God visits the earth - Spring

The lowering mottled gray of the sky broke at sunset last night and glory

spilled over the sullen landscape while the evening breeze, laden with the

scent of a late spring thunderstorm, swept the tree-tops with his sultry

breath.  The sky rained in purply gold and every drop was a living jewel,

every sundry puddle a limpid mirror that cast back the flame of the western

sun and every stretch of road was a paved highway of burnished gold.

Everything is green now... that deep livid green of summer.  The fields and

woods and hills are overflowing with it.  The world is all emeralds and

vermilions and deep olives and iridescent viridians and verdant glowing

yellow-green.  We dig and plant and till and weed, but there is only One who

can "make it come alive."

Psalm 65

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being girded with might;
who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

Six Arrows Farm Update

It begins to be pleasant to be indoors now because of the deepening chill...but it is still even more pleasant to be out of doors because of the bracing air.  Everything alive is going to sleep, but the sun of a hundred summer days is being coaxed out of the earth by stretching frosty nights until, even on a cloudy day, the wind smells exotic and rich like a breath out of the orient.

The dark arms of the trees strike out against shades of azure so arrestingly beautiful they take my breath away. 

A growing crowd of winter wraps are hugging the hooks by the front door...masses of heavy coats capped by the light jackets and swathed in trailing scarves.  Minnesotans have a distinctive penchant for winter fashion and, small wonder, we especially love our coats.  The polar fleece vest and the heavy down snow coat, the formal trench coat and the light jacket all hold their own indispensable place.

In our house at least, winter garments far outnumber summer garments...and astronomically outweigh them.  All my favorite clothes belong in this category.  I love bundling up in them.  Scarves to settle my chin into, layers to wrap around my shoulders, socks to cozy my toes.  There is comfort and security and rest wrapped up in the look and feel and smell of winter clothes.  Yes the smell...they spend hours imbibing the scents of countless fires, settling onto the creaky family room couch with hundreds of comfortable guests in the light of aforementioned fires and saturating the rich aromas of a thousand piping winter dinners.  A thick wool sweater evokes images of some of our favorite things on the farm...steaming cups of coffee and tea, snow, early mornings, long days cutting wood, good books.

Something about all the tucking away and storing up inspires its own kind of anticipation...similar to the keen thrilling craving that comes in spring for plowing and sowing.  I find myself nearly ready to open a seed catalogue again with relish...but not until we have completely buried ourselves in the hot, spicy, steamy, gregarious, bursting-at-the-seams Thanksgiving kitchen.

Better even than eating good food is planning it...conjuring up images of everything that brings comfort to the palate and hence enthusiasm and contentment to the conversation.  Right about now I am dangerous on a shopping trip.  My eyes are bigger than our refrigerator and cupboards combined.  Mama and I couldn’t resist the dates on our grocery trip today...she said “dates in your oatmeal” and I grabbed extra boxes.  Every kind of food sounds appealing...to make.  And I’m not even dreaming about eating anything yet!  This is the special privilege of the cook...a double measure of anticipation.  Our fresh diet is still supplied almost exclusively from the farm...loads of steamy squash, smooth buttery potatoes, strong sweet onions.  Throw in a favorite herb and some frozen beans, pull a savory so-tender-it-falls-apart-in-your-hands chicken out of the crock-pot, drench the potatoes with gravy from the drippings and eat like a king.  I am beginning to plan for bacon and eggs or ham and cloves and the pigs are nearly ready for market. 

The last market just rolled into the gathered endeavors of the year.  The remaining bounty is for us to enjoy.  When we are powerless to bring food for ourselves from the ground, we are made glaringly aware of our absolute reliance on our Maker.  The time will come to break out the first jar of tomatoes, the first bag of beans...when we will be compelled day by day to give thanks.

God thunders wondrously with his voice;
he does great things that we cannot comprehend.
For to the snow he says, 
‘Fall on the earth,’
likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour.
He seals up the hand of every man,
that all men whom he made may know it.
Then the beasts go into their lairs,
and remain in their dens.
From its chamber comes the whirlwind,
and cold from the scattering winds.
By the breath of God ice is given,
and the broad waters are frozen fast.

~Job 37:5-10

Listen to the farewell songs of the birds that fly away south, telling their tales of foreign climes and balmy glades; then pull your hat down over your ears, drag your socks up past your boot tops and whistle the merry brittle tunes of winter down their soaring wake to speed them away from the frigid blast.  They’ll not come home till the new season wends round at the appointed time; and here we’ll bide awhile without them in good cheer, with faith in our Father to bring the year round.

