Fall Rituals

The storm windows went up this weekend.

Years ago, when we bought our house, it had aluminum storm windows—the sort with screens built in that warp slightly and are tricky, over the years, to open. Although I have fond memories of following my father through empty houses while he installed such windows, they are ugly. After we painted, I did not want to re-hang them. It was like putting blinders on our house. However, after a year of serious drafts, something had to be done. Our friend Mark is a woodworker and he took the glass from the old storms and built wooden ones, sized to fit each window’s quirks. We painted them deep red, hung them, and never looked back. Every autumn, around Halloween, we wash all of the windows—house and storm—wax the wooden edges with a chunk of candle like waxing old wooden cross country skis, and pop them on. Well, sometimes there’s a bit of pounding involved, if something has shifted over the summer. They add a layer of detail to the house, rather than subtracting. The house turns inward and quiet, focused for the long winter nights. Fires, beans in the crockpot, potlucks, sweater knitting, and reading  become the focus of our lives, rather than hiking and gardening.

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Sunbow Farm had a Harvest Home potluck this evening. We pulled in through the tall pampas grasses right before sunset and parked by the chip and mulch pile. The cob house was warm and welcoming; they had cleaned and lit a fire in the big wood stove. The world smelled of earth and dinner. Kent had carved a series of compost pile gourds and lined them down the path to the back field, ending with a large pumpkin. At twilight, we all stepped out into the breezy fields. The sun was setting south of Mary’s Peak, casting gold and peach light into the clouds and lighting up the mountain. The trees were dark against the sky. Kent lit the furthest pumpkin, and we walked back to the house, lighting gourds as we went. “We’re inviting the field spirits into the house for the winter,” he and Harry explained, “so that we can all live in peace. Then, in the spring, all of the spirits head back out into the fields.”  Fifteen people walked the field track, back to the houses, as we had so often, summer after summer, hauling beans, water bottles, armloads of greens. “Now,” he announced, “we can eat!” And we did—fava and Indian Woman beans, stuffed red peppers, applesauce and apple cake, pickles from abundant crops of beets and cucumbers, all from our local farms.

On the way home, we passed three churches having Sunday evening services, their stained glass windows glowing in the leafy darkness.

Mabon Quiche

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees.

Make a quiche crust with half whole wheat flour.

Sautee a leek in olive oil salt and pepper until limp.

Chop a crisp apple.

Cut smoked gouda into small cubes.

Beat four eggs into about 2/3 of a cup of milk.

Layer the quiche: cheese, apple and leek, then beaten eggs. Support the crust edge if it starts to bend with a shim of folded paper.

Bake until set.

Eat for dinner with a fresh green salad and cider.

Sunbow Riverteeth

It’s Winter Break and I’m in Greenhouse number two, cleaning out last year’s tomato plants, prepping the soil, and planting the greens I will be eating in May. Outside, it’s raining—not a Winter Mist, like we usually have—but a real rain with wind and dramatic clouds. Inside, I’m down to a tee shirt and wooly hat, flannel shirt and sweatshirt in a pile by the door. I’m alone, working peacefully. Occasionally, a gust of wind ripples the plastic and it rains inside.


When I run out of compost, I sigh…the compost pile is on the other side of the barns. I wrangle the deep wheelbarrow between the last glorious ruby chard, so beautiful that no one can cut it down—although it has contributed to several dinners—and the sawhorses holding seedlings. Push it out the door and across the plank which keeps it out of the mud. Past the mazy toolshed/farmstand/crop storage building, the old hoophouse turned comfrey patch, and housing for apprentices to the pile of decomposing leaves. It has stopped raining for the moment. I shovel compost into the barrow, pause, look up. Huge grey clouds race across the sky, wind whips through my hair and tee shirt, the air smells of earth, and ocean, and forest all at once, and Mary’s Peak looms over all.



It’s been a good summer for help at Sunbow. There has been a couple from Australia living there for several weeks and they like to get going early in the morning. When Mark and I arrive, the greenhouse work has already been done and we are heading out to one of the big back fields to weed and mulch. Harry is out at the back leaf pile with the tractor. We gather five gallon buckets, shovels, water bottles, hats, and head out past the quiet rustle of the wheat field, green gold in the July light. Five of us move down the rows, pulling the weeds, freeing the plants. They stretch towards the sun. Once the weeds are gone, we move in with buckets of leaves, piling mulch around their roots. We talk quietly to the plants, encouraging growth, and to each other—about the task at hand and the meaning of life and growing things. The sun slowly climbs in the sky. Time passes.

When the sun is overhead, we stop. The entire field is weeded and mulched. On the right, rows of leeks raise lavender globes high, producing seed for the next year. Further on, the wheat is ripening. Harry nods, pleased with the morning’s work.

“Imagine,” I say, “if we always had this many people—what it would look like.”

“We did, once,” he replies. “When we did all of the markets…there were ten or more people working every day.” I see, in his mind, all of the fields clean and producing food for the valley, and nod.






We have just been out to Summer Lake and we spent one night at a campground around a warm spring. “This is sacred ground” a sign by the entrance read. I looked around —piles of old farm trash, no potable water, slimy warm spring—who were they kidding? Just putting up a sign does not make your land “sacred.”



Two days later, I bike out to Sunbow. Warm June morning…I rattle in on the dirt drive between the eight foot high pampas grass clumps. On one side, the purple house buried in roses, on the other, the front field, filled with yacon, beans, corn, tomatoes, and, of course, weeds. There are weeds everywhere. In the corner, an old geodesic dome is slowly returning to the earth. Out back, wheat and garbanzo beans are growing. I hear a few chickens conversing in the pen as I park my bike by the high leaf piles and hunt for Harry.

“We’re weeding the tomatoes today,” he announces cheerfully. Okay. We walk out to the front field, push aside the pigweed, and find the plants. There they are, growing lustily in old leaves. I drop to my knees to weed. Sun on my back. Earth under my hands. Scent of tomato in the air.