Dawn

On the day of the Supermoon, we greet a sombre but beautiful dawn. I opened the front window and made a panorama:

We had a solid frost last night, but we're still hitting low 10s during the day. These are good working conditions; we raised the crowns on the front lines of red pine over the long weekend and chipped up all the brush.

Pet Trees

While we have planted thousands of trees--hundreds of which lived!--there are still some special ones. This, for example, is one of the very first we planted: a white pine. I ran over it with the lawn mover regularly; its growth is, as a result, somewhat retarded. At some point between running it over and today's rather brutal pruning, we lost track of its growth, which was wayward. I think we'll get it back on track eventually. The main bole split into three co-dominant stems, so it's been putting much of its effort into branches low on the tree. These grow upward to challenge the leader for height. Next fall I'll take out one of the three.

This is a balsam fir that shed almost all its needles one hot summer. Instead of cutting it out, we left it--we really did nothing more. Gradually, it put out new growth and the skeletal tracery of dead branches was replaced by an increasing minority of green, which has now become an overwhelming majority.

We had the misfortune to plant a cedar directly over the access hatch to the septic tank. It was well established by the time we had to have the tank pumped, and we ending up moving quite a large tree. We had to cut away most of the root system. It looked dead for two or three years, and then sprang back to life. It is obviously less lush than the line of cedar to its right, but that is because I did not subject it to the indignities of pruning and pollarding!

And this is just a flowering shrub--catching the light of this mild and beautiful November day.

That Time of Year

Autumn fires:

Winter fires:

No Vember

No sun—no moon!
  No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
  No sky—no earthly view—
  No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
  No end to any Row—
  No indications where the Crescents go—
  No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
  No courtesies for showing ‘em—
     
No knowing ‘em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
“No go”—by land or ocean—
  No mail—no post—
  No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
  No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
  No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
  November!
                                         --Thomas Hood, 1844

Hallowe'en

Some of the most interesting pictures are accidents. After a long morning's work pushing over deadwood and hacking down deadfall, Joanne carved the pumpkins. I stuck in candles and took some pictures. This evil spirit appeared out of nowhere.

It makes this more conventionally wicked picture seem tame by comparison. No rolled eye, glowing nose, or tongue of fire. Just a Jack o'lantern.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Autumn Chores

Autumn seems to be a time of brake jobs. I finally changed out that seized cable in the Honda, completing a four-wheel brake job in the process. Here are the lovely new drums--it almost seems a shame to keep the other components (too shabby). Finally, we have two sets of shoes responding to the emergency brake.

 I also serviced our pellet stove--22 years old and still going strong, so far as I can recollect. The fans are oiled, cleaned, and, as a consequence, quite quiet.

Fall Clean-up

Here it is, mid-October, and the scaffolding is all tucked away in the tractor shed. For once, I finished shingling and painting before the snow flew!

Although I liked the look of the natural shingles against the white paint, in the end I painted everything. It is hard to maintain the look of cedar; it tends to blacken. I still have some touching up to do on the corner boards, but that can wait for next year. We still get the occasional warm day, but it is really too cold for further painting. Next year, we plan to replace five windows, including the two side windows on the lower bay, and the one in the front corner, second floor--this will be the main focus of the summer work. This time, we're going to rip off the vinyl and apply cedar clapboard! 

\