Dull and quiet, the sky of looming winter hovers close to
earth most days now; a blanket of peace settling on a landscape that has ceased
to strive in abundance and ebbs to rest in latent age. No more will the
hosts of vibrant colors vie for attention in splendid panoply. The time
of completion and maturity lends to simple monotones of grey a noble elegance
and softened beauty. Highest of births, greatness of growth and
experience of fruition will yield the realization of a hoary crown needless of
more testimony to labor.
The year is completing its last work in laying
away the seed of a new birth yet to come. Aubrey gave the iris their
annual “hair-cut” while I completed the annual window-swabbing yesterday.
The wood pile has grown, albeit a little sluggishly due to the greater looming
project of root-cellar building. We pulled up enduring tomato plants with
their cages and posted strong picket lines of the ungainly wire contraptions
like sentries around apple trees and blueberry bushes against the onslaught of
hungry deer. Sam plowed the garden under the other day and all that
remains of the bounty are ragged scraps of vine and drab mounds of bare
earth. The tractors already sport their winter chains and Mama mulched
the blueberry bushes with pine-needles (blueberries love nice acidic soil),
while I still need to mulch my hydrangea bush and cut down the last of my
flower garden that sports frost-seared spikes.
The lively business of readying for winter around here would
probably resemble a disturbed ant-hill from the perspective of an aerial view
time-lapse. All the activity is a tacit acknowledgment of an urgency not
unlike the spirit that hastens men to hustle into ranks at the call of a
commander before a battle. No one takes firm hold of a spade unless he
intends to dig, or buys seed unless he intends to plant. Only a fool
gathers wood and block to build nothing, or collects books he does not intend
to better himself by. And we never gather everything together and put it
all away and tie this down and cover that up without the firm assurance that we
haven’t ever done it quite soon enough to beat the invading rush of the arctic.
Especially in the woods, there is the general sense of
“battening down the hatches.” Like the lights of a house blinking out at
night, everything curls up and retreats for a long sleep. The ruddy
“berries” on the right are a woodsy herald of fall just as Bloodroot is the
first sign of spring. Some of you probably recognize the brilliant seed-pod
of the exotic wild orchid native to Minnesota, the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Most don’t know the baneful mosquito proves her worth in being the only species
that can pollinate and thus propagated this remarkable plant. Needless to
say we were not short on mosquitoes this year, since forest floor around the
farm is literally bespangled with these Christmas-red pods. Plants and
animals, with the blessed gift of instinct from the Creator, know better than
to wait until the first snow flies to prepare for the coming lack of
food. This is the second year in a row that our raspberry bushes have
bowed under the weight of late autumn berries after the first frost; and
yesterday two squirrels chased each other madly across the yard, one with his
face full of a nut, the other very apparently wanting one. Extra bounty
at harvest is never a mistake, and the wise observer doesn’t disregard the
hint. The cold is not great yet, but it is settling in with a kind of
determined energy.
The biggest race against time this week was the root cellar
roof. The boys poured a thick concrete slab that will be insulated with
at least two feet of earth. If they can manage to put the door in soon, we will
have the capability to dispel pyramids of jars and mountains of potatoes among
which we are nearly buried.
Frankly, the cellar is an engineering masterpiece. It
couldn’t be anything else with Daddy on the team. Everything he builds
stands as a lasting and sturdy testimony to his painstaking work. When
they troop in to dinner, the men wear daubs of cement with dustings of gravel
and sand and scratched and dented fingers permeated with the distinct odors of
tractor fuel and musty earth. I washed Ben’s jeans yesterday and found a
few determined gobs of hardened concrete yet clinging tenaciously to them when
I pulled them from the dryer.
It is our earnest hope to finish the project in the next few
days, and in the spirit of the “lighthearted” Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, “the
bright side of it is...” if cellar is finished, as long as we don’t faint from
exhaustion in a Minnesota winter tramping the extra 50 yards to fetch a can of
tomatoes, at least we won’t die from lack of exercise in the next six
months. “Very likely…” what with being tired of canned tomatoes and
mashed potatoes, and having next to nothing to do and living in such close
quarters for such a long time, “we’ll hardly notice the weather!” J
To be quite honest, rather than having “next to nothing to
do,” I find that my list of winter projects has grown so prodigiously, I am
already relegating some to next year’s toll. What winter undertakings are
on your lists, I wonder?
This year is about to roll over one more time to tuck his
chin in under the covers and then we too must nestle in to short cozy days and
long warm nights indoors.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire and Christmas treat
Craig, Karen
and The Six Arrows
1 comment:
Hello Lenz Family! We are fellow Minnesotans living in Cottage Grove. Laurie Renfro gave me your name and I am happy to have found you here! We were at the Gospel Centered Marriage Conference in NC recently and made some sweet connections. Do you all plan to attend the Food and Family Conference in TX next summer? Please visit our daughter's blog at armourclan.blogspot.com. We would love to get together sometime with you all!!! Blessings in Jesus, Jennifer for the Armours
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