Fall Archives - Page 10 of 13

The Extraordinary Ordinary

December 12, 2015 by Denise Brake 3 Comments

On the first of December, we had six inches of snow–the perfect start to our meteorological Winter!

Then forty degree temperatures and rain, not ordinary for Central Minnesota Decembers, wreaked havoc with our snow. This is the first December in nine years of living here that we have lost snow instead of accumulated it. The moisture-laden air from the melting snow transformed my morning walk one day this week. Night temperatures fell below freezing, coating the winter remains of plants with a layer of frost.

The sun rose above the horizon on the clear-sky day, striking the frost with the power of light, transforming the ordinary into extraordinary, shimmering creations! The asparagus stems lit up.

A crumpled Linden leaf glowed in the grass.

Each rimed stem of lavender and all the other frosted things dazzled like diamonds, but only the snow sparkles showed on the photos.

So imagine each little frost crystal glimmering in the sun!

After only a few minutes of direct sunlight, the frost began to melt, and the shimmering landscape returned to the sunny normalcy of a late fall day.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz said, “I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.” With my very amateur photography skills, I could not capture the shimmering effervescence of my morning walk, yet the combination of photos, words, and imagination stretches us toward that reality.

And what of us? A photograph of ourselves cannot capture our magnificence, our emotion, or the spirit of us. In fact, most face-to-face meetings only expose the ordinary image of ourselves. And what do we see when we look in the mirror? What stretches us toward the reality of who we are? Perhaps it takes the Water of Life, a cold night, and the Light of the World to shine on us in order to transform our ordinary self into our extraordinary brilliance.

Gleanings from October and November 2015

December 3, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

October and November were all about the wedding–preparing, traveling, participating, writing, and thanking people. After the wedding ceremony and reception, as we were cleaning up, we noticed a praying mantis on a post by the stairs. What a peculiar little creature! They have two large compound eyes and three simple eyes between them and can turn their heads 180 degrees–the only insect with that ability. They have quick reflexes, and their front ‘praying’ legs have spikes to hold their prey while they eat. Mantis is from the Greek word meaning prophet–a good sign from Nature to bless the newlyweds!

Another amazing creation of Nature is a nondescript deciduous shrub that began to bloom the second week of November! Witch Hazel or Hamamelis virginiana is a shrub or small tree that produces yellow flowers and whose bark and leaves are used to produce the astringent witch hazel. (Hamamelis means ‘together with fruit’–it blooms with the maturing fruit from the previous year)

Most of my gleanings this time comes from the Andersen homestead shelterbelt. A shelterbelt is a line of one or more rows of trees and/or shrubs planted as a windbreak to protect farmsteads and fields from blowing winds and erosion. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Great Plains Shelterbelt Project in 1934 in response to the severe dust storms of the Dust Bowl years. Shelterbelts save energy for the farmstead, help prevent soil erosion, provide wildlife habitat, and protect livestock and buildings from wind and snow.

This shelterbelt was planted by the Conservation District in 1979 when we built our house on eighty acres we bought from my Grandpa. I spent a few summers weeding those seedlings, trying to keep the scourge of leafy spurge at bay, which could easily engulf the whole planting. As the trees grew, our little homestead grew. We built a barn, put up a corral, set posts, and strung barbed wire. We raised a small herd of Herefords and had a few head of horses. Soon I married and moved to Missouri, and the Past began accumulating at the end of the shelterbelt. My parents divorced, my Dad moved away, and my Mom continued to raise the white-faced calves for a number of years. But now the feed bunk resides in the tall grass.

The old manure spreader and elevator collect fall leaves, winter snow, and spring rains.

Neatly rolled barbed wire and a stack of posts punctuate the end of the rows of trees.

The corn sheller and disc have morphed into farm sculptures.

I would guess that most farmsteads have some old machinery tucked into the shelterbelt. Most of these were hand-me-downs from my Grandpa or bought on his farm sale, including the Farmall M tractor that still scoops snow, so they are much older than our newish homestead. I know my Dad would say he could get the old things working again with his mechanic skills and some ‘persuasion.’ I would also venture to guess that most of us have a box or two in a closet or attic that hold the old things from our past.

