty five pints of sauce are now sitting on the basement shelves, along with 10 half pints of roasted tomatoes. I will harvest the basil and make pesto, then move the shorn plants into the greenhouse to see if they will sprout more leaves.  We dried figs and apples and plums earlier. This week, we will clean out the larder to hold the delicata and kobocha squashes I harvested when it was not my turn on the splitter. We will buy 70 pounds of onions and tuck them in there, along with seed potatoes and the fruitcakes in late November.

                This weekend, we are finishing up summer outside  the house work. Mark is sealing the dining room doors once more. I checked the caulking around the south side windows—and then went into the bathroom to hit the window there while I had the caulk out.  Mark has sifted out all of the compost bins and turned them all; I will spread the compost he has created in the beds that need the most love. Slowly, the summer beds are clearing out and the debris moves into the empty hoop.  Next weekend, the coop will perch on a bed once more and the chickens will be confined to a smaller space. They don’t seem to mind; the world will soon enough be rainy and dim.

                I will miss summer. The warm sunny days feel more precious each year, as we try to find time in the wilderness between mosquitoes hatching and wildfire haze. In the face of this constantly changing world, the rituals of fall, moving towards winter, are also precious.

The Equinox

 

We are moving into the Equinox, balancing light and dark, work and rest, inward and outward movements. This is what we are seeing now:

Morning fires in the garden.

The vines making a last long dash across the trellis.

Cedar Waxwings on the top third of the fig tree.

Smoky, dusty haze across the valley.

Cat sprawled on the bricks in the greenhouse, warming her old bones.

Twilight comes earlier every day—the bunny is not happy to go into the hutch sooner.

A basket of delicate squash.

Harvest moonlight and moon watch.

More people and more cars in car—schools are opening.

The drier runs all evening with figs and plums.

Crockpots of tomato sauce.

Soak in the warmth of the slanting sunlight now, knowing the clouds are coming soon.

 

 

 

Climate Debates

 

                On Thursday afternoon, the city council engaged in a robust discussion on whether or not to include the phrase “climate resilient” into a statement about Corvallis being a safe city. (It’s not in there yet.) You can watch the debate online: we began around 5:15, when I had a problem with the fact that, in all of our statements of priorities for the city, climate change was not mentioned.  Arguments went from: seven people are running on climate concerns for council this year and it is the key issue for most people under fifty to it’s not the city’s job to address climate change mitigation or adaptation at the community level. Such work is best left to the federal government (because that has worked so well for the last 40 years).  When we engage in these discussions, I hold my students close and try to convey the level of concern, anxiety, and panic our lack of action on climate change creates every day. I promised them to do my utmost to mitigate this loaming disaster, to leave them with not quite as large a mess to clean up when I am gone. Sometimes, that thread of the argument works.

                After the meeting, I went home to pack for a camping trip. Mark and I drove over the mountains to the Metolius River and Camp Sherman, where we had managed to reserve the best campsite on the river for the weekend. We have been visiting this magical place in the early fall for 20 odd years now. We have seen how some restoration work has taken hold and how other places need a little more love. We have watched cabins fall into disrepair and then be brought back to life with a new generation. We have been there in pouring rain, bright autumn sunshine and, this year, a smoky haze. As we stood o the bridge last night, watching a dipper dance on a branch in the cold, cold river, I wondered: why would you not do everything you can to preserve this beautiful, intricate, and damaged planet? It is our home. Why destroy our home?