I Wander....The Autumn Version

I haven't done one of the wandering thoughts posts in quite a long while.  I think I'd like to make this wandering post autumn themed...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Granny had a few bulbs she'd planted that bloomed in late September and early October.  She called them Spider Lilies and there was always a bouquet of them in her home.  Other folks call them October Lilies.  I think they are lovely regardless of what you call them.

The chipmunks and squirrels dug up the bulbs, found them inedible and obligingly replanted them in various spots.  It was a good thing that along about now the lawn needed far less mowing because those lilies came up in the most random spots usually in the midst of the lawn.

I see these lilies about older homes this time of year.  And I'm so pleased that my single bulb which I have had for years has tripled this year and I now have three.  Mine are growing right up against the forsythia that Granny gave me. 

I mentioned to John that I supposed she didn't even know it was in that clump of soil that surrounded the forsythia but he pointed out that Granny never seemed to do things without knowing exactly what she was doing.  I like his thinking.  I like to think that Granny saw the bulb in the soil and left it purposely to share with me believing that one day I too would have a yard full of Spider Lilies in some September when she wasn't around.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We've just come home from a slow ramble down a back road.  At one point there were fields full of yellow flowering plants, weeds really, but they come into their own this time of year mixed as they are with another weed that flowers which Granny always called Mallow.  Mallow is a sort of orchid pink and it's perfectly stunning in it's feathery branching and startling when you spy it amongst those yellow flowers.

As if that weren't nearly enough, the golden rod has suddenly gone from a few fronds here and there to a simply breathtaking glory of bloom.  We came across one patch that was like piles of gold on the ditch bank.  My gracious!  There is a certain glory in autumn where the flowers are concerned, even just those we'd normally call weeds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Growing up in a rural area, our lives were very much centered around living seasonally.  About now the late garden was put in and we continued to eat tomatoes and cabbages and the first of the bitter greens which the adults much preferred after the first frosts which I was told 'sweetened' them.

The bulk of the summer harvest was upon the shelves of the pantry.  About now, Mama and Granny would take to the woods to seek out wild scuppernongs and muscadines which they made into jelly.  The muscadine jelly was golden color and the scuppernong jelly was a pale pink.

Not all of these wild fruits went into jelly.  Mama experimented with making Muscadine wine which also came out a deep gold.   Because I was a child I was only allowed the tiniest taste but I can say assuredly that it tasted like muscadines and seemed potent even to my untrained palate.

The fruits are a sort of wild grape.  Some of the fruits were eaten fresh but I confess I have never really liked them.  The skins are tough.  You bite down on the fruit and allow it to pop the inside into your mouth.  Then you discard the skin.    The insides are gelatinous with a texture not unlike a raw oyster.  The juices are rich and sweet and slightly wine flavored.

As I said, Mama and Granny sought them out in the woods and pretty much knew just where to go to harvest them.  I've found a few wild grapes draped over trees at certain roadsides and harvested a few of the fruits myself.  Now you can buy them in the supermarket but I've never paid for a muscadine or scuppernong but even if I liked them I don't think I'd do so.  I'm afraid they will have had the wildness bred out of them which I've discovered they so often do when they domesticate what once grew wild.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I recall when I first read Country Living Magazine, grapevine wreaths were all the rage.  Well...I was broker than broke but one thing I had access to was a load of wild grape vines draped across the trees along country roadsides.  It took me just longer to pull the vines from the trees than it took to make a wreath...

I recall one lovely autumn day when I and three friends went out seeking wild grapevines.  We made dozens of wreaths that day and then took them home to decorate for our doors and walls.  Ours were not as neatly circular nor as plush with vines as the ones we could purchase but they were free which suited all of our budgets and we spent quite an enjoyable day with our children out in the country so it was also a memorably happy day...and I guess that counts for as much as the part where it was cheap!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another wild fruit is the persimmon.  In summer the persimmons are hard and green and they are lethal when thrown by a child at another child.  You can get a good solid bruise from those hard green fruits.

As they ripen, they turn a lovely color.  The ones in the photo here look deep gold but ours turn a sort of reddish gold.

The interior of the fruit has about five seeds the size of dried bean.  There's not a lot of room left for the ripe flesh of the fruit which is a lovely deep amber color.  You can eat these wild fruits but I never felt it was worthwhile.  For one thing, Granny always told me they weren't really good until frost had touched them and frankly that is much later in the ripened stage.  They have a rather nasty little substance that makes the inside of your mouth feel, 'inside out' as we always described it.  It seems to somehow dry up the saliva glands for a moment and it just is a funny sort of sensation.  And then there is the fact of the number and size of seeds per the sum of the flesh.   No, I never felt it was worthwhile to eat them.

That said, there are folks who will forage for them and who do eat them.  There recipes in abundance for Persimmon pudding and Persimmon preserves, etc.