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

Six Arrows Farm Update

I tasted the spice of fall last night on my way to the root cellar and it surprised me like the unexpected visit of an old friend.  The sweltering August sun fades into the hazy glow of September and Indian Summer is a glowing veil drawn over this threshold between summer and fall; a time for the dying season to yield with dignity to the chilling of the waning year and cast a glance of plenty over its shoulder before going to sleep.  Granted, summer still clings to nearly everything in livid green, but here and there a leaf or branch has dared to don the finery of autumn and flaunt it before a host soon to be clamoring in flames of color.

When I was little this farewell nod of the world to summer unsettled me, just as I could never relish the sound of a minor key in music.  I thought nothing should mar the effervescence of a major chord until I learned that the most beautiful resolutions can blossom out of the deepest melancholy.  I wished spring could come again and again to renew and burst forth perpetually until I understood that to have that, I would have to forgo fruit.  The old year will grow cold and roll around whether we wish it or no.  This is the most difficult part about a requiem...the time of its coming is not left to our choosing...yet we are given the gift of singing it...and what a glory and a joy this can be when the fruit of joyful expectation and certainty of hope rises out of the depths of pathos.  So also in the passing of a season there is the joy of expectation.  The certainty of a bright return of everything good.  Harvest is richness and plenty is promise not only in themselves, but also because they provide for the length of days between now and the fulfillment of another promise and another harvest.

Mama and I cut zinnias and snapdragons for market this Friday in the purply evening light.  So blissfully peaceful was the world nodding in the twilight.  Mama turned to me and said, "Look at the beautiful sky...how it makes everything look pretty."  I turned and faced the closing of the day.  Our pea fence and ranks of tomatoes stood out in bold relief against the magnificent panorama of the western sky; the deepest of azure blue flanked with amber clouds lined in flagrant flaming gold.  Every shade and hue was saturated and bursting with vivid glory.  Mama was right.  The glory of the sky lent a sublime and illuminating splendor to everything, drenching the garden with golden light.  The flowers will not look the way they did that night on someone's table today.  The beauty they will bring to a home is of another kind, not marred, but amended.  Tomorrow they will wither and fade away.  And it is fitting that it should be so for the present.  If they were to last forever, their beauty would be cheapened and commonplace.  In their time, they breath the freshness and joy of the garden into a home and masterfully fulfill the role for which they were created...adornment.  So does every shifting beauty in the earth become a passing testimony to an immovable reality.  Transient creation day and night praises the eternal Creator.

We are preserving and freezing in expectation...capturing this passing plenty for days of winter barrenness. Wonderful panoply of color, flavor, and texture is heaped in the caverns of our chest freezers and falls into ranks of jars along groaning shelves.  From a short hiatus with rice as our primary starch when last year’s potatoes finally gave out, we transition back to  “spuds”...for the present fresh dug from the warm earth, later to be wrested from the depths of the root cellar.  Apple pie (made with apples that ripened from blossoms on our own trees) is permeating the house with its quintessential zesty sweetness this blessed minute.

As a side note...a new member of Six Arrows Farm arrived this morning and is strutting her style on the turf of the hen pasture.  We think this shot of her deserves a good caption...any ideas?

