Farewell, November

November 30th, the last day of "my" autumn.

Tomorrow, December 1st 

will be the beginning of the Christmas season in my house.

I'm looking forward to lots of Christmas decorating,

tree trimming, wreath hanging, and cookie baking--but not today, not yet.

www.luizalazar.deviantart.com

Today, I say good-bye to November

with this quote by the writer Lin Yutang (1895-1976):

"I like spring, but it is too young. 

I like summer, but it is too proud. 

So I like best of all autumn, 

because its tone is mellower, 

its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. 

Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, 

nor the power of summer, 

but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. 

It knows the limitations of life and it's content."

~

And so it is with the striking of the midnight hour here in the Shire,

I'll say good-bye to warm  russet reds and golds,

bright oranges and  deep yellows

and I will say hello to red and green, silver and gold.

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The Interval

Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah behind us,

Christmas and Kwanzaa ahead.

Once the calendar shows December,
I concede that autumn is almost officially over and winter about to begin.

But in the interval between Thanksgiving and December 1st,

I cling to the colors and pleasures of autumn.

I figure a month for the Christmas holidays is enough,

so why rush so quickly away from autumn?

Bittersweet is one of the things I love about Fall.

When I was a kid, bittersweet grew wild over the old fences and hedgerows.

I have always loved its rich red-orange berries and vining habit.

www.nativetreesociety.com

Another part of autumn that brings me pleasure:

the last few leaves clinging to the trees

and the intense brightness of the daylight 

that spills through the bare branches:

www.news.bbc.co.uk

And sumac berries, how could one think of autumn

without thinking of them?

www.en.wikipedia.org

And the sumac's leaves in autumn ignite fire in the landscape:

www.trekearth.com

Lao Tzu said, "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."

A good thing to remember this time of year.

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Happy Thanksgiving 2013

Our rainy and windy weather moved out overnight

in time for Thanksgiving to arrive with crisp temperatures and bright sunshine.

As we have the last few years, we drove to the country for dinner.

Thanksgiving is late this year,

so all the cotton fields had been picked except for a couple 

that appeared to have fallen victim to the excessive rain.

And the soybean fields lining the road were a deep rich ocher color.

Michael W. Twitty, www.afroculinaria.com

I love driving out through Isle of Wight county in the fall.

Here and there, old vine-covered houses and shacks with tin roofs

settle back into the overgrowth.

This is old plantation country, and large expanses of fields 

still sweep toward the horizon on either side of the road,

stopping only when they reach a thick forest of trees.

www.panoramio.com

I saw wild turkeys picking their way across the stubble of a corn field,

and there were 5 deer: one was a buck with big antlers and a white tail.

Swarms of black birds filled the sky, 

and Canadian geese lounged around a pond,

while a lone seagull pretended to blend in.

We drove home as the shadows were lengthening

and everything glowed golden from the setting sun.

Really beautiful.

Hope your day was as lovely as ours.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

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Thanksgiving Turkey Vulture?

I don't know when the turkey vultures

decided that my neighborhood looked like a good place

for them to set up housekeeping,

but they are here and show no signs of departing.

Today as I drove out of the neighborhood,

I noticed that two of the light poles 

were covered with several turkey vultures each.

The vultures were all facing the same direction 

(the same way I was going) 

but oddly, each one of them  had their wings spread wide.

I don't know if they were trying to dry them off

or if they were just pretending to be eagles.

The trees at the north end of the lake 

were black with turkey vultures--none with wings spread.

AP file photo. www.11alive.com

Later, when I returned home, 

I noticed the light poles and the trees

were vulture-free.

But then I turned onto the avenue that leads to my house.

OMG as they say nowadays.

There were almost two dozen turkey vultures lining both sides of the street,

so I had to drive right through them.

Two turkey vultures in the middle of the street 

picked at a carcass while others watched for a chance to take their turn.

An early Thanksgiving treat for them.

More like Halloween for me.

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Squirrel Stew for Thanksgiving?

Most people who follow tradition roast a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

Other people may serve ham or venison.

One of my sisters follows a tradition in her family

for Thanksgiving dinner; they always serve a pork and green salsa chili.

Some folks prepare a squirrel stew.

I'm not one of them.

