October in the Raggedy Garden

            October. Its always been the month that I love best. And look how the setting sun glows, turning everything into sunshine and shadow. The morning sun, in October is weak, and cool and misty. The afternoon sun is brassy and blinding, but,  oh! The setting sun can make you cry from its beauty and loveliness.  The star filled nights, too. Especially now, in the dark of the moon , when the nights are frosty and clear. You can see the magnitude of the stars, immeasurable, uncountable, so far away, looking so close. It seems you could reach up and grab one.

                Sometimes even I, Raggedy Garden dweller that I am, follow the road, in October. Old New England roads that wander to a time gone by, with only the trees and the birds, and the squirrels. Only the deer and the bears and the turkeys. Only the fallen leaves, the ruts and the rocks. They beckon me to follow them to Octobers past. Young Octobers, young love,  a rainy wedding night in the pacific northwest. Fun Halloweens, before they turned evil, when we roamed in cold Minnesota starshine, dressed like pilgrim girls and Indian braves, and came home glowing with happiness, health and a bag full of candy. Octobers when you could rake a pile of leaves and have a bonfire with them and breathe in that smokey October smell. Octobers with new babies. Octobers with snowstorms. October, that month of every thing .

        The October road might lead to town. An old New England town, with a brick mill building, a dam on the river, where power is made, a cozy restaurant, two hundred year old houses, and children and old folks walking in the street. Or it might lead to a pond, surrounded by birches and oaks and maples, the mirrored reflection flung down at their feet. Perhaps it will bring you to a barn. A weathered and shabby building with the roof falling in and the windows broken, the dooor hanging askew. Some other October it was filled with fagrant hay, boucolic cows, farming implements and kittens. They are all still here, you know. You have to look with October eyes.

          Rainy October days. Yes! I'll take them. The colors glow in the fog and the mist rises and swirls. The rain drops dimple the ponds and the smoke puffs out of many chimneys.The garden looks seer and empty. The hops vine rattles its brown fragile flowers in the wind. The swing, too, creaks, empty and forlorn in the October gusts. The goldfinches and sparrows crowd the bird feeder and peck the grit in the drive. This October night the rain thunders on the roof, and streams down the windows. Inside, the fire crackles in the stove, coffe steams in my cup, a candle flickers and I dream with a book open in my lap.

          After the rain, the sun comes with its prisms and pearls, every rain soaked branch, leaf ,blade of grass, lies quivering beneath the rays. October, full of grace and beauty, full of beginings and endings, full of color and darkness. May you always have an October heart, wild and free and warm and sheltering.

     Humble thanks to Robin Ashley for these more than beautiful October pictures.

Fall Calls to the Vagabond Heart

 

September in the Raggedy Garden

      September. September means seventh month. That's because the ancient roman calendar year started with March. It makes sense. March is when everything wakes up and starts living again. Somehow, things got a little mixed up! Oh, but when I hear September, I hear a different sound. A smokey, warm, delicious sound, An end of summer sound. September mornings stay dark until seven. Thats when the sun comes shinning up over the hill and into the Raggedy Garden. The breeze sighs softly through the pine trees, so soft you can't hear it unless you really listen. The turkeys come gabbling quietly on the edges of the field, scrabbling through the acorns and fallen leaves. It's a fairly large flock, many different sizes. They blend in. If you don't know to look and listen, you probably won't see them. The dew lies heavy on the grass. It takes a long time before it dries.

