By Becky Nelson
Bramblings
Last week was a gift. Rather, it was a series of gifts. The warm, sunny, late summer weather made being a farmer a wonderful gift. We spent one day picking up the remaining pumpkins in the pumpkin field. We spent a couple of days picking the remaining apples in the orchard. We started the chores of fall in T-shirts, not sweaters and coats, and we enjoyed plenty of foliage still filling the painting frame of our world.
The foliage around here is still stunning. One day we spent last week travelling to Maine to pick up cider jugs. We stole an overnight and watched the moon rise and then the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean, a wonderful treat in the middle of a busy work week. The foliage along the way was great in spots, but none as beautiful as right here in our backyard. We are still treated to the reds and oranges and yellows of oak trees, with most of the maples losing their leaves during the blustery days. We seem to take foliage season as just the short window of maple trees with their stunning color, and don’t give oaks the reverence they deserve. They are a gift that keeps on giving, and we need to appreciate their beauty as the gift they are. Though not as brilliant, perhaps, as the maples, the leaves sparkle and dance against the brilliant blue skies of autumn with a determined stamina … hanging on during stiff winds and hard rains, and we should appreciate them as the gift they are. Some of the prettiest foliage is on our blueberry plants, with brilliant reds and yellows making the little patch a splotch of happy color as it gathers the last few rays of sunshine into the plants to keep them healthy and happy through the winter.
We spent part of a day two weeks ago harvesting the last of several crops before the hard freezes. Eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes … amazing that we were still picking them in mid-October. Another gift to this grateful farmer. I picked the last of the raspberries as well. There were many more than I could pick, but u-pickers had given up on the patch, and I just couldn’t get everything done. Still, the berries are always a sweet gift at the end of fall, and I savored every bite. I had the grandkids with me, picking a couple of pints for their tummies, as well, which leant an added layer of joy to the day.
I read an older Bramblings column not too long ago, where during the same week of the year I took a foliage tour with my mother and my daughter who had just announced she was pregnant with one of these grandkids, and the fall was much as this one. I think this late fall summery weather may be the new normal, though the loss of my mother and the growing of the grandkids reminds me that everything, like the leaves, will not last forever and we need to take the moments given to us as gifts and treasures. The moonrise over the ocean, the sunrise over the waves, the beautiful foliage still hanging around as daylight shortens and winter looms … all gifts.
Gifts, every day. Everyday gifts. And I am very thankful for them. Family, weather, the beauty of the world around us. Gifts … free for the enjoyment. We are so very lucky to live where we do. Storms occasionally rage, crimes are committed, bad things happen to good people, finances suffer, health concerns crop up, deaths occur, politics disrupt our zen in every corner and in every family. But we still have gifts on occasion even when the shadows of life creep in. And I bet we can find one or two of those gifts even hidden in the dark moments. Just look up and around and beyond and try to find the gifts.