The End of September Report

At one end of our galley kitchen is a small table, sited in the outside corner and faced, on two sides, by large windows. As we take our meals, we can watch the bird feeders – aka squirrel feeders – check the maple trees and the apple tree, and follow the progress of the seasons. Tonight, as we finished eating, she sun had set and the evening was far enough advanced to be dark. Autumn is here for its brief and glorious time with us.

As the sun went down it ran loving fingers of light across the red leaves of the red maple, picked up the rose and madder of the tiny apples clinging to the last branches of our ancient apple tree, warmed the detail of the bark on the trunk of the sugar maple and finally settled into a deep brown shade. It is fall, and the apples are falling. Soon the leaves will go. But there is the remnant of September to cherish and all of October to love before the grim grind of November.

We had a stew for supper. Definitely a cool or cold weather meal. I suspect the chunks of beef I found in the freezer to have been resident there for quite some time, but they behaved when dumped into my electric pressure cooker along with handfuls of veggies. I really love to have bread with stew and so the oven was also in use. A winter meal. But it must be at least four months maybe even five, since I made a stew, and so it was enjoyed.

I have a mental picture of my mother, wrapped in an apron, making stew in her pressure cooker, a heavy pan with a screwed on vent on the lid, which set into the pan, providing the lock for the pressure. It was, in her opinion, quite a dangerous implement and she would send me out of the kitchen before she opened it. And regale me with the story of HER mother, who tried to make applesauce in an early version of this dangerous tool and ended up decorating the kitchen walls and ceiling. My electric version is quite tame in comparison, although it does hiss as it decompresses and I need to wipe juice off the bottom of the cupboard above its working counter.

It has been a fine summer for mosquitoes, little miserable clouds of them all through, most unusually, August and so we are happily anticipating the first hard frost to put an end to them. It has been a wet summer and I suspect that has a bearing on the bug situation, but it also produces beautiful bunches of fall asters – the ‘farewell summer’ flowers of L M Montgomery’s stories. Also goldenrod, and splendid greenery. I have a screened porch from which I can admire these marvels without ending up doused in anti-itch meds.

And I am pleased to report that the rock garden is trimmed and tidy, the lily bed is clipped and raked out, and the weeds are gone from under the deck. I did not undertake this myself; I have a wonderful young woman who describes herself as  and has done a fine, fine job. She is also helping me ‘downsize’. My grandmother’s china has left the building. More ‘stuff’ will follow.

It is not just the china cabinet that is different. We have decided to try to live here as long as it is feasible, and to facilitate the ability, we are having an elevator installed. Or, at least, we may have one if we can run the Township officer to ground and get the requisite permit. JG is getting tired of no answer on the phone and no return calls.

I promise to report on this decision, and may provide you with an epic.