The wild life loves these fruits however.  Nightly just now we get to hear Maddie barking all night long and why?  Because possums, raccoons, deer, fox and skunks and heaven only knows what other creatures, come to visit our tree each night and eat.  As the ripened fruit falls to the ground it begins to ferment.  It doesn't have much of an aroma that I've noticed but the fermented fruit does make the animals who eat them get drunk.   Mind you it's not the same foolish drunkenness we humans see amongst ourselves.  You won't catch any of them pulling any wild stunts but yes, they will tend to stagger about a little and yes, they do become rather obtuse to things.

The faith tree in the front yard is a male persimmon.  It bears no fruit but it does bloom and the bees come each spring and happily pollinate the tree around back that is female and a few other trees upon the place that happen to be female as well.

The funniest thing I've ever seen occurred here years ago.  Possums find the fruit irresistible to the point they happily ignore their own nocturnal habits and will go to the trees for a snack in full daylight.   There is a female persimmon in the wooded area behind our sheds that is a draw in daylight as it's well out of sight from the house.

So one afternoon our old dog Trudy was sitting in front of the sheds in the sun basking on a lovely autumn day.  We had dozens of cats at that time so it wasn't uncommon for one to join her.  On this particular day, I was watching out of the window when Trudy was sitting there in the sun and up came a possum who sat down beside her and proceeded to wash his hands and face.  Trudy glanced over at him and he glanced casually over at her.  I watched as they both went back to their washing and gazing and saw it register clearly on each face that something was amiss and they turned and looked at one another again and suddenly they both realized that neither of them wanted to be near by each other.  Trudy jumped up and ran off in one direction and the possum who'd been rather leisurely strolling before his short sit down ran quickly off in the opposite direction.  I stood there at the window giggling helplessly at them both.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The leaves have started to change already this year.  They've actually been slowly showing color for the past month, which is highly unusual here in our area.  Usually about now, we're all just tired of the heat and humidity and are longing for any sign at all of autumn.  Well this year, there is golden rod, there are the leaves slowly changing color and there is the heat and humidity.  Can I just say, it's little consolation to have goldenrod and autumn blooming weeds and grasses along with the heat and humidity?  Very little.

What we're all really longing for is change.  A change in atmosphere.  A change in the air.  We long to shiver and not perspire.  We long for sweaters and long sleeves not shorts and flip flops and tank tops.  We long to snuggle under quilts together instead of snipping, "Oh gracious!  You're making me HOT, MOVE!"

But there is the consolation.  The flame colored leaves in the swamps, the fields swaying with yellow and pink and white, mums at the garden centers.  There's the consolation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a pile of leaves in the midst of the lawn that John sort of rounded up while mowing the lawn yesterday.  I smile each time I see that small pile.  It reminds me of the great loads of leaves that fell in the school yards of my childhood and yes, even here on this land.  Those leaves were a key component of our play in those long ago days.

All of us, boys and girls alike, wanted to play house.  It was all fine and well in summer when we had mossy banks and such but autumn was the glory of our homemaking days.

For one thing there were the great scads of leaves, which we utilized to make outlines of our houses, often multi-roomed homes with an open doorway.  Oh how we loved our little houses and how we hoped the wind didn't blow them away!

We chose our home sites as carefully as we might have chosen a real home place.  We looked at the views before us, we tracked the sun across the school yard.   Some built homes among the roots of the great oak trees which plentifully supplied our main building material and incidentally the acorns which became 'cheese'and cups for our tea parties.   Some chose more open places but the most coveted were those sites near the trees.

Oh how the love of homemaking bloomed in us all during those lovely autumn afternoons during recess!  We 'married' and named our children, most often represented by a stick of wood.  Our husbands named their occupations and we girls prepared dinner and cleaned house and waited for our husbands to come home.  It amuses me that even as a young girl, I had such a strong desire to create a home and I took as much pride in that little three roomed, leaf lines for walls, home as I have any of the very real homes I've had in my adult life.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the loveliest songs I have ever heard and one of the first I learned to play upon the piano, was "Autumn Leaves".  I am nowhere near as adept as those who have recorded it and are able to make that tinkling sound that denotes the drifting leaves, but the song's poignancy and beauty move me greatly.  I like both the instrumental and the sung version because even the lyrics are lovely in this song.

"The falling leaves drift by my window
The falling leaves of red and gold"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Drifting leaves do things to my heart, much the way that a field of baled hay and the sight of our flag flying in the blue skies makes it swell with pride and joy and fullness.  It's just so when I am happily caught in a spate of leaves drifting down all about me.

I happened to be standing at the window overlooking the backyard the other day and I watched a single gold leaf detach itself from the tree and drift slowly down to earth, with a few graceful flips and twists and turns as it fell.  It laid down as gently upon the earth as if it had been plucked and tenderly laid to rest.

It occurred to me then that this was death, truly.  That leaf was dead to the life it had upon that tree, it's season was finished.  It now became mulch for the earth below (or to where ever it is blown in time).  But it is no longer 'of the tree'.  It truly is now 'of the earth'.

I hope that when I die it is just so.  That my spirit detaches itself as easily from the body and the resulting fall into death is graceful and lovely and gentle and the transition to the next phase of being is effortless.  Oh make it just so, Lord!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well that's a nice bit of wandering all about autumn...and you know what I didn't mention, even once?  P--mpk-n Sp-ce...Ha!