Six Arrows Farm Update

Hands and weeds…words on my mind fairly often lately…truly ever since the garden burst into full-blown growth of summer with the rest of the countryside. Our hands are slowly gaining the stiff, leathery feel that weeding yields, while my right index finger sports this year’s callous and every crevice harbors a minuscule deposit of dirt and weed-juice. I could scrub those useful extremities raw this very minute and the stains of labor would cling tenaciously to them yet. Then there are the weeds. Cramped and ugly things that crawl all over the garden and make it look like panorama jungle to scale.
I wrote that word, “weeds”, and then realized that I honestly wasn’t sure what I mean by it. So I went and looked it up. Now pardon me while I explain the need to investigate such a common English word.
Words have always been a favorite topic of mine, so etymology was a hobby I cultivated easily. Since some have noted that I “must like to write,” it may come as a surprise to find that I went through a long season where I could not enjoy grammar and spelling, no matter how hard I tried. The rules of the English language were like cobwebs to me and I believed they got in the way of what I really wanted to do…write. (Yes…go ahead and chuckle.)
My ever-tactful mother was unrelenting in this respect, and having a very practical and mathematical mind, established a foundation of grammar under all my whimsies of composition. In the morning of my education, I misspelled so many words in my headlong rush for creativity she told me to find them in my own work rather than marking them in red herself. (A wise mother makes her child his own drill-sergeant…and saves red ink.)
Unfortunately, I rebelled at first and brought the same misspellings back day after day for inspection. Rather than slapping an F on the paper (I never got an F because Mama refused to accept badly done work) she sent me away with my (current) good friend Noah Webster to look up every word in my composition…in order. “The…long…white…house…was…” you get the idea. After a few trials of this kind, I discovered two things. The first was that it saves time to be more selective with your letters. The second I found while resting my cramped brain on a page-full of those introductory remarks at the beginning of Webster’s dictionary we never read, trying to muster the resolve to look up “the”. I realized I was staring at a paper on etymology. I was swallowing the last line before I knew I had sipped the first and the world of language spread out before me like a sublime view from a mountain top. End of rant.
So…in every-day terms, “weed” gets its origin from Old English words like “uueod” or “weod” meaning “grass” or “herb”. By the way, don’t you love the fact that the letter “W” was originally a double “U”?
Weed has only more recently (in the last few hundred years) become a generic term associated in one sense with noxious and nuisance plants. For example, the King James Bible (from 1611) translates a Hebrew word in the book of Job meaning “stinking plant or noxious weed” as “cockle”. Apparently cockles were obnoxious in seventeenth century England. I cultivated their modern counterpart as a cut flower in my garden last year. Weed, then, in its modern sense, is a relative term…since it is applied to plants that are simply more resilient and fast-growing than those we cultivate for food and fiber, etc. (Hence the phrase “growing like a weed”.) This being the case…I would like to introduce you to some plant-acquaintances of mine. Namely: those I term “weeds.”


Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is cultivated in many regions for culinary use. It is used in salads, stir-fry and even soup. It is my personal weeding nemesis, since it is nearly impossible to pull up by the roots, leaves sticky juice all over your hands, and has malevolent tentacle branches that spread over everything. It is just beginning to come up now and will flourish through July and August.
Pigweed (Red root - Amaranthus retroflexus) is also cultivated for culinary purposes. They make a dish called “thoran” with it in India. It is my personal favorite in the weed category because it pulls easily and doesn’t make a fuss about dying. It is one of the first things up and one of the last things to die in the fall. Incidentally, Purslane, Pigweed and Lambs-quarters/Goosefoot are all “related” and are often referred to interchangeably as “pigweed” because they were at one time or another used as pig-fodder.
Lambs-quarters or Goosefoot (Chenopodium album) is also…that’s right…cultivated for food in India. Very hard to pull, will grow four feet tall, has a hard stem that hurts your fingers and contributes to pollen related allergies.
Scotch Thistle (Onopordum acanthium) is believed to have originated in North America as an ornamental plant! I suppose they tolerated the spines in their landscaping to enjoy the biannual violet flowers. It is versatile in nature…apparently used for medicinal and household purposes. Believe it or not, some used to eat the receptacle of the flower the way we eat artichokes. And of course many of you may recognize it as the national emblem of Scotland (hence the name).

Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa pratensis) is a native meadow grass that many of you know as lawn grass. It gets the name from its blue flowers which appear if you don’t mow it regularly…or pull it up. Along with Crabgrass (which has seeds that can be toasted and ground for flour) the species can populate an area very quickly. In the fall our garden ends up looking like a prairie thanks to these grasses.


Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) – Well, I won’t burden you with the nearly endless list of common ailments this plant addresses…everything from kidneys to sore throats. It is more than one state’s state flower. More interesting yet is the fact that Thomas Edison found a way to extract rubber from the leaves and had tires of goldenrod rubber on the Model T his friend Henry Ford gave him! It pulls up very easily and looks like a little Christmas tree when it is young.

Milkweed (Asclepias amplexicaulis) while a main source of food for Monarch butterfly larva, is toxic to grazing animals. It is used medicinally and recently cultivated for filling pillows. It leaves a sticky “milk” on your hands when you pull it, and is not nearly as invasive as other weeds.

Pinkweed (Polygonum pensylvanicum) , named for its flower, is a native species and was as used for medicinal purposes as well. It is almost identical to its European counterpart, Lady’s Thumb. It is also far less invasive than most weeds.