In my house, since I'm a vegetarian, I prepare all the side dishes

like mashed potatoes, candied yams, green bean casserole, and stuffing.

No turkey. No ham. No squirrel.

www.southernsavers.com

I was thinking of such things today as I watched a squirrel

on one of our bird feeders.

It turned very cold yesterday, 

so when I saw Mr. Squirrel perched on the arch of the shepherd's hook

that holds our "squirrel proof" feeder, I wondered what he was up to.

www.wayfair.com

His tail was fluffed and curled over his back and rested between his ears.

I figured he was trying to keep warm, 

and I admired the muscles outlined in his legs and the power and grace 

with which he moves.

But then he moved on to the roof of the house-shaped feeder, 

the one with a bar that closes the seed tray when his weight settles down on the lever.

He leaned over, stretched out his long back,

grabbed the lever with both of his tiny paws

and pulled the lever up, exposing the seed tray. 

Clever. 

He stuck his snout in and supped.

www.twistylane.blogspot.com

I'm sure this week, Mr. Squirrel is thankful

that he is still smarter than most humans.

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Thanksgiving Tips and Recipes for Creative People

Preparation for Thanksgiving dinner

includes a lot of meal planning, grocery shopping, and meal preparation.

Not to mention house cleaning, decorations and place settings.

Taken all together, it's a lot of work but

there is an abundance of tips and recipes for making your Thanksgiving memorable,

courtesy of the Internet.

I can't say this ever occurred to me, 

but I guess if you're having that many people to dinner,

you might need a short cut like this:

www.heavenlyhomemakers.com

While the potatoes are cooking and people are milling around hungry,

serve up a turducken cheeseball. 

Fortunately, you can make this in advance. ;-)

www.huffingtonpost.com

Before folks fill up on the turducken cheese ball,

remind them that dinner will be ready soon 

and they won't want to ruin their appetites.

After all, there is the stuffing to look forward to.

You can get creative there also. What about a little "stuffin"? 

That's stuffing baked into individual muffin pans.

Too conventional?

Then how about stuffing pizza?

 http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2010/11/22/stuff-this-top-10-most-creative-stuffing-recipes/

I think I would have to decline an invitation for that kind of pizza.

So often at the end of a Thanksgiving meal, 

we have to decide between the pumpkin and the apple pie.

Solve that problem this year by baking a cherpumple pie cake.

www.castlesandcooks.com

I don't even want to see what some people are going to do with the turkey.

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Shadows on the Wall

This time of year, as more and  more of the autumn leaves bid farewell

to the trees in the Shire, something that I call "the light show"

begins on the inside walls of my house.

When the sunlight is just so, and the wind catches the branches just right,

 the remaining leaves begin to dance in shadows across the walls.

Like reflections on water, like glitter on gold,

they glimmer in arabesques and jetés of light.

It never gets old.

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Thanksgiving Decorations Inside and Out

I love the holidays:

the food, the fun, the time off from work, the decorations.

Since well before Halloween, Christmas products and decorations

have been in the stores,

but I'm one of those people who likes to observe my holidays one at a time.

And that means I'm still looking forward to Thanksgiving and the harvest decor.

I love the warmth and simplicity of this Thanksgiving table:

www.mapsoul.com

I saw these next decorations

and remembered I have some of the little orange berry arrangements around here.

I'm going to have to look for those, but I don't have a clue where I might have put them.

www.bloombety.com

Glass gives naturals a sophisticated air:

I think this autumn leaf arrangement is beautiful:

www.decorforall.com

But you can't beat this: pumpking pie under the warm glow of  twinkle lights:

www.arborpoint.com

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Reflections on Falling Leaves

This morning for the first time in a long time,

I had time to look out the window 

and watch the breeze blowing through the trees.

It's funny the way the wind can make the leaves 

seem to boil and bubble.

www.motherlyloving.com

Attached to their branches, the leaves dangle or rock or sway.

Sometimes they wiggle just a little 

or jump up and down,

or twist and turn.

If they were weren't so soft, they would rattle.

What a symphony that would be.

I noticed that depending on the type of leaf,

they all fall differently.

Some drift,

some waft,

some spiral and spin.

www.cosmosmagazine.com

Sometimes one leaf takes off alone,

other times they come down in twos or tens or more.