         It's time to start putting the Raggedy Garden to bed for the winter. I know I should be out there filling the garden house with clay pots , fountains, all the fragile things that can't be left out in the cold and the snow. I go out, but I get distracted, and  sit in the swing, and dream. The mellow September sunshine, the breeeze with just a hint of coolness, the musty, damp fall smells, they distract me. The dandelion fluff and the monarch butterflies that drift past, rising and dipping as they go. The raucous gang  of crows winging aross the garden....did you know that a bunch of crows are officially called a 'murder' of crows? Now, isn't that delightful?....The blue jays, too, now fly in noisy crowds. All summer they have been sneaking about in nefarious pastimes. Now they distract me with their racket and their coats of blue.
           The Autumn Clematis has climbed up and over the roof, a huge cloud of sweet whiteness. The cone flowers and sunflowers still bloom. The alyssum has come into its own, the fairy roses and the pansies are back enforce.The leaves come slowly twirling down, landing willy nilly where they will. Red leaves, orange leaves, yellow ones and brown. Some mottled and splotched, not deciding which color to be. A walk along the edges of the woods is rife with crunching and rustling as I step on acorns and shuffle through the leaves.

         Now, for coffee, hot cider, tea or hot chocolate. An amber cup that glows in the September sunshine. A picnic in the Raggedy Garden. Homemade maple oatmeal bread for sandwiches, spicy cookies and crunchy apples. feasting indeed! Frost warnings means bringing houseplants back indoors.  I sigh to think I must go around shutting windows, and digging out the flannel sheets. Can summer really be over, so soon? The nights start out starry and bright, but the cool night air makes for misty dawns. Even after the sun comes up, I can see where the river runs by the line of mist that rides across the valley. Flocks of  geese have been passing by . In the gloaming, that brief time between daylight and dark. I hear them, far up, and lonely, calling , calling to the vagabond hearts.
        So I dream of summers past and holidays that are coming, remembering old friends, old attics, old songs. seeing old roads and hearing old fires crackling in the dusk. Old books, they too have the musty September smell. There will be time, now to curl up and read an old favorite. Harvest these, all things September, in this month of the harvest moon!

                                                                                                                                                                   












                                                                                                                                                                  





         

On Flanders Pond

         Did I ever tell you that I love this place? This serene and hushed cove where I have been fortunate enough to spend a few days the end of many summers? Fragrant with the scented balsam , cedar and hemlock. Wrapped in the misty foggy mornings. Dappled by blue and gold days of sunshine. Sleeeping in the coolness of clear starlit midnights. Whispered to by waves, and breezes. Fed by the bounty of the sea. I took no pictures of the eagle, nor the loons, but let me draw them with words. No picture could do justice to the eagle. Early in the morning, all shadowy and still, he dips and dives for his breakfast. When the sun comes up, he soars and wheels, flashing his colors, and he dips and dives again. The water drops fall like diamonds from his wings as he mounts the air and flies to his tree top. That highest tree top across the way. There he sits, all hunkered and fierce, and he screams his wild and mighty scream. The loon will swim by in the day light. He's huge and bright, and he skims across the water, dives deep and comes up again a far, far piece away from where he went down. But he's quiet. You never hear him in the day time. It is only then, in the misty mysterious midnight , with the fog hiding all the world, then you hear him. His long lonely tremelo, his mournful wailing, sobbing song. It fills the night. It echoes over the waters. It cries into the forest and the camps and the pond and the sky. Remember in the Heidi story when Heidi asks the Grandfather "Why does the eagle scream so?" And the Grandfather answered that when he sits up there in the clean pureness of nature and he looks down with his keen eyes and sees the dirt and the wretchedness and the pettiness of man and what he has done to Gods world, then he has to scream down at us to tell us his disgust. I think perhaps the loon, too, as he glides about in the daylight and sees what a mess we make? Then at night he cries out against us , laughing and sobbing at how we have continually ruined and ignored the world that God made.
      Isaiah the prophet comforts us with these words " But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

          The long wet dock is a must. Here the kids and the dogs run. Once you have heard bare feet on the dock, you will never forget the sound. It will ever bring back to you memories of that great sploosh when you get to the end, and dive in. The way the water got in your nose when your brother ran up behind you, and pushed you off. The way the boat thumps against it when you got back from fishing. The way the little water birds hopped across it. The way the frogs chugged at dusk. The way the fishing poles leaned against the posts. The dreams you dreamed as you dozed there in the sunshine, the picnics you had there , all sandy and wet. Everyone should have a shadowy dock to pull out from their memories when they get old and sad.