Gleanings are ‘useful remnants of a crop that can be gathered from the field after harvesting.’ Perhaps our shelterbelt sculptures and boxes of memories are the useful remnants of the crops of our lives after we have lived that particular time. Maybe we are ‘Hamamelis’–we bloom (again) at the same time we reap the fruits from the past. In other words, we can return to the past as we gaze upon an old feed bunk or hold a small gift made by our child and lovingly given to us for a Christmas present, and we can learn (or remember) something new about them and about ourselves. My Dad can no longer fix machinery or stretch a fence or tamp in a post, but as he sits now in infirmary, I can turn my head to the past and ‘see’ him doing those things. And then I pray–with thankfulness for the past and all we have done together, with gratefulness for the present–even if it isn’t the way I would like it to be, and with hope for the future–that our gleanings will bless us and keep us in love and peace–amen.

Praying mantis photo by LAn

The End (sort of) and a New Beginning

November 27, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

We left Austin, Texas, left our dear daughter and new son-in-law, left the fun and excitement of a wedding week, and traveled North. The drive home is always longer–anticipation that speeds time on the trip there is replaced by thoughts and reflections of everything that happened, and time drags to a crawl. Are we still in Texas?!

We drove home through Dallas, Denison, and Durant, veering east in Oklahoma, passing oak-covered hills and the seemingly endless waters of Eufaula Lake, a reservoir on the Canadian River.

As I stared out the window, I noticed an undulating black column in the cloud-filled sky. Thousands of blackbirds moved in a synchronized dance in their annual fall flocking behavior.

We spent the night in Fort Smith, Arkansas and got up ridiculously early to start our trek back to South Dakota. Darkness obscured the Ozark Mountains, and I was sorry to miss their beauty. Mist rose with the sun as we traveled through Missouri.

Miles and states blurred by as I dozed and woke. Harvest time–two words that encompass so many things to rural people–was coming to an end.

Finally I saw the bare giants of cottonwood trees that cluster together in the prairie pastures of South Dakota.

And we were back to the Andersen homestead…like we had never left. The geese still swam in the slough, grazed in the pastures, and circled in the foggy air.

The cattle still grazed quietly in the neighboring pasture.

It was the end of our trip–sort of–as we spent a few days with my family before heading back to Minnesota. I felt like I had much to process–a married child, a new family member, an ailing father, distance between me and some of my children–both physically and emotionally, and the let-down after months of planning and the wonderful excitement of the wedding week. I longed to get home to my own bed, routine, and familiar surroundings where the processing would be easier.

The end (sort of) in marriages with children is marked when they leave home. College life eases the transformation when you see them for most holidays, summer transitions, etc., but there comes a time when they are gone, when someone else may help them move, share holidays with them, and listen to their problems. This ending of the ‘family’ marriage is often a difficult period when expectations change, and time and energy morphs into something different from what it was. At the beginning of a marriage, we learn how to be you, me, and us–at this end, we learn the same thing in a much different way. We re-learn us as a couple with no kids, and we re-discover you and me after twenty or thirty years of life has imprinted itself on our bodies and souls. It is not a journey for the faint of heart. Some do not make this transition with marriage intact, some feel like they have gained their freedom, and some move easily to the next stage with near-by children and grandchildren who re-ignite the wonderful parenting gifts without the staggering responsibilities. Whichever way it works, there is one thing that has been hiding behind the busy life that starts to edge its way into our consciousness. We see parents, grandparents, and even friends un-couple because of death or divorce who then live a single life for years or decades. We see and feel that even though we are one of the flock or one of a couple–and our dance has been in synchrony for a very long time–we have to start embracing our one-ness.

So the New Beginning can be cloaked in many different colors of which we have the freedom to choose! We need the slow time of reflection to move us gracefully into the next stage of life, and as we begin to re-discover our one-ness, we return to the homestead, like we had never left.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 26, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. –Albert Einstein

Happy Thanksgiving to all the followers of North Star Nature! I appreciate your readership and support! Check out North Star Nature’s Facebook page. Have a wonderful weekend–hope you can get out and enjoy Nature!

Hiking with the Newlyweds

November 19, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. –Teddy Roosevelt

Cultural remains dating back over 8,000 years have been recovered at an oasis in the Texas Hill Country called Hamilton Pool. A small canyon surrounded by limestone cliffs is home to a jade green pool of water fed by a small creek that tumbles over the natural grotto cliff in a fifty-foot waterfall. Before the 1800’s it was home to Tonkawa and Lipan Apaches. In the mid 1860’s, Morgan Hamilton owned the property and twenty years later sold it to the Reimers, an immigrant family from Germany, who operated a sheep and cattle ranch. They opened the pool to the public, and by the 1960’s and 70’s, it was a popular destination. With grazing and extreme use, the native habitat was suffering, so in 1985, Travis County purchased 232 acres and began an intensive restoration of the area now known as Hamilton Pool Preserve.