There are more I could have mentioned...but I thought better of it. To many, weeds can get...obnoxious. I would love to hear about the weeds I am sure some of you deal with every day! In the midst of all this fuss over the garden, the pigs are growing apace and the chickens are on their last few weeks of happy chicken-ness on the pasture. The regal iris is past its prime and gives way to the flamboyant blooms of high summer.
Signing off with a (literally) green thumb!
Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

P.S.  We are cleaning up in wake of incredible storms that came through the south east corner of Minnesota last Thursday night. After the deluge, Daddy was out until 4 am with the boys closing roads because of flooding over bridges in the Cannon Falls area. They said the sight of giant 100 foot trees hitting bridges like a battering ram and then disappearing into the raging river was spectacular and sounded like thunder! The Farm had a few casualties: strawberries have hail damage, sugar snap peas have white spots from hail, and the hen pen shifted in the wind and hurt a hen. Everything else pulled through surprisingly well. We are thankful!

A Six Arrows Farm Update

Well, the Minnesota winter held its breath for a staggering couple of weeks, peaked the effort with an almost unheard-of 50 degree January day, and let it all go this morning in a frigid blast of the arctic.  From the balmy-forget-your-hat-and-wear-a-light-jacket day to a biting-button-your-coat-collar-and-wear-long-underwear day; all in forty-eight hours!  If the weather-man isn’t selling exaggerated news (which he almost certainly is either way since the poor fellow truly can’t win), the thermometer will finally drop to the more familiar few degrees above zero tonight and the wind will drive a chill through your bones at a ghastly 10-15 degrees below!  Instead of sniffing stale autumn air when I step outdoors, I can gasp enough to swallow a snowball when I turn the handle and the crack between door and jam wuthers in my face.

Yet again the family room in the basement becomes a natural retreat after dinner and during the short mornings and afternoons.  Here every day has its fire and across the floor and festooned over chairs and sofas our papers and projects bask with us in the heat.  Now we can delve into the deep ingenuity and musical wonder of Bach’s double violin concerto, study reams of evidence and talk thoroughly and frequently on the subject of the United States Jury System, piece and perfect the lines and seams in an 1860’s military frock coat, pour over documents and study guides and reference books on every topic from calculus to air brakes.

Now we can rise early in the blessed dark of waning winter nights to unborn mornings with coffee in the pot and socks on our toes.  Hot food, however simple, is suddenly banquet fare when the aromas meet the freezing howl at the door.  The satisfaction of “beating the cold” by fetching fresh onions from the root cellar (now in official working order!) to concoct a big batch of spaghetti sauce is even better than pulling them right out of the garden!  The precious food we stored away for these long, “garden-less” months is reappearing to grace the table and Aubrey’s famous pesto remains the favorite by far!

I got a little jolt last week when a small package arrived in the mail with a Burpee Seed Company return address on it.  Yes, the first of the seeds!  Here we are planning to fill the garden yet again while the ground sleeps deeply.

Finally I can truly sign off,

Stay Warm!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

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. 

 Dull November brings the blast,

Then the leaves go whirling past.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire and Christmas treat

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

The works of the farm roll themselves up like vines frozen on the crusted earth in October.  Twisted together and burgeoning all summer they climax now with a rush of things to tend to.  The word “holy” may sound a bit too sacrosanct for the farm in light of our modern vernacular, but on the farm we literally "set apart" or "put by" to a certain purpose many things at once before the winter.  This “making holy” can mean neither more nor less than the Creator intended.  The “first-fruits” of harvest were, in times past, more habitually set aside in accordance with His beautiful laws to reflect an awe-inspiring truth about Himself and what He has made.  In this way the commonalities of life, the everyday provisions, become sacred and holy; turning the eyes of our souls back to the divine Provider through the abundance of common gifts given to an uncommon purpose.

These are days when we can revel in the changeful rush of sky and earth towards year’s end.  I love noticing the way a leaf curls close together in helpless and impulsive protest of the frosty chill, or the way the sun rises ruddy and defiant on crisp mornings from his new place and casts a sultry glance down the frosty lawn to challenge the deepening cold of nights growing ever clearer.  I watch the crests of the hills in the rolling farm-land for the tell-tale clouds of dust thrown up from a combine reaping.  Long days of blustering rain and harsh wind out of doors promise warmth and busyness inside.  There are few joys greater than pulling up the drive in autumn dusk to the greeting window-lights of home or yanking stocking caps down over ears and long socks up to knees to tramp over hardened earth and under icy sky.  Here are the days when you can work up a good sweat and a great appetite on the last of the garden work and wear your short-sleeved shirt to dinner when the house is suddenly too close and warm for comfort. 