 

If I were a leaf, I think I would hang on tight to my branch

until the last possible moment.

I'd watch as my companions drifted away.

But I would wait.

I'd wait until I heard a whisper saying

let go now,

let go.

And then I would fly away on invisible wings

and feel the sunshine.

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World Hello Day

I ran across a couple of interesting observances 

that take place November 21st each year;

No Music Day, established in 2005 to protest bad music 

being played in public places, and World Hello Day,

an annual global event created in 1973 to promote world peace.


The objective of No Music Day is to observe a day without "consuming"
the background music being played in so many public buildings.
Bill Drummond, the creator of No Music Day,
says that music has become cheapened through its overuse in commercial spaces.
So the observance is focused on refusing to listen to music
others have selected in order to manipulate you into buying more products.




On the other hand, World Hello Day
hopes to bring the world a bit closer
by inviting people to connect with one another.
To observe World Hello Day,
one has only to say hello to 10 people they meet.
With or without music.
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A Gaggle of Geese

Yesterday morning I drove to work along a local parkway

that winds through neighborhoods and passes by a lake --

the same lake where I saw all the snowy egrets evenly spaced along the shore.

Suddenly all the traffic on both sides of the parkway came to a full stop.

That in itself isn't unusual in an area with more than its share of traffic jams,

but traffic rarely stalls on the parkway at that time of day.

www.distancecalculator.com

When I got closer, I could see what everyone was sitting and waiting for:

a gaggle of Canadian geese who had decided to cross the road

at their own sloooooow pace.

And when I say gaggle I mean not a few 

but dozens of geese streaming from the lake to a green space on the far side of the road.

Cars idling, drivers waiting, geese sauntering in the autumn sunshine.

Sometimes, that's all it takes.

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And then the Cold...

From warm summer-like days 

to the frigid chill of late autumn, 

our weather has been on a roller coaster this week.

On the warm days, I lamented all the leaves that had fallen

on my freshly cleaned deck and sidewalks.

Now that the temperature is in the mid-40s,

I don't care at all.

I'm only thinking of ways to avoid going outside.

www.boston.com

Marcel Proust said: 

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.

I'm not so certain he was speaking literally,

but when the weather gets colder, I do recreate my world:

I turn my house into a little nest 

and try to stay warm.

And if I could, I  might just stay inside until the first warm day of spring.

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The Wind, the Rain, and the Leaves

After all of my work cleaning up pine straw and fallen leaves on Sunday,

I was looking forward to opening the back door this morning

and stepping out onto a clean deck.

But it seems my work was for naught.

Overnight, there was a little breeze, a little rain,

and a lot of fallen leaves all over every surface.

The leaf cover was more than this:

de.dreamstime.com

But not as much as this:

www.123rf.com

It was a little more like this:

www.fineartamerica.com

Even so, it was more than I wanted to see.

But that's why they call it "Fall."

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Indian Summer

One of the things I have always liked about living in the Shire

is our long growing season.

Often we can get all the way to Thanksgiving without a killing frost.

And because our average winter temperatures are usually above freezing,

it's possible to see roses blooming in January. 

Photo: www.billfortney.com

And today was one of those gems: 

a gorgeous late autumn day full of sunshine and temperatures in the 70s.

Lots of people worked outside doing the rest of the autumn clean up--

me included. 

I also planted hydrangeas that I had rooted earlier this spring

and some sedum that has been waiting patiently for planting.

At one point, I looked up from what I was doing

and was startled at how beautiful the trees were in the sunlight:

so many different shades of orange and yellow and red.

The light glowed.

www.imagekind.com

Ironic that it's the cooler fall temperatures that cause the leaves to turn 

from cool to warm.

Sometimes things are perfect just the way they are,

especially when a summer day pops up in November.

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Turkey Decorations

Talking Turkey

I was thinking about Thanksgiving today 

and the different ways Americans decorate for the holiday.

More and more, a lot of people skip from Halloween to Christmas.

Yet there remains a steadfast handful who insist on giving Thanksgiving

its due as an important day of celebration.

www.huffingtonpost.com

I'm sure those of us a certain age can recall

placing our hands on a piece of construction paper

and then tracing around our fingers to create a basic turkey shape

for further decorating.

