Category Archives: Nature

Pumpkins and Sunrise

Posted on by

Right around the equinox the sun rises over Camel’s Hump.  That is about the same time we harvest the pumpkins.  By the end of September we are getting frost so by early October we want to have the pumpkins off the vine.  We have a handful of pumpkins on the table, a few on the kitchen counter, and some on the deck railing.

The orange fits in nicely with the orange spreading over the hills.  In the next couple of days I will pull the last of our carrots from the ground.  More orange.  I planted lots of carrots this summer but much of the early planting turned to mush with all the rain.  The second planting did great but we ate it rather than saved it for the short days.  We’ll have to eat pumpkin.

Tomorrow morning I will make pumpkin muffins. At the moment I wait up for my parents, visiting for the weekend and arriving late.  I will probably start the muffins after the sun has risen.  By now, it rises south of Camel’s Hump.  It rose about 7:15 this morning.  Once the sun does make it over the mountains, it floods the house with light.  And warmth.  If there are no clouds, the house warms quickly.

While I grow wearier and wearier, hours into the dark part of the day, an IPA under my belt and a long day behind me, I question whether I should just hit the hay.  They advised I not wait up, and the rest of the household has left for dreamland already.  I wouldn’t mind making muffins and watching the sun rise at the same time, so maybe I will dive into the snooze box after all.

I will leave a note, perhaps, to be at least minimally polite, and suggest they wait to eat any of the pumpkins.  At least until I can cook them into muffins.

Walking to the Mailbox

Posted on by

It was a good moment to share.  The clouds were steel gray, surrounded by a pink sky.  They stood out, high contrast, as the sun slowly dropped.  The leaves are close to their peak fall foliage and the low light perked them up further.

I walked with my daughter.  We watched a jet, silent from our driveway so far below, head toward the moon.  The plane was glowing as the sun hit it directly.  It seemed to be on a collision course with the bright half of the earth’s satellite.  Luckily, the jet passed just beneath it.

We gloried in the beauty of it all.  We laughed as we spun around.  My daughter jumped the puddles from the day’s showers.  The wind blew the smell of fermenting leaves and the sound of crickets over the field.  We spun and laughed until I was dizzy and fell on the damp grass.

The world was right.  I was content.  It was a fine way to end a fall day.