Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Yesterday I used most of the red potatoes I grew in the garden this summer to make a hearty potato soup. As I was standing at the stove, happy with how the soup had turned out, in walked Angel Baby. Being the culinary student that he is these days, he tested the soup and said, "Needs more salt and pepper." Everything I cook, no matter what, his first comment is always, "Needs more salt." I know I tend to go light on the salt. I'm just not a salt fan. Right after he said, "It needs more salt and pepper" he stepped in and took over. He took the white pepper and sprinkled some in. He then chopped some rosemary and added it along with some oregano and thyme. He reached into the cupboard and pulled out the soy sauce, pouring in a capful. He whisked the mixture carefully, dipped a spoon into it and took another sip. "There. Better." I followed suit and took a sip. He was right. He improved what I had started. He talked about the soup now having a f...

The weather has finally cooled off. I'm so ready for fall, and the 70-80+ degrees was killing me. Give me 50's and below, please. I need my sweaters, sweatshirts, and sweatpants. I keep saying I'm going to move further north. I need to follow through, move to Wisconsin or northern Michigan. Maybe Minnesota. I like summer with the heat, the sweat, the cold showers, but I love the cool of fall and the cold of winter. I love wrapping myself in a fleece blanket and sitting out on the porch in the mornings, with my cup of hot coffee, watching the steam rise. I also love making soup and homemade bread. My kitchen is a mix of odor right now. On the stove is acorn squash soup in the making. A holiday candle is going near the sink. I really don't know why I lit the candle. It just seemed like a fun thing to do while I stood and washed the dishes. It's time to blow it out and let the soup fill the house with thyme and nutmeg. Soon the bread will be in the oven to add its deli...

 

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been able to make lots of progress on the stairwell to the basement. It was just a shell, basically nothing more than the frame and outside walls and roof. My vision was to put in insulation then cover that with plywood, which would give me a much more functional space. Sometimes when I see a space that's not being used for anything I get a little verklempt. Unused space is a waste.  So I went to work and this is what I now have (yes, I totally neglected to do before pictures). I'm able to hang a lot of my garden tools in this space, freeing up area in the garage. I'm thinking I might also hang my bike here, moving it out of the guest bedroom. I'm so loving having this space be functional. And the doors. Painting them then hanging them to replace the awful doors is like the icing on the cake. A few weeks ago, I guess more like a month ago now, my brother and sister-in-law stopped by on their way home from visiting their daughter i...

Long shadow, soy beans ready for harvest, and a clear blue sky. A lovely late-September evening ride.

Next to the peony, the zinnia is my favorite flower. There's just something about zinnias. Perhaps it is their vibrant colors. Or maybe it's the subtle nature of their existence. Whatever it is, they've captured my heart and make me smile every single time I seem them when I pull into the driveway, return from a walk with the boys, or am outside working around the house. My vision for next summer is to have several zinnia gardens around the house. Just thinking about it gets me so excited for what's possible next summer. It does seem fall is just around the corner. While the temps last week were nearly unbearable, 92 with a real feel of 110 several days in a row, this week has been on the cooler side with the evenings and overnight temps dipping into the 60s and even the 50s. Our morning walks have me in jeans and a new favorite flannel shirt I found at the thrift store. Switching over from shorts and sleeveless shirts to jeans and long-sleeved shirts is always one of m...

Fall is definitely in the air. The mornings are cool, enough so that I need a jacket for our walk. The sunflowers are ready to be cut out after the gold finches picked them over until all the seeds are completely gone. And the robins are moving through. I've not seen them all summer, but this morning, quite a few were in the driveway and yard. Yesterday, as I drove home after visiting with a friend for the afternoon, the killdeer seemed to be grouping in preparation for migration. I don't think I've ever seen so many killdeer my entire life. I love living where we have four very distinct seasons. Fall is my favorite of the four. It just seems like we're being told to slow down, relax, enjoy. I really try to listen and do all three as often as possible. I worked a bit in the yard over the weekend, mostly removing the tall sunflower stalks and other ungainly weeds growing alongside the house. I'd left everything alone this summer just to see what was already here, and...