Our irons are so numerous they hardly fit in the fire, while the largest of them, the root cellar, is coming along well.  The hurry and scurry of our last minute wood chopping, window mopping, supply shopping, can-topping, project stopping, market hopping, brow-sopping, summer-dropping life is nothing short of exhilarating.  We sometimes take a breath just long enough to realize we are making our own heat and can attest to the old adage Daddy posts in his office… “He who cuts his own wood is twice warmed.”

Here’s hoping you are warmed just so every day!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

It was one of those warm ripe days, the kind where the heat of the sun soaks into the very marrow of you and makes you want to jump up and run for miles and be very still all at the same time.  Breathing the air was like drinking strong wine, so laden was it with the flavors of harvest.  Dappled light was dancing to the music of the lively trees.  Old patriarchs of the woods tossed their lofty arms in a cheery gale, casting leaves merrily into the breeze like clouds of confetti at a celebration.  A broad span of corn field mesmerized my eyes with the shimmering role and dip of the sea turned to gold and heralded the onslaught of the wind with voice of thundering waves. The whole world swayed and whispered with the roar of one mighty crowd in the midst of an overture, peering over the vast edge of a moment of expectation towards an indiscernible culmination.

I was driving home…yes plain-old-ordinary driving home…with these thoughts simmering in my mind.  I thought of what a nice beginning that would be for a really good sit-by-the-fire story; and then remembered how much easier it is to begin a tale than end it, even as “The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)  For all the books ever written, there must be a thousand that languish in closets in a perpetual state of infancy. 

Between the covers of a story, that stand out in ripples of poetry, lie the facts in lines of prose.  Here, while the colors of autumn flame and fade, the wood must be chopped and stacked, the last chickens processed, the last grass clinging to living green must be cut, the last fruit gathered.

Already the last of the apples, excluded from regimental rows of cans stored away, are just beginning to wrinkle with age in bushel baskets.  Our pumpkins sport wooden stems cured from once-juicy slips of vine.  The tomato plants are officially spent; resulting in a blending of emotions for those of us who reveled in the treat of fresh tomatoes all summer and survived the late nights and soggy hands of the sixty-quart canning season. The diminishing “side-table” in our family room is reestablished to its former height with new bags of wheat.  It probably comes as no surprise that we decorate with our bulk food-supplies.  In any case, once the stack is leveled with a board and draped with tanned deer-hides, it truly makes a lovely buffet...really.  The only drawback I can discover to edible furnishings is the perpetual fluctuation in size.

Our table groans under bounty of a different kind than heretofore.  Mountains of potato salads and fresh salsas, and heaping bowls of cherry tomatoes give place to pots of hearty chili and savory soup and steaming stacks of cornbread with vegetables from the frozen regions of the freezer.

Autumn is in the lane that leads home now. The bird-songs will trill on a chilled and shortened tune when the wind blows with ice on his breath. The door to the old year is just around the corner.  Very soon it will close, but the wonder of living is the privilege of leaving the old behind and walking on into the time on the other side of the door.

In this sense, a tale never really ends.  I am beginning to think the best “end” to a story must be a closed door, with mystery and promise of the nameless future behind it, since it tacitly forbids the mortal reader to look past the threshold of time into the awesome knowledge of eternity; a thing which none of us can really do…yet. 

When we aren’t digging in the dirt with our hands, our family loves delving into history with our minds.  Sometimes we do both at once…don’t ask me how, but the most engaging discussions usually take place during the more simple occasions in our lives.   Yesterday in particular, Aubrey and I were puzzling over the number of yards required for an 1860’s petticoat while strong-arming ambitious weeds out from between the tomato cages.  The deliberation was not in vain, since we decided on the correct yardage and “saved,” as you might call it, some fifty aspiring tomato plants. 