We were fortunate to have a few days after the wedding to explore some of the Texas Hill Country. The countryside is arid and hilly with many unfamiliar trees and plants. We began the short hike to Hamilton Pool amidst prickly pear cacti and limestone rocks.

The holly-like leaves of this shrub caught my attention–along with the spider web. After some research, I discovered the shrub is called Agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata). It flowers yellow in the spring and produces red berries that are desirable to birds and small animals and also make a tasty jelly.

We descended the trail with limestone cliffs to our right and towering trees to our left.

We were surprised to see they were bald cypress–deciduous conifers that like their ‘feet’ in water!

Aaron spotted an inhabitant of the cypress grove–a green anole lizard!

The canyon walls rose around us…

we crossed a wooden bridge, skirted over some rocks, and there was the pool! People were swimming and wading in the clear, green water.

Mosses and maidenhair ferns grew on the grotto ceiling, and the constant dripping water created stalactite fountains that cascaded into the pool.

Sunlight reflected off the water onto the rock ceiling, creating a subtle dance of light.

At the back of the shady grotto, on the rocky trail, a shrub grew. It had striking red flowers that resembled a tropical hibiscus, though they were smaller and unopened. The stamen protruded from the petals–a telephone pole for the silky webs of a spider. This shady shrub has common names of red mallow, Turk’s cap, and sleeping hibiscus. It produces an edible fruit that tastes like an apple, thus its Spanish name-Manzanilla (little apple.)

We followed the trail around the pool, then dipped our feet in the cool water while Aaron went for a swim. It was an amazing, lush oasis in the middle of an arid land. It was full of contrasts–from maidenhair ferns to prickly pear cacti, from water-loving cypress trees to desert-like agarita bushes. No wonder it has been a destination of wonder and rest for thousands of years.

We drove a few miles to another part of the old Reimers Ranch that has been turned over to the County for public use. It is a world-class rock climbing destination, has miles of mountain bike trails, and fishing in the Pedernales River. We hiked to one of the rock climbing places, slipping down a rocky stream bed to a large limestone cliff and cave.

Dripping water had formed an ancient stalagmite with an apron of moss and ferns.

I ducked into a cave for an insider’s look.

Spiny gray airplants clung to many of the trees in Texas. Ball Moss is a Bromeliad, closely related to pineapples, that uses the tree for support only. They feed off nutrients and moisture in the air.

We finished our hiking as the sun sank in the western sky, illuminating tall, thin pencil cacti and the spiny edges of pancake-flat prickly pear. What an interesting land here in Central Texas!

The above quote from Teddy Roosevelt was at the bottom of the signage at Hamilton Pool Preserve. The history of that place is humbling–this Oasis in the arid land has been a place of shelter, rest, and wonder for tens of thousands of hiking feet through the eons. As we walked back from the grottoed pool through the towering cypress trees, I felt like I had just received a gift. I was happy the newlyweds and Travis County parks system had shared this place with us.

So what if the Reimer family had kept this natural treasure all to themselves?

I think Roosevelt’s quote also applies to each of us–it’s not what we have that makes us great people–it is the way in which we use it. How do we share our gifts with others?

The Middle

November 9, 2015 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

I’m not very good at beginnings–or endings for that matter–but I’m pretty dang good at the middle stuff. I think it’s because the beginnings and endings mean Change–with the capital C–and that just makes me nervous. Maybe it’s my perfectionist tendencies, my dread of loss–no matter what good thing is on the other side, or being a middle child…who knows? All I know is the middle part of our trip to Austin was wonderful!

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

We got settled in to a cute little casa we found on Airbnb. It was our first experience using Airbnb for a place to stay, and I was really happy we did it. We had room for the three generations of us, a kitchen for breakfast, and a backyard and patio for early morning tea and coffee. And then things got busy! We visited The Great Outdoors nursery that was tucked under huge Live Oak trees. It was crazy to see a nursery full of bedding plants in late October! We chose a cart full of flowering annuals and potted them up into hand-painted clay pots to decorate the wedding tables. A few more crafting projects were finished. People needed to be picked up from the airport. Two big boxes of cut flowers were snipped and put into buckets of water. Wedding party manicures, drinks, and supper. A run to Target and the craft store. Watching the Royals in the playoffs while sitting at an outdoor patio. An evening walk down the lively and strange downtown 6th Street.