So I was wondering what kind of turkey decorations are out there nowadays.

You can't go wrong with one of these old-fashioned folding paper turkeys:

Felt and ribbons? I'm pretty sure my pekes would make this a chew toy:

www.shop.crackerbarrel.com

I like these turkeys made from naturals:

www.digsdigs.com

These "cup" turkeys from Family Holiday

are cute and very clever,

but I think it would be a cuter idea to use small terracotta pots

Leave it to Martha Stewart to cast her own turkeys from dyed cement:

www.marthastewart.com

Most of us aren't as ambitious as Martha,  

preferring instead to keep it a bit more simple:

http://inspirationforhome.blogspot.com/2011/11/10-thanksgiving-kids-craft-decorations.html

Yarn ball, anyone?

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Oak Trees

Contemplating Oak Trees and their Leaves in November

It occurred to me the other day as I was looking out the window

at the tiny stand of trees behind my house,

that I have lived near oak trees my entire life.

The bounty of acorns, the rough gray bark, the lobed leaves

have been a constant no matter where I have lived.

www.forestertreeservice.com

The place I grew up hosted part of an historic stand of trees called Winfrey Grove.

My mom told me once that the oak trees in Winfrey Grove, 

which overlapped the south part of our property,

provided a common meeting place for residents of the township.

I always thought that was pretty cool.

I've long indulged in what I call "tree gazing."

No matter how busy I am,

I always find a few moments to stare at the trees 

and study their unique features.

It's nice to know that oaks are always near me,

standing and watching the world go by.

www.ohio-nature.com

Oak leaves are tenacious and abiding.

Most of the leaves have already departed other trees,

but the oak leaves stay till spring.

Right now they are yellow, green, and a dull copper brown.

Tomorrow, who knows?

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Thanksgiving Table Decorating Ideas

I love holidays. For me, decorating for a holiday

is always one of the most enjoyable parts of the celebration.

So with Thanksgiving just two weeks from now,

I thought I'd share some Thanksgiving table ideas.

Isn't this one cute? It's got autumn leaves and pumpkins,

and a little surprise:  pheasant feathers. 

www.gemmbook.com

This is a novel idea: pillar candles that spell out "giving thanks."

The simple autumn arrangement, construction paper leaves, and Windsor chairs

at the table give this tablescape an old-fashioned feel:

www.countryliving.com

I love this idea: pumpkins filled with dried autumn flowers and naturals.

I like that the color scheme is orange, gold, and brown.

I've seen some tables decorated all in ivory and gold only, 

or all purple--neither has the warm and festive feel that you get with earth colors:

www.diggsdiggs.com

There are lots of ideas for decorating the holiday table,

but candles and flowers are must-haves.

These orange ranunculus are breathtaking:

www.beeboats.com

Aren't Thanksgiving dinners best when enjoyed in the glow of candles?

www.beeboats.com

I'm pretty sure all the Martha Stewarts out there would agree.

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Norfolk Harbor

This time of year, darkness falls early.

And this fall, my work schedule

 is such that I drive home  long after twilight. 

On Monday and Wednesday, I work in Norfolk and

drive home over the Berkley Bridge, which spans the Elizabeth River.

Even after all these years, I never get tired of the view from that bridge.

You can see the Berkley Bridge in the upper right of this day-time photo 

from Destination 360 on the web:

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/virginia/norfolk

On clear November nights, the water in the harbor is black, the sky inky.

But there are lights everywhere, all reflected in the dark water.

This photo by "Wind Warrior" is taken from the Portsmouth side of the harbor. 

The Berkley Bridge isn't visible in this photo, 

but you can see how beautiful the lights are. 

Visit Wind Warrior's web site for more photos of Norfolk.

http://svwindwarrior.blogspot.com/2013/10/chesapeake-city-to-norfolk-va.html

From the Bridge, the Norfolk skyline is at my right; the view ahead of  me 

is the Portsmouth waterfront and, near the bottom of the bridge, a small shipyard. 

In the shipyard, all the brick buildings, the ships, and the massive cranes are lighted.

Red lights shine in the water, and green ones,  blue ones, gold, and white.

A rainbow by night.

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