Maple Leaf -- Autumn Missive
This leaf fell near the front gate; it’s curling like
a brightly illuminated manuscript, etched with
Autumnal writing.
Now that it’s mid-autumn here for us, there’s been a lot to do recently to prepare for winter. One of the prime autumn tasks is to cut wood for our wood stoves, which are our main source of heat.
Cut That Wood!
As today is a blustery, rainy day, all that wood and some other dry items had to be covered with tarps. I don’t have a picture of that, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It’s not pretty, but I feel good looking at those tarps getting drenched in the down-pour because I can imagine all my wood piles, the shed, my out-door work-bench, all staying nice and dry underneath.
When it’s wet outside, some of our seven cats don’t like to go outside to do their duty, as they say. So, we have to bring in a litter box for them. This goes for rainy days like today, as well as those winter days when the snow comes down, or the temps dip into the teens. Mainly, it’s the older cats who feel this way.
After I fix some cedar shingles on the side of the house, complete the bathroom tile job, cover the leaking roof on the storage shed, check and setup the basement sump-pump, park the tractor in it’s little barn, take down the ladders in the orchard, button up the greenhouse, cover the gas grill, make sure the cars have new windshield wipers, check the roof on the cabin, put out the rain gauge, put all the tools away, secure the plastic covering on the porch-room, and etc… then I can spend some time admiring some of the works of this year’s Autumn “collection.”
These “Red-hot pokers” are one of our favorite fall-time spectacles. Viewed together with the orange berries (“pomes”) on the Pyracantha, it makes for a glorious fall scene.
Red-Hot Poker & Pyracantha
Pyracantha Pomes (Orange for Fall!)
Even the Poison Oak puts on a cloak of burgundy for Fall.
Poison Oak
It seems difficult to grasp, but according to the Ethnobiology database at the University of Michigan, Native Americans had all kinds of uses for Poison Oak. Though around here we generally find it noxious (I’ve had poison oak and since then have gone to great lengths not to get it again), perhaps, like all plants, it is just something that must be properly respected and understood. Some people who’ve lived up here in the foothills their whole life seem to be immune to it. Here‘s what they have to say about it at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center:
“Poison Oak is so widespread and common in California that it almost qualifies as the state shrub. Anyone spending time in the lowlands and foothills of the state should learn to recognize the plant and avoid it at all costs. Livestock and deer commonly browse the plant without ill effect.”
One of the Native American uses was to eat the buds in spring (or drink an infusion of the dried roots) to build up resistance to it’s toxic oils. Perhaps they learned from the animals. It would be something worth researching further.
While walking around the property, I find many lovely and interesting autumn delights. I’ll spend more time on that in the next post. For now, here’s a little teaser from a morning walk last weekend.
Autumn Lights
