Tag: New England Autumn

The Sourest of Grapes

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , ,

Today I heard an hilarious argument as to why it is cheaper to live in New England than in the South.  The main points of the thesis are that the infrastructure and services available here more than make up for the exorbitant cost of living.  So, for instance, whereas the cost of owning a car in New England (insurance, mechanic’s charges, taxes) are much higher, because the roads are so much better your car will last much longer.  When I heard this, I was thinking about what road salt does to the frame of a car in New England every winter.  And then I thought about my recent drive on I-95 and the craters there that I drove over.

Next up was the world class medical care available in this region of the country and nowhere else.  Now, it is without a doubt true that some very fine doctors and hospitals exist in places like Boston.  But it is also true that there are plenty of really mediocre medical centers and even terrible ones up here.  And I have experienced both so I’m not sure I believe that this is a slam dunk.  I guess if your health is extremely poor this might carry some weight but I have heard of good hospitals sprinkled around the country and in addition if someone is in desperate need of specialized care like a knee replacement or something I’m guessing you could travel for the procedure.  So, let’s call this a 50/50.

But the final point was the best.  The overarching reason to live in New England is “the culture.”  That one I think made me snort out loud.  Apparently going into Boston or New York City to see “Hamilton” or some other masterpiece of middle-brow pomposity is supposed to make up for ridiculous real estate prices, outrageous utility and fuel bills, failing schools and colleges and an, in general, overregulated existence.  And once you add the prevalence of increasing violence and squalor in the urban centers to the equation what exactly is there to extol about this region of the country?

But the participants in this New England pep rally nodded their heads and agreed that no sane individual would even think of packing it in, selling off the family home and buying a bigger house for half the price in a place where you can walk around in February in a light jacket and snow is an oddity that you hear about in stories about Santa Claus.

Well, I guess heaven (or hell) is where you make it.  I will admit that we’ve had a beautiful fall with balmy weather extending almost all the way to Halloween.  But eventually you have to pay the piper and the wind has been blowing pretty hard and the leaves have been stripped from a lot of the trees (except the oaks).  So even these people making believe they live in a wonderland know the awful truth.  After Christmas is over, the really awful stuff will begin.  Even with the milder winters we’ve been having, there are four months of bleak, cold weather waiting for us; January, February, March and April.  That’s a bitter pill.

Seasonal Activities

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , , ,

 

So today is the last official day of summer.  Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox but here in Dunwich fall is well advanced.  The crickets are hiding under stones and digging down to avoid the chill well before sundown.  Their chirping is becoming slower and weaker each day.  The frogs are still enthusiastically croaking and piping in the swamp but even they haven’t got too much longer to go.

We’ve gotten tons of rain in the last couple of weeks so the grass is green again and growing.  But the vegetable garden is on its last legs.  There are some peppers and eggplants almost ready to pick and a couple of butternut squash in a race to ripen before the death of the vines they’re on.  And the flower gardens are down to a few new cone flowers and some black eyed susans that haven’t given up the ghost yet.

Even the dragonflies are so lethargic that I think I could catch them with my hands if I tried.  Camera Girl saw a hummingbird a couple of days ago but they must be ready to head south already.  I haven’t seen any butterflies in the last couple of days so maybe they’re all gone.

So, it’s officially time to shut everything down and winterize the grounds.  All the lawn and pool furniture has to be stored away.  My fence repairs will have to be completed before the ground freezes.  And there are some incidentals.  I have to install a tree swing for Princess Sack of Potatoes.  I’ll use my weight as a test for the branch we’ve selected.  It’s in an odd spot because of a slope but it’s the only convenient branch.  I’ve also got to replace the transmission on my snowblower.  The parts are in but I’m hemming and hawing because I don’t want to do it.  It’s supposed to be straight forward but you know how that is.

Then there’s the rotten wood that needs to be replaced.  I’ve been stalling on that too.  Realistically I can skip this year but I promised myself I’d get the ball rolling and tackle one or two problems before winter.  At the least I should cover the problem areas with some tarps to avoid additional damage.  Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

The shorter days are already noticeable.  After dinner the sun is behind the hill in the west.  The light is gone by seven o’clock.  But the good news is that I mourned the end of summer on the last day of July.  After that I’ve already skipped ahead to thoughts of winter and any incidental good weather is all gravy as far as I’m concerned.  So here I am concentrating on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas to get me through the end of the year and into the new one.