They tell me I’m too young to understand
They say I’m caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don’t open up my eyes
Well that’s fine by me

Saturday was rehearsal at the venue, where we met our dear friend and former pastor who had traveled from South Dakota to perform the wedding ceremony. Afterwards we attended a delicious and beautiful luncheon hosted by the bride’s aunt and cousin at Green Pastures Restaurant–an amazing Victorian estate under old Live Oaks, enclosed by a fence of Bamboo hedges, complete with wandering peacocks.

After the luncheon it was back to the house to make bouquets. G-Lo, the bridesmaids, and I watched a Youtube video describing how to make a bridal bouquet, then got to work. Respect for the florist in the video grew as we clutched our handfuls of flowers and constructed our bouquets. I worked on the bride’s bouquet–weaving the flowers and grasses from each of her States with pink astilbe, wax flowers and dahlias, white stock, blush spray roses, burgundy leucodendron, upright amaranth, and hypericum, and blue forget-me-nots. It was a labor of love for my Love–just like the motherly duties I did every day of her and her siblings’ growing-up time. The bridesmaids impressed me with their willingness to tackle this task of love, to construct the fleeting symbols of beauty, abundance, and everlasting love. I appreciated their artistry, concentration, laughter, and support–not only in this effort, but in everything they did for their friend, the bride.

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
I hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don’t have any plans

After bouquets, we gathered at the Driskill Hotel, an elegant, old downtown hotel and bar built in the late 1800’s by cattle baron Jesse Driskill. Surrounded by western decor and with live music in the background, we greeted some of the guests who had arrived for the wedding. My plan to not-stay-late-because-we-all-have-to-get-up-early-for-the-big-day didn’t quite work out as intended, especially since I did not take into account the very long time it took to navigate downtown Saturday night traffic!

I wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life’s a game made for everyone
And love is the prize

And then the Big Day! We were up early to make the couple of trips necessary to get all the flowers, people, games, beer kegs, decorations, etc. to the venue. Cedar Bend Events is about fifteen miles east of Austin in the countryside called the Lost Pines region. This thirteen mile strip of Loblolly Pine forest contains the Colorado River and is separated by one hundred miles from the related East Texas Piney Woods.

I was dressed and ready for the second transport to the venue. The busy days and late nights were beginning to catch up with me–my eyes stung a bit from my much-less-than-eight hours of sleep that I was used to, and my energy level was low, despite my morning cup of black tea and the excitement of the day ahead. And then Aloe Blacc came on the radio singing “Wake Me Up” from his album ‘Lift Your Spirit.’ If you know the song, it’s energizing–and I have liked it since I first heard it a couple of years ago. So I turned up the radio, sang along, and got energized and ready to enjoy every moment of the day!

Cedar Bend was beautiful! Colorful lanterns hung over the outdoor patio where the barnwood bar and cedar-log band shelter flanked the dance floor. The painted clay pots of flowers sat at the center of the round tables that were adorned with ivory tablecloths and burlap runners. Two colorful pinatas hung from a large tree branch, and yard games were scattered about in the large lawn, ready for after-wedding fun. By noon our beautiful bride and her handsome groom were married, the wedding guests were served chips and queso, breakfast tacos, fruit, and delicious wedding cupcakes. The bluegrass band played as everyone visited, laughed, drank Texas Shiner Cheer Beer and fruity mimosas, played games, took silly pictures at the photo booth, and celebrated Love!

The sweet beginnings of married life together! The dreamy honeymoon period! The wonderful fun of doing things with our partner! And soon enough we settle into the long middle part of our relationships. We really learn how to communicate with our partners, and often we learn the hard way. We may have children that will keep our lives busier and crazier than we ever suspected. We do our jobs–at home and away from home. We make friends and lose friends. We build our homes, plant our gardens, craft our creativity, go back to school, and serve our communities. We learn about betrayal, loss, death, and heartbreak. We experience creating a life, nurturing a life, and losing a life. We watch our love grow for our partners, and some of us watch our love wane. We become fierce in our protection of our children and of the world they will live in once we’re gone. Aloe Blacc scripts our human tendency to close our eyes to the tough things in life that present themselves to us in the middle part of our lives.

