Month: October 2020

Autumn against the wall

It’s late October and I want to sit on the south side of the old shed, an autumn afternoon’s slanting sunshine on my face, the weathered red boards and my shadow at my back. Today takes me back to that spot, immerses me in memories of when I soaked up the fading warmth of the sun before cold nights and the first snow that stayed under pewter clouds grimacing in the biting winds.

The shed was part grainery, part storage and always home to mice, the mice that never smelled a feed sack they couldn’t chew open. A barn cat was locked in the granary overnight for hunting duty but it didn’t buy into the job. Horse collars, long retired, hung on the wall next to a broadcast seeder that in spring had filled in the spots the wheeled oats drill missed. There was a scythe with a dull blade on the wall, and a tannish baseball inexplicably stuck into a dog collar that hung on a nail.

The sun both soothed and enhanced my senses, already saturated with fall smells of dying grass and fallen leaves. From the other side of the boards through a broken window pane came the waft of spilled oil and fresh oats. I would stare at the pasture and woods for the next passing of anxious blackbirds or a love-struck buck. Across the fields a neighbor’s dog barked. Or was that migrating geese in the distance?

In his book, “The Seasons of America Past,” Eric Sloan writes, “We have actually come to believe today that we must either progress or retrogress … there is no such thing as intelligently remaining stationary.”

I was neither progressing or retrogressing on the south side of the shed. But I remember contentment in my stationary being in late autumn’s sun.

Into the weather

I normally accept weather as it’s handed out, because weather is going to be weather whether I whine or not. So I’m gracious on the good days, stoic on the bad days. I like to ignore the rain and go for a walk, defy the cold and go for a run, and always stay out in the snow, listening for the whisper of white landing on my wool.

But I do prefer my Octobers with some measure of warmth from the slant of the afternoon sun as the crispness of morning settles into a soft breeze to stir the leaves and my ambitions. I like the color of the month, and then the branches as they bare against a blue autumnal sky, revealing nests that were the birds’ task of spring, birds and their young ones now flown away. I love the quiet gathering of darkness after a golden sunset, so still I can hear acorns fall and squirrels scurry in the leaves.

But not this October, not since that first golden week. We settled into too-cool temperatures, too much wind, chilly rain and then those 5 inches of snow on the 20th day of the month, exactly 2 months before the winter solstice. The woodland trail is soggy as I slog for firewood, and the tree stand waits for me as I wait for a bit warmer temperatures in which to hunt deer silently and still, not shivering from the chill.

Yes, I accept the weather but also wait on it, for the sun, the geese against the blue sky, and someone mentioning the last feel of summer. There is firewood to cut, grouse to flush, deer trails to find and wait along, and sandhill cranes to hear barking across the sky, winging high and southward.

The long-range forecast is favorable as Halloween week carries us into November. Favorable for sunshine and temperatures into the 40˚s, perhaps even 50˚. I count on October to exit as nicely as it entered. With that thought I’m going into the weather, hoping it comes along with some warm enthusiasm.

Hunt of many directions

All my shotgun would knock down on this day would be apples. I was hunting for ruffed grouse, but I found smooth-skinned apples, field rocks, bittersweet berries and a hornet nest. That was fine, to just let the autumn day take me in whatever direction for whatever observation it wanted me to absorb.

The tree in the pasture between the woodlot and brush was cleared of apples only as high as a deer can reach. The deer needed some help, so I beat the October winds to the task. I pointed my long-barreled shotgun straight up and tapped branch after branch. Apples tumbled to the ground and rolled to a rest in wet grass. Red on green. A deer’s delight tonight.

I headed back for the woods and the birdy-looking brush. I displaced some grouse without dispatching any. I pushed on, simply happy that a grouse hunt meanders on the whims of wings in October’s color.

Along the fence line I stumbled over a leaf-covered rock pile I did not remember being there. The rocks would be easy pickings if I wanted some in our yard and gardens. But if I took some, would I disturb the homes of weasels and chipmunks and a hundred species of insects, all burrowing in for winter?

Not far away a grayish bald-faced hornet’s nest hung from a branch about 12 feet up in a small maple tree, which was intent on shedding golden leaves and exposing nature’s construction of wonder. By this time in autumn the hornets are dead save for the queen, who will ride out winter nestled under the bark or in the crevice of an old tree. Hornets won’t use the nest again. It would look nice in the back porch. I noted the location.

The hunt moved past the bright orange berries of bittersweet vines and crimson leaves of blackberry bushes. I paused, staring at the color, wondering what direction to take. My pensive pause flushed a wary grouse. I followed its flight.

Autumn’s grace

The breeze seemed to pause along the fence line, perhaps to wonder at the same maple tree draped in hues of yellow, orange and red that had captured my gaze. Then the breeze picked up, rustling the leaves against the blue sky.

It was the perfect autumn day, swinging my moods from frustration to inspiration, anxious to gracious. And not without a hint of frustration again as I asked myself: Do I have to leave this woodland wonderland?

But I settled on the inspiring positive, tracing the soft flow of the land as it showed off brilliant color before it lets go of another season. There was a sweet contentment in the easy resignation that this was the last act, albeit a glorious one.

What is it that wraps one in heavy emotions of nostalgia and reflection on such a day in autumn? Are our memories that rich, that close to the surface, of the blazing maple hills beyond the homes of our childhood?

Perhaps the end of a season so beautiful but too short gives us cause to pause and consider our own end. If autumn all around us is so glorious, wouldn’t we wish for the same when our personal harvest is over? Do the loved ones who have gone before us come more sweetly to mind as we recall how they loved this season, how they’d love to see it again.

And so we realize how fortunate we are to be wrapped in another autumn, watching how gracefully nature moves on. A leaf falls, but it has its place on the forest floor. We would be best served to accept the same cycles of life and find our place.