        The little house out back, so necessary to camp life. Here the sun light dapples the trees and the forest floor. It's not really so bad, either. At night, when you go out with your flashlight, tripping over roots, feeling the kiss of the night breeze, hearing the owls talking and the water lapping against the shore and slapping the sides of the john boat. Then you go back up the trail in to the house, trip over the dogs, and shiver with that aaahhhh feeling of crawling safe and snug under the quilt.

        The fishing fun begins after dark. The tiki torch sheds a warm glow over the dock. The night sky is full of stars. Our glow-in-the-dark bobbers streak over head like fiery meteors as we cast them into the wind. They float , red glimmers in the black water until a fish is on, and then they disappear and send us dashing for the poles. Everything looks different in the starshine. Shadowy and secretive, soft and peaceful. Our voices carry over the water. Our laughter sounds lilting and far away. We fill a bucket with perch , leaving the bucket filled with water until morning. Then the master fillet man goes to work. Fish fry coming up!

       The campfire flickers and glows. It crackles and sizzles. It sends a smokey fragrance blowing across the pond. A camp fire is friendly. It goes way back, back to Indians and pioneers and mountain men and cowboys. Men have hunkered over campfires, cooking fish and game, boiling tea and coffee, warming hands and feet, drying clothes and jerky, keeping the wild things at bay. Thats the things you see in the flicker of a campfire. All those lonesome, friendly times and places, all those long ago dreams and faces. Thats what a campfire conjures up.We have a late night snack of blackened hotdogs and crispy, melting in the middle marshmallows. Then its into the sauna. Hot steamy goodness cleansing our bodies and softening pur muscles and minds. A brisk scrub with a bar of Irish Spring, a run down the sand and into the water, cool and senuous on the skin. Who doesn't sleep the sleep of the pure heart after that?

         Going clamming at low tide, we are. The boys catch a pile of lobsters off the floating dock. Now we will eat like royalty! Steamers and fresh lobster dipped in butter. We invite Tinker, who lives next door. It's Tinkuh, I believe. Born in Bar Harbor, lived there all his eighty one years. Has a camp out here at the pond to get away from the craziness of a Bah Hahbuh summer. He brings us a bluberry gingerbread that he has just made. Spicy, fragrant, moist, warm. We add a dab of ice cream and we lick our buttery fingers and listen to him tell about eighty years of Maine living.

        Low tide, we girls head for the sea glass beach, buckets on our arms. We walk the sand with our eyes on the ground, stopping to bend and pick up a treasure and straighten up again, the shell seekers dance at low tide by the sea. Each piece that goes into our bucket is a small piece of a large story that we will never know. Someone, some where, some time, treasured this cup or plate or bottle. How long has lain broken , washed by the waves and the tides all over the world, before we pick up these fragments, so smooth and softened by time?

         Do I have to leave? Well, I know I do. I know I wouldn't appreciate it if it wasn't so rare. But I have my memories to carry me over to next year. Beautiful place by the sea. Giver of happiness, giver of dreams. God bless my family on Flanders Pond!                                                                          

Remnants

The woodshed. The shingles are worn and warped and some are missing. The door is crooked with rusty hinges. The windows are broken, the glass gone. The floor is part dirt, part cracked and broken concrete. This is a remnant, a piece of a life before I came here. I have walked in and out that door a million times, I think. The remnants of a once new tightly made door. I pile wood in here every fall and all winter I take down the piles and lug them into the house, remnants of trees that grew green and tall in the woodlot. They feed the maw of the stove, merry crackling fires, wisps of smoke, and lastly, ashes. Ashes that I spread as poor mans fertilizer in the Raggedy Garden. Remants of warmth and cooking and flame.