This year I have the elections to distract me from the shortening days and cooling temperatures.  The horror of Biden, Pelosi and Schumer along with their henchmen in the Deep State and the Media should provide stimulation that can’t be overlooked.  After all we could be looking at the official end of the republic as a legitimate political institution.  That’s got to be a noteworthy event to live through.  And even if we are saved by a shocking Republican victory I don’t think that will be something to sleep through.  And who knows, World War III might be in the wings if Biden keeps poking the Russian bear.

And I have a long list of tasks that I can perform indoors.  I’ve got a ton of pictures that need adjusting and all kinds of writing that has to be done so I’ll be anything but bored.

But it’s funny.  Once it gets chilly at night, say in the forties, we close the windows after dark.  And then there’s no outdoor sounds to hear.  No frogs, no owls, no coyotes even.  And that’s a big change.  You become detached from the natural world and plugged into the artificial one.  Electric light takes over and you tend to go to bed later and get up later.  Well, not Camera Girl.  She’s plugged into the dogs’ schedule and they’ll get her up at 6 am even if the apocalypse descends on us.  But I start to stay up later and read too much and watch too much television.

But that’s normal.  We compensate for the change of season as we do.  And there are family activities coming up.  Kids’ soccer games and birthday parties are in the offing.  And it’s almost time to drag out the Universal Classic Monster movies and introduce the youngsters to the hokey joys of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman.  I think I’ll indulge in some popcorn for that film festival.

Okay, Autumn 2022, let’s see what you’ve got.

A Golden November Day

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Sun with no clouds, sixty-three degrees and a light breeze.  Well, you can’t stay in on a day like that.  Camera Girl and I took a walk in the woods today.  We haven’t since September.  It was quiet.  Then we saw why.  The streams that came off of the big lake had dried up.  The spillway from the lake was dry.  November hasn’t been completely without rain but the number of heavy rain days has drastically lowered from previous months.  So, it was quiet and that was fine.  Sun filtered more easily through the trees with only the conifers green.  We talked about the menu for Thanksgiving and we talked about leaves to be raked.  We noticed that none of the few people in the forest we met wore masks and I said that was a good sign.  She told me that very few people in the supermarket wore masks and most of those were elderly.  And I said that sounds good.  But before we knew it we were back at the car.  Just a short hour’s walk, up and down a few hills in the woods.  But it was a fitting tribute to God for gifting us a day this bright and warm, a week before Thanksgiving in New England.

 

AUTUMN (by Aleksandr Pushkin) (translated by Peter France)

…

A mournful time of year! Its sad enchantment

flatters my vision with a parting grace –

I love the sumptuous glow of fading nature,

the forests clad in crimson and in gold,

the shady coolness and the wind’s dull roaring,

the heavens all shrouded in a billowing mist

and the rare gleams of sun, the early hoarfrosts,

and distant grey-beard winter’s gloomy portents.

…

Aleksandr Pushkin (translated by Peter France)

15NOV2021 – OCF Update

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Sony A7 III, Minolta 200mm F\4 Macro lens

 

“The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;”
…
From “Ulalume” by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

I took a walk around to see if there were any photos to be had. And there were a few.  Mostly trees holding onto a precious few dead leaves.  And the sky and the leaves reminded me of those lines from Poe.  And looking it up I noted that Poe was only forty years old when he died.  Well, he was a very strange man with many problems.  But he did capture some very vivid imagery in some of his work.  And late fall is his special time of year.  October, November and December seem to be the time and mood of his prose and poetry.  Maybe Poe could qualify as one of Ray Bradbury’s “October People.”

Autumn is a very good time of the year to be in a warm house and sharing good food and good talk with friends and family.  And Thanksgiving is sneaking up on us so I checked up on Camera Girl’s holiday planning and indeed she assures me that a twenty five pound turkey will be included and that ample and various pies and other desserts will appear on the menu, so everything seems to be in order.

