Happy October!

Dear October,

I was so excited to see you today when I turned my calendar! Oh my how I have missed you. I admit that this year after almost 70 days over a hundred, I wondered if you would after all decide to come for a visit. September was a little kinder than August and July and June this year. But you October, my goodness, today you exceeded my expectations. Such a nice way to start fall. Welcome home.

When I walked out on the porch before the sun came up this morning. I could smell the difference in the breeze. The heat in the early morning was gone and I could hear the trees, beginning today with the sound of the ocean in the leaves. It was too dark to see the shimmer of the now very tired cottonwoods. The sound of the far away sound of the train whistle, the roosters crowing, the meadowlarks who have returned to their winter home to sing up the sun. My sleepy kitties thinking these cooler mornings might mean more of a warmer abode.

The windows stayed open all day. I even got cold. I never thought I would get cold again. The leaves are already falling from the front tree. Ron mows the lawn and by the time he is finished the leaves are falling more and more every day. The trees in the back are turning red already. My poor hens are molting. They always seem so ashamed to be without feathers.

I thought all weekend I would get some of my pumpkins brought in but trying to get the last of the limbs cleaned up from the windstorms has taken all of our time. I hope we don't loose any more trees that break and shatter. We have some that didn't make it this summer that will have to be cut down. I am so glad Ron grows replacements.

I am very thankful for shiny blue Octobers. The smoke from the forest fires is gone. I read the Farmers Almanac. They have us having rain every week in October. I think that would be so nice. I would say most of the time they do get it right. I can't wait to smell wood smoke from fires trapped in fireplaces, all orderly and well mannered and cold frosty air. I hope your October is off too a great start.

Have a lovely brand new week, in a brand new month.

~Kim~

“Indian summer comes gently, folds over the hills and valleys as softly as the fall of a leaf on a windless day. It is always unexpected. After a sharp cold spell, we wake one morning and look out and the very air is golden. The sky has a delicate dreamy color, and the yet unfallen leaves on the bravest trees have a secure look, as if they would never, never fall.”

 Gladys Taber---Stillmeadow Seasons.

A Glorious Morning

Today is just a glorious morning. It feels and smells like the beach. I love when we have a weather system dropping down from Alaska. It brings such nice weather with it. The wind is blowing and we have clouds. Great but gray looking clouds. Its so nice to have some weather and a break from the sun. I have only a small bit of my last flowerbed to clean today. I am taking out my Black-Eyed Susans today. They get so filled with grass its just easier to take them out and start over.

 I have a few white pumpkins. I am hoping for some more. I don't know if we stay cool. I do have some orange ones though. It will be time to take out the garden soon. Its all very tired. It will be nice to turn my attention to house things for awhile. Like cooking. I found out something yesterday. I love carrot muffins and carrot cake. I just never like the shredding of it. I read yesterday to take your carrots and cook them and mash them. It worked so nice. I used all the carrots I had. I think I want to make pumpkin muffins today. I have been experimenting trying to get a gluten free baking to turn out. Without using Xanthan gum.
So far I have been disappointed. Except make cream cheese frosting and slap that on and it makes everything taste better. Its a little like learning to cook all over again.

The leaves are beginning to change. I think the poor things are just tired of the heat. Its so nice to hear the sound of the ocean in the cottonwoods. I think that is my favorite thing about cottonwoods. They won't change color until about 18th of December though.

Have a lovely day,
~Kim~

“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”
― Jim Bishop

A Evening Post

I normally write my posts in the morning. I have had a busy day. I need to write this so I can sleep, when I haven't written in awhile, posts wake me up in the night begging to be written. I have been gone awhile from the date of my last post. The heat lasted so long, I just didn't have anything to say. But then Wednesday night we had a lovely storm that blew the humidity and the heat away.

Thursday it was cool finally. The sky was blue again. The dust was quieted down from the cloudburst. I could breathe. The leaves were finally able to shimmer in the golden light. I walked and looked at everything from a different vantage point. One that welcomes fall with open arms. I started by washing windows and porches and moving furniture. I have cleaned flowerbeds and it has been glorious. To be outside and to not be depressed from hearing the steady drone of the air conditioner. I am thankful for them don't get me wrong. But the sound of the birds singing and the wind in the trees is such a comforting sound and I have missed it this summer.

I did think that fall would never come and summer would last forever. When I got pregnant with Kessie. I really was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I just kept getting bigger and bigger. I had such weird ideas. I have no idea why, like since I was going to breastfeed, did I need to poke holes you know where so the milk would come out? I thought my Mom was going to hurt herself she laughed so hard. I also made this terrible mistake. I just kept getting bigger so I thought I would never be able to fit in my old clothes. So I took every single stitch of clothes I owned to Goodwill. So when the baby came, I had one old dress that I had missed in the back of the closet. We couldn't afford new clothes for me, so I wore that dress over and over.

So that is how I thought this was this summer. I would always be miserable hot and my chickens would always live in the back yard. Having two days of cool weather has been such a healing balm to me. Weather can change and I can get sit outside and the sky is blue again. I can be happy I live here and how pretty it is when the breeze blows in and I am once again thankful for the experience of waking up in the morning and going outside to fresh air.

I am thankful for summer. I am thankful for rain. But fall coming next week, is just the best of all. I guess I can understand how all of you who get buried under all of that snow and it feels like winter will never be over. Do you remember that play called Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? I started quoting lines from it every time I went outside. I was starting to crack. We have at least a week of cool weather, so I might have time to get back to normal. At least be able to hook again or sew again.

Have a delightful weekend,

~Kim~

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
― Humbert Wolfe

Now I Can Write

 

Our heatwave has finally ended. 67 days! Over 100! Normal is around 33. I really did sit down a couple times to write a blog. It was all so complainy and whiny that I just deleted them. It really started to get to me. Saturday and Sunday it was humid and 111 both days. We had thunder and lighting and wind and rain. Very Midwest feeling. We lost a huge tree on Saturday night.

It is really big. To me it is an answer to prayer. Ron was going to cut it down when it got cooler. The trunk doesn't look that big from this angle but it is a huge tree. Now all he has to do is cut it up. Then Sunday we had an even bigger storm. We lost two more trees. Two of our Liquid Amber trees. The wind was so severe that it just picked those trees up and snapped them off. Like toothpicks. We lost lots and lots of limbs from other trees too. I will be cleaning up for awhile. I am ready for some fall weather. Even 98 will be nice if all of the humidity will just pack up and go as well.

I hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day weekend. I didn't do anything that I planned. Hopefully I will be able to change that now that it might be cooler. I just couldn't stand to hook.

I have a few pumpkins. I thought I would show you.

The little white ones. The ones I found when I had to look to see. Most of them are white. I have a few orange but none of the other ones have made it. I am hoping I still might get some as it is going to be in the 90s until mid September. Its getting to the end though. Just having a few makes me happy.

I hope you all had a nice weekend. Ron came home on Thursday sick and stayed that way for all four days. I am keeping my fingers crossed I stay well.

Have a lovely new week, I am praying that Irma looses her intensity and decides to go out from whence she came. Nothing is impossible with God, right.

~Kim~

"The world was particularly tranquil after the storm. The sun had a clarity and brilliance and the sky was very deep and pure. The drenched earth glittered. Even the garden, with everything battered and drowned, had a peaceful look---all passion spent, as it were."---The Book of Stillmeadow-Page 240 Gladys Taber