             When I open the door the sun is shining through the remnants of the window, streaking the wood pile with golden light, remnants of  golden fall day. There is not so much wood left in here now, in the remnants of summer. I need to get stacking. But today I stand in that stream of sunshine and look around. The walls are cluttered with the remnants of many years of burning wood. Axes with broken handles, old crosscut saws, oil cans ,black and smeary with years of dripping oil. Old wooden boxes, old tobacco cans full of nails, a rusty shovel with a chipped head, a rake with most of its teeth missing. Lacy spiderwebs grace the corners. A pile of tire chains is heaped on the floor, remnants of old. Does any one use tire chains any more? Sawdust dusts everything. An old chewed up glove sits high up on the pile. I can hear the rustle of a mouse, and a chipmunk peers at me from the doorway. A bee bumbles in the glassless window, a groggy fall bee who flies without rhyme or reason. There is a shelf above the window. It's higher than my head. I stand tippy toe and crane my neck.

           The sign hangs there above tin shovels, tiny oil cans, a tin funnel, coffee cans, an aluminum pot filled with wedges and jugs. A remnant of our family, from long ago. R. Somero. Fancy script. Purposefully serrated edges. Remnants of the chains that it hung all those years before. It hung at a camp in northern Michigan, on the lake. There was a boat and fishing equipment and rustic living accomodations. Boone remembers fondly the time he spent there, mostly with his grandad. Fishing and cooking up their fish and sleeping with the slap, slap of the water against the shore. Remnants of memories, hidden in everyday living. Fragments of the past here in the shadow of the roof where the sun shine never can reach. I'd take it out, hang it for the world to see, still smooth and sturdy, speaking to all and sundry. " Here I  am still, R. Somero. I lived and I died and I left you the remnants. Share them so the chain goes unbroken   and the circle goes round." He likes it hidden there, where only he can find it, and remember....

           Broken window, bringer of light, soon I will pile the wood in front of you , high up where I can barely reach, and no sun will shine in here til winter is past and there are only remnants again.

Perfectly Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free)

     I 've had this recipe hanging around for , probably years. But I never made them because it just seemed unrealistic.  Any way, I needed to make some cookies, and had used up all my flour because I got a big Nissu order. So, I thought, give a whirl, Annie. Much to my surprise, they came out absolutely perfect! Here goes.....
                                             1 cup peanut butter
                                              1 cup sugar
                                              1 tsp. baking soda
                                               1 egg
                        Mix together. Drop by spoonful on sprayed cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.
       Thats it folks! I crisscrossed them with a fork dipped in sugar just because thats how peanut butter cookies are supposed to look.

           So easy. It only made 18 cookies. Good sized ones. So for a lot of people you would want to double this. I also left them on the pan for a couple minutes before I transfered them to cooling racks. They were nice and firm, didn't crumble.

              Now for a cup of good coffee, a good cookie, and a good book! I like the way you can see the reflection of the coffee and cookie in the book cover! Boy, am I glad I ran out of flour! Make these and enjoy!