Despite Angel Baby saying he was good walking to work, which, granted, is just more than a mile from the apartment, I went ahead and bought him a car to drive when the weather gets colder. Walking when it's 35 degrees is one thing. Walking when it's 2 degrees with a wind chill of -7 degrees is quite another. I truly don't believe he realizes just how miserable that would be. So, I bought him a 2000 Jeep Cherokee. He claims I bought it for me since it's a manual, which he doesn't know how to operate. Angel Baby's new ride! If I'm being completely honest, I do have to admit I love this vehicle. It's in really good shape, and driving a stick is just plain fun. The Cherokee is very definitely my kind of car, so if Angel Baby says he doesn't want to drive it, I won't be hurt. I'll drive it and enjoy every single second of doing so. I have a hunch, though, that Angel Baby won't have any trouble learning how to drive a stick. He learne...

Mornings are still dark when Ado and I get up and go for our first walk of the day. I see the moon move through its phases if the sky is clear. I watch the crows fly overhead, going from their nightly nesting ground to wherever it is they go for the day. I hear the hoot owls calling to one another. Rabbits zip to the shelter of hedges from openly eating in front yards under cover of darkness. The stillness of this time snuggles around me like a favorite sweatshirt pulled on that first cool morning after a long, hot, muggy summer. Speaking of yellow . . . During my walk home from the Coffeehouse last evening, after sitting for several hours with a friend, talking work and writing, my thoughts turned to how not long from now darkness will settle in by 5 pm. My excuse to pull on pj's and hunker down for the evening. One of my most favorite things to do, and it will last right up until April when I'm ready to shed the layers and get back out into the world again. The last f...

Mist rose from the hillside this morning when Ado and I set out for our walk. The hot days then nights cooling way off effect. The night temps have dipped so much since the rain moved through last week that I've had to wear a sweatshirt for our early morning walks along the still-quiet streets. I love this time of day. Before everything gets hectic. Before someone says something that makes you pause or something happens that makes you just shake your head. The entire day has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny but a cool breeze to keep the heat at bay. The sky without a single cloud. Yesterday on my way to work I noted how there were no clouds whatsoever. When I started home later in the afternoon, the clouds had moved in but they were just puffy white fluffs drifting slowly along. Today I figured the same would happen -- clear blue in the morning but fluffy clouds in the afternoon. I was wrong. There are no clouds. Just the blue expanse. Yesterday Angel Baby arrived home from work...

Ado said absolutely no to the walks today. Just after noon, I took him out in hopes he would walk our usual longer route, but before we'd even made it to the house next door he was stopping and just staring at me. This is his way of saying, "Ummm, not gonna happen." So we returned to the apartment where he immediately settled onto the couch for the afternoon. I then took him out around four, and we did make it along the path by the creek, down to the road then up the hill and back to the apartment. At that point, I knew if I was going to get any exercise, I needed to jump on the bike and go. Look at that beautiful blue! So I did. I stayed on the trail and took the route west. This is probably the least traveled trail section. The westside here is considered undesirable (code for that's where the poor people live), so the not-poor people tend to stay away from that part of town. When I first moved here nineteen years ago, I was advised to not live on the west sid...

Sometimes, as I'm cycling along, I'll see something and feel a pull, actually it's usually more than a pull, it's almost like an incessant, unfulfilled need, to record the something through the lens of my camera. Today, that something was a tree. Maybe this tree became my fixation because Angel Baby and I watched Guardians of the Galaxy last evening and I fell in love with Groot (the idea of a tree being, not the actor playing the tree being). Or maybe this particular tree spoke to me because it is so different than the other trees around it, and I tend to be drawn to that which is different. I was once asked, way back in high school, after moving to a new home and thus starting as a freshman at a new school, if I had been popular at my old school. I remember shrugging, saying I wasn't unpopular. The girl asking the question kind of cocked her head at me, giving me a bit of a quizzical look, then said, "I can see why you were popular. You're different....