She informed me that Walmart has begun playing Christmas music outside the building.  Apparently broadcasting it will attract holiday shoppers by some sort of sympathetic vibration.  I asked her if the music put her in the holiday spirit and she rolled her eyes at me.  Despite her clear lack of spirit I will be starting my annual Christmas music marathon very soon.  The centerpiece of this program is the album that my parents used to play when I was about ten, “The Little Drummer Boy” by the Harry Simeone Chorale.  When I hear those versions sung I might as well be ten years old again.  For a little while I can forget the horrors of the world around us and bask in the old remembered warmth of being a kid in Real America.

Mid-October Walkabout

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I have said a lot of bad things about New England weather.  Winters here are too long, too cold and involve way too much snow removal.  And all the other seasons are too short and too weird because of the winter bias.  But there is a little slice of Autumn in the middle of October where if things happen just right there are some very cool things moving around in the yard.

 

For instance, we haven’t seen a water snake around the yard all year.

But here at the point where the water snakes will soon head underground for the winter one of them has taken to sunning himself in front of one of the gardens.  He looks as if he’s been feeding extraordinarily well.  I assume all the rain has resulted in a bumper crop of frogs and fish.  He shows up in the afternoon and basks in the sun soaking up the heat he needs to metabolize the food in his stomach.  The temperatures are predicted to start falling into the 30’s at night.  That probably will send this snake underground for the winter.

And when all the other flowers in the yard are almost completely gone two flowers reach their peak in October.

Here’s the Montauk Daisies with two visitors a hover fly shows up for some pollen and nectar.

And a katydid gets to work devouring the leaves.

And the other flower I always look forward at this time of year is Wolfsbane.  Also known as Monkshood, the appearance of it’s bright purple flowers tell me Halloween is right around the corner and time for me to dust off my classic monster movies and quickly finish up my fall yard work.  Snow in late October is far from unheard of.

 

Here’s a salamander who was doing some fall foraging for his last meals.

And here are some interesting shots of milkweed seed pods.

 

I was disappointed not to have any candid shots of the local werewolf community.  Perhaps next week.

Autumnal Mood

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Sony A7 III, Sony 35mm F\1.4

The first day of fall in 2021 is on Wednesday, September 22 at 3.21pm EDT.  Fall is the dying season.  You see it in the leaves changing color and falling to the ground.  You hear it in the desperate chirping of the crickets as they cling to warmth under stones and leaf mold.  You can smell it in the air as the dying leaves begin to decay.  And you can feel it in your head as the air begins to cool and dry out.  And for the old folks you can feel it in your old bones as cold begins to tighten your muscles and tendons.

There will be many beautiful days in September, October and November.  But summer is over and it will impact the way I feel and what I do.  Many people love fall best.  I can understand that.  Many detest the heat of summer.  Especially those living in the deep south.  For them the end of summer is a release from brutal heat and humidity.  But even in southern New England fall is just a prelude from the equally brutal reality of snow and cold.

But the good thing about Autumn is the longer nights.  For someone who spends a lot of time writing, the darkness is the right time to write.  The quiet and darkness of night isn’t interrupted by distracting sights and sounds.  In summer I am often tempted to drop what I’m working on and go out into the world and luxuriate in the heat and light and color and smell of the flowers.  So that’s the bad thing about Autumn.  For a photographer there is the fall foliage and that’s about it.  The butterflies and the dragonflies and the hummingbirds are gone.  In fact, most of the birds disappear.  Hopefully I might see some turkeys but mostly all I’ll hear is the wind and the water.

To compensate we get together with friends and family to celebrate another year and compare notes on children, grandchildren and milestones.  Hopefully we are mostly over the lockdown nonsense.  I would hate to think we have to spend another holiday season in isolation.  That would be a crime.

So, the change of season finds me subdued but not depressed.  There are some hopeful signs out in the political world.  Even the fake news admits that Biden’s job approval rating is underwater and bound to go lower.  A few men have shown some backbone, DeSantis and Abbott.  The mood on the real Right is quietly defiant.  We know we’re in a bad place but at least we aren’t being led by traitors and idiots.  We see what is going on around us with dismay but we are waiting to see if anyone will step forward and do something meaningful.  I’d say we’re being realistic.

Okay, enough gloom and doom.  On the bright side Camera Girl will be cooking and baking splendiferous foods.  Cakes and pies, soups and stews, roasts and sausages.  Everything that makes eating fun.  And of course, classic horror movies to celebrate Halloween.  So, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on.  Autumn here we come.