As if the garden and farm were not quite enough for a summer, the eight of us recently dove heart and soul into reenacting what many call the Civil War.  Thus while we are up to our elbows in the myriad colors and tastes and smells of high summer out of doors, we are up to our knees in the living room with scissors and pins and bits of bright thread and scraps of muslin "Too narrow breadths for nought--except waistcoats for mice," as Miss Potter’s Tailor of Gloucester said. (Unfortunately, we have no mouse-friends to do midnight miracles and save us the trouble of pricked fingers and aching necks as the aforementioned tailor did.)  And amid the feathery arms of carrot tops and out from between the ranks of onions, old battle songs and rallying tunes ring across the field like echoes from tongues long-silent.

The farmer’s market stand, in the meantime, blossoms into full splendor.  If one didn’t know how little of the beauty is truly beholden to one’s own effort one might be in danger of growing remarkably proud.  Setting out the most brilliant displays of produce is a privilege for those who are not afraid to break their finger-nails and scrub the ever-loving dirt out off their hands and feet, but he who is most familiar with the soil knows full well just how much he relies on his Maker for the increase.

I speak of dirt often, when I write about the garden, mostly because I think it is inescapable.  Yet there are also things there that cannot be described well because of their beauty, nor experienced any other place.  The sublimity and grandeur of even the Grand Canyon or a broad range of mountains is frankly hard-put to be more sublime than the scenes that occur in a garden.  There in our garden I stand often on a day-brink, at the top of our path through still-dusky, sleepy woods, my feet in a misty green sea of dewy grass and my eyes blinded by the million morning suns sparkling in our apple trees, dripping and shedding diamonds. 

There, if you linger till late, the sun will bid the day adieu with a glory of blazing smiles and, sweeping up the clouds with his train, send back a final fiery flash before withdrawing behind his counterpane.  Where but in a garden can you watch the bee at his business in his velvet suit; stuffing his pockets with dusty gold from the heart of the rose?  Where but in a garden can you walk down emerald halls under an azure arch and eat freely on every side a feast of heaven’s own making? Each of us is given good gifts every day so that, surrounded as we are by the dirt we so often stir up for ourselves, we remain unable to forget the goodness of God.
Craig, Karen and the Six Arrows

Blood Root, a kind of Wood Anemone, (thus named due to the “blood” that runs out of the red roots, or “rhizomes” when they are broken) is the first plant that blooms in spring here. I don’t truly admit of the possibility of spring until the flower’s tender thumbs poke up across the forest floor. The bright little buds relieve the dull brown of the spring ground like stars on a velvety dark night and the absolute purity and delicate nature of the remarkable blossoms is a glorious pronouncement of spring. As far as I’m concerned…it is now official!

I heartlessly pruned the raspberries last night, chopping away with a large clipper until my sore hands could no longer grip the handles. The work evoked memories of past springs...

I can still see Daddy pruning his trees and shrubs while my siblings and I, curious and adoring lads and lassies, bobbed around his knees, mildly solicitous for the welfare of the “poor plants.” After all, the trees bud so busily in spring, and he was cutting off all their hard work with remorseless brevity.

The first year I was entrusted with the task of trimming our rose bushes, I “executed” the job with a few cautious snips and a guilty feeling akin to that of…well…an executioner. When Daddy checked my work, he was kind, but told me I had failed to accomplish the necessary pruning. I have to admit to my shame that I protested a bit at first. Those bushes had sprouted up and out marvelously and it seemed a shame to cut back the tender green shoots.

My feelings in the matter have revolutionized dramatically, but I believe watching my characteristically tender and loving father trim with care and resolution year after year gave me a new understanding of love as well as the nature of plant growth. Experience taught me that the pruning of growth is a inexorable prerequisite to the bearing of fruit. Season after season showed me the abundance that comes out of healthy plants cut back and branched out.

In fact it is the expectation of fruit proves the love of the gardener for his plants even while he cuts back what seems to be good; because he prunes to make way for what is better. This understanding has brought a kind of joy and satisfaction to the task of pruning that supplants the naive hesitating cringe I used to harbor at every snip. Love knows when to gently cut away what is temporary so that what is lasting may be gained with patience.

So we cut back and train up and plant down and water in with faith and expectation…that the Lord of the Harvest will bring forth the bounty of His choosing in His good time.

Potatoes and Peas, Beans, Beets and Radish seeds are planted, with nothing as yet to mark their final resting place but trim rows of dirt and rugged stakes. Broccoli and Cabbage, frosty of leaf and sturdy in stature are set in neat squares, and feathery Onions march in regiments down the length of the garden. And chicks peep merrily from 207 throats and convulse any watchers with their clumsy antics. Our dear friend Gracie seemed to bring out the best in them!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows