November Hill farm journal, 222

 Happy fall equinox! I am always in highest spirits when this day rolls around again, but this year it’s almost a life changing event to move into this new and my favorite season. Even if the temps are going to mid-80s, even if I have a hundred things to get done on the farm right now, it’s a turning and I’m happy. 

This week I saw a double rainbow that held a lot of meaning for me too, and I’m grateful for that as well. 

I was already stopped to turn so I had the perfect chance to photograph it. 

On the farm: the deciduous trees are starting to look like they’re considering dropping some leaves. The lush green of summer is fading a bit and the dogwoods are already turning colors. The fall flowers (asters, goldenrod, NY ironweed, mistflower) are blooming, and we have a huge crop of maypops along the front porch this year. 

Apache is one more month healthy, the herd is happy, and the cats and dogs are doing well. 

I have returned to an older writing project after a creative brainstorm at Weymouth and will be doing a final edit of a trilogy that I’ve now condensed into one longer novel. This one has a TV pilot episode all but finished and I’d like to move these out as I move into fall. 

I have a couple of short pieces out on submission and that feels good too.

There’s a breeze blowing over the farm, I’m washing the next-to-last horse blanket today, and other than that my only plan is to relax. 

Welcome, autumn! 

Thank You, Weymouth!

 I am so grateful I had a few days/nights at Weymouth Center For The Arts And Humanities as a writer-in-residence last week. It’s been an intense time here this spring and summer with family matters that have taken up so much space in our lives there was not much room for creative work. 

One of my trilogies is now a single hefty novel with a TV pilot episode to boot, and this is only possible because of a few days of retreat time in which I was able to work and enjoy the support of a long-time writing friend while doing so. 

And Weymouth got a new writer’s kitchen! It’s lovely. Every wall looks different but the stove and vent hood is super nice with the tile backsplash. 

So happy for the time and I am definitely feeling renewed with creative energy. 

Our Fig Tree

 

Our son planted this fig tree close to 20 years ago. It was a tiny tree that has taken root and thrived. The past few years it’s been growing huge numbers of very large figs that are feeding our family, offering joy to parents, son, and now my son’s own children. It’s been a true blessing this summer and now on into fall, as we continue to pick the fruit and enjoy the time together as we share this harvest. 

The fig tree symbolizes strength, resilience, power, protection, and longevity. 

All these things have special meaning in our family right now and I’m so grateful to this beautiful tree for providing them for us. 

As I look at the photo, behind and to the left, I see a sunny clearing. I didn’t notice it as I took the photo, but in this moment I realize it’s Keil Bay’s gravesite, with Salina buried just past him. 

Of course Keil Bay and Salina were both strong personalities, loving friends to my family, powerful, protective, and long-lived in body and eternally in spirit. 

We are surrounded by this energy here on November Hill and I feel it every single day. 

Wild Geese, reprised

 It’s time - these two poems capture so much for me, and every autumn I read them again. 

The Wild Geese

Wendell Berry, 1934-

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer’s end. In time’s maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear,

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye

clear. What we need is here.

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver, 1935-

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

November Hill farm journal, 221

 The natives have taken over and the birds and insects love it! I’m taming things a little where needed, but here at summer’s downhill slide, leaving the things that serve this little/big ecosystem I live in. 

Whenever I glance out the windows there are birds flying by, insects wafting and hovering, and so much activity as they forage the native plantings. It’s a rich and vibrant ecosystem and there will be all winter to tidy things up.