The Story of Al and the Bear

     A long time ago this place was busy and well populated. The roads linked the towns together in an unbroken chain of life and living. Now there are only traces of that time left. Homes and schools and churches. stores and mine buildings. The years have turned them all silvery gray. Broken windows and sagging doors have let in the sun, and the snow, and the small animals. From inside and outside, time has polished them until they lean, and slowly crumble and fall. Fallow fields have grown up to brush. Once lush orchards now feed only the deer and the coon. Bears amble where children once played.
     This story happened in that long ago time. There were bears here then, too, and Al had always wanted a bear of his own. He had already made pets of all the farm animals. Horses and cows and pigs and even chickens would do things for Al. Every one knows how uneducated chickens are, so that was saying something about this boy. He had a certain magic in him when it came to animals. Now he had heard about a bear in Calumet. The bear had gotten big and mean, and the man who owned him wanted some one to take him away.
      Al took some marshmallows, and he took his friend Leo. Leo was Als much younger brother, but they were long time pals. Al and Leo put the marshmallows in Als car and they drove off to Calumet. It was a long drive, then, in those early cars, on dirt roads. They drove through small towns, past farms and churches and schools and stores and gas stations and mine buildings. When they got to the place where the bear lived, it was a toss up over who was more excited, Leo or Al.
       Al knocked on the door and explained to the man that he was interested in the bear. The man grumbled and complained and whined as he took them out to see the bear. Leo was feeling sorry for the poor bear, to have to belong to such a wretched man. The man said he had raised the bear from a cub, but now he was so big and wicked that every one was afraid of him. The bear was lying in a forlorn black heap in the dusty disgusting dirt pile. His chain lay slack, and you would have thought you were looking at a bearskin rug. He was that limp and dejected.
       As soon as the man announced "there is the bear", the bear came to life. Bear raised his massive head and looked at them with his squinty little eyes. A low growl came from some where deep in his throat. "You can have 'im", said the man, "if you'll just get 'im away from here". Bear rose quickly to stand on his four feet. He was a huge bear! His eyes followed them, unblinking, angry eyes, and strange threats rolled out from his broad chest. His fur was matted and splashed with bare spots.
        Leo wondered what Al would do now. The bear was such a sorry, angry looking wretch. The bear had stretched his chain out tight. Leo and the man kept edging farther and farther out of his reach. Al kept walking with his usual, unhurried pace. His quiet, steady voice kept talking, a rambling, one sided dialog. He was telling bear that everything was going to be good again. Not that bear was believing. He lunged at his chain and snarled at Al.
         Al offered bear some marshmallows, still talking softly. Bear stopped growling and sniffed. probably he had never had marshmallows before. He hesitated. The calming voice of Al and the curious sweet small were getting the best of him. Al was able to walk around him and unfasten the chain from the bears tree.
        Leo and the man each held his breath as Al confidently walked along with the chain over his shoulder and the huge bear lumbering after him. Bear took quick looks around him, wary and tense, turning his head slowly from side to side, watching them with his angry little eyes.
        Still speaking in the same easy voice, Al told Leo to open the trunk of the car. As soon as Leo had it open, Al spilled the rest of the marshmallows in the trunk. Bear had found some thing good in these small white sweets. He climbed in after them. As he hunkered down to gobble up these, oh, so many goodies placed within his reach, Al threw in the chain and slammed down the trunk.
         There was complete silence and stillness for a moment. With a quick good bye and thank you, Al and Leo hopped in the car and were off for home with a spurt of gravel. Al was in a hurry, for theirs was not an ordinary cargo. They sped along with out saying much. Suddenly Al grinned, his eyes on the rear view mirrror. "Don't turn around, Leo, we have company," he said. Leo didn't need to turn around. He could feel and small the presence of their company.
         Poor bear had not liked the feeling of being shut up in the trunk and had pushed the back seat forward so that he had a little more room.. Now he seemed to enjoy his car ride, his stomach full of marshmallows. Well, Leo couldn't blame him, but he was still glad when they reached home and they could all pile out.
        It didn't take long for Al to work his magic touch of gentle friendship on bear. Al and bear soon were fast friends. Al cleaned him up and fed him and played with him. You would never have known him for the same sorry bear who had been back seat company all the way from Calumet. Bear and Al would wrestle and play rough, loving games.. Games that would leave Al scratched up and happy  and bear happy and fine loooking.
        The old farm is gone now. The mines are no longer working. The years have turned the houses, the schools, the churches, the stores a soft silvery gray. Sagging doors and broken windows have let in the rain and the snow and the small animals. Al is gone, and Leo. They had vagabond feet that carried them all over the land. Where ever Al was he always had a bear to teach, and play with. Where ever Leo was, he told his stories, stories like Al and the Bear.
        It has beeen many years since Leo told me this story. Afterwards, I wrote it down, so it wouldn't be forgotten. When he read it, he sat for a long time, quiet, remembering, lost to me and where we were and what we were doing. When he looked up,his eyes were still far away and dreamy. "You got it exactly right", he said. It has been sitting in my papers for years, fading and gathering dust . I give it to you now, hoping you will chuckle,and set your eyes afar off, dreaming and seeing many things.