Fall announced its presence during the very early hours Thursday morning, seeming to me to be trying to overtake Summer. When I set off for my commute to work, the temp was a chilly 53 degrees, a bit of a change from the mid to high 70's and 90% humidity we've been having. I pulled out my light gloves to keep my mitts from getting chilled during the ride, but I didn't do anything for my ears, and by the time I reached work, my poor ears were aching. Summer is definitely limping towards the finish line this second week of September. While I love summer and the energy that seems to explode with the sun and heat of June, July, and August, fall truly owns my heart. The cool mornings and evenings that call for pulling on a comfy sweatshirt, the crisp air that reaches out and tweaks my nose, the snuggling under the quilt because the windows are open at night, and the sitting around a pit fire with family and friends (and a good pale ale) rank right up there as a few of my favor...

This morning, during my commute to work, I came across three trees covered in scarlet leaves. I've ridden by these trees every single morning and afternoon since August, but it wasn't until this morning, when the sun just started to rise, pushing away the gray of dawn, that I truly noticed the three trees. I slowed, telling myself to take a picture, but then that other voice, the one that tells me I have to hurry, I have to get to work, I have to finish up student work, yeah, that voice, took hold of my feet and made them pedal on. As soon as I was past, a sadness came over me. I'd let that voice win again. I've been working hard to silence that voice, so I'm not sure why it won out this morning.  This afternoon, as I was sitting in my office, I heard the tell-tale sound of rain against the building roof. I stepped out to see just how hard the rain was falling. Torrents of water rushed off the roof, spilling out into the drive where students were arriving for th...

I wasn't even out of the driveway this morning when the geese flew overhead. I could hear them coming before I could see them, so I hurriedly pulled out my camera and tried to get the zoom figured out before they arrived. They were heading south. I was heading north. The chill in the air hinted that fall is just around the corner.

The cycling season is slowly heading towards the day when the bike will be hung up for the winter months. Tree leaves are beginning to show signs of going from green to red or yellow. The corn stands brown and dried, some fields already harvested. Woolly caterpillars inch their way across the roads. The geese gather in strange places: a school yard, a bare soy bean field. And the wind seems to never cease. The calendar shows fall nearing, ready to go shoulder to shoulder against summer and push it out of the way. Summer tries to carry on, with warm days, zinnias still in bloom. Fall has the upper hand, though, bringing earlier sunsets, cooler nights, later sunrises, and morning ground mists. Cycling through these days I feel summer slipping away.

and breezy days mean fall is on its way. Along with it comes less daylight after arriving home from work, which means less time to ride. I know eventually there'll come a day when I won't be able to go out after work as it will be completely dark. Then it will be time to set the bike up in the garage and pedal away in front of the TV. Could be a good way to get in some movies I haven't seen but would like to. Fall is such a beautiful season. Definitely my favorite. There's just something about the fading away that happens. It's like the earth is saying, "Okay, I'm tired. I need to take a nap." I know the feeling--almost every single day I feel that way around 2 p.m. Each day I look forward to that one more detail that says fall is here. Today it was the leaves scattered along the bike path I take to work. The leaves float into the air as my tires wisk past, then settle back down into another haphazard pattern. In a couple of weeks the leaves will cover...

The clouds the last two days have been beautiful. A dark gray blankets the sky, with fluffy, lighter gray clouds piling up at times as they drift in from the west. I just sit and watch. So many days have passed with no rain, no clouds, no wind. The grass was drying up. The flowers were drooping from thirst. In just twenty-four hours, the lawn is greener and the flowers look refreshed. Now lightning is flashing across dark skies. Thunder rumbles. Feels like fall is fast approaching. I started cleaning the garden yesterday evening. The cucumbers have pretty much finished up. We ate cucumbers until we couldn't eat anymore the last month and a half. The green peppers are still producing. They've been on the small side, but I think that's actually because they're from organic seeds, and they've not been touched by pesticides at all. This is the size they're supposed to be, I imagine. And the tomatoes are on their last legs. I'm still getting one or two every coup...