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

But he also offers us the key to this long middle time of life–we are all lost–in one way or another–and all this time we are finding ourselves! So lay down the weight of the world, open your eyes, accept support, and bask in grace. We’re all in this game of life together–come play for Love!

To get energized, listen to ‘Wake Me Up’ written by Aloe Blacc, Tim Bergling, and Mike Einziger.

Photos by Emily Brake (Austin skyline, flowers), LAn (peacock, bouquets) and Jackie June.

The Beginning

October 29, 2015 by Denise Brake 9 Comments

Her bouquet was made with flowers and grasses gathered from Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri, and Texas–all parts of her history, her upbringing, her living and learning. Each place held a part of her heart and had shaped her into the loving, accomplished young woman who stood before us all.

We began our trip as the Maple trees shone with dazzling colors. What brilliance from a once-green tree!

Frost colored the edges of bent-over grass and dry leaves as we left Minnesota in anticipation of the Texas wedding!

Urban living and Wilderness camping were her two Minnesota loves. I used to marvel that she could coexist with either environment with the same confidence and at-homeness. She went from St. Paul college life to living in a tree house or canvas tent or log cabin for the summer. She organized and guided canoe trips and camper trips and served United Methodist Camping. Her maid of honor spent three summers with her at the Boundary Waters camp–kindred spirits of adventure.

We headed southwest to South Dakota to pick up G-Lo. We arrived as the sun was sinking in the western sky and the geese were grazing in the pasture that once supported the white-faced Herefords raised by my grandfather and then my parents. Generations of our Scandinavian relatives worked the land and are buried in the rural cemeteries where the churches no longer stand. Our history runs deep in this land.

The next morning, in the perpetual new beginning of a new day, we loaded the Buick and headed south.

Moving to a new school and state in the middle of Middle School is a daunting task at best, but she handled it with her typical take-charge attitude and organized a ‘Backpack across Brookings’ hiking trek with her new friends. She went on to compete in debate, develop her artistic abilities, serve in Student Council, and volunteer with South Dakota politics. Her three bridesmaids shared her interests, time, and energy–kindred spirits in creativity, service, and determination.

We traveled through Iowa to Missouri. The I-29 drive was familiar from the many times we drove north and south between the Missouri Brakes and the South Dakota Andersens. We followed the River Bluffs that had tiny farm places tucked into the hillsides. The trees showed the beginnings of fall change, and huge Sycamores rose above the others–I had forgotten how magnificent they were!

Missouri was her birthplace, her early childhood playground, her creative beginnings, and the place where her Daddy was born and raised. Her Brake relatives surrounded her with love, played backyard games and instilled a love of sports, co-created Christmas plays and shared a thousand laughs. Some of her aunts, uncles, and cousins traveled to Austin to honor her and share her special day, a childhood friend styled her hair, and her best friend from birth was there–kindred spirits in the love of Gram and Gramps, friendship, and all things Chiefs and Royals.

We jogged west into Kansas, zooming past milo fields and oil wells until we came to the vast, beautiful Flint Hills.

My prairie-girl heart felt at home in the sea of grass dotted with an occasional windmill, herds of Angus, and a coyote sighting. This was cattle country, and it was grand in size and glorious in nature.

Dusk shrouded the grassland in a rosy-hued cloak as we got another day closer to Texas.

An orange sunrise greeted us as we left Kansas and rolled into Oklahoma.

Oklahoma shocked my northern eyes with its red soil, shrubby greenness, and oil wells.

We saw the Arbuckle Mountains, oldest known formations between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.

We saw Taylor Swift–okay, three semi trailers of her stuff–on the way from Nebraska to her next concert in Arlington, Texas!

We saw prickly pear cactus, high ridges of windmills, and crossed the Red River into Texas.

Fort Worth and Construction are the only things I remember about Texas until we got close to Austin. I was amazed how many miles and how extensive the construction projects spanned. Never would a northern city undertake such a feat in our short window of unfrozen time.

As we made our way to Austin, we were engulfed by 95 degree temperatures and wildfire smoke from the Bastrop County fires, not too far from the wedding venue. Welcome to Austin, Texas!

After college, she traveled to Marble Falls, Texas to work at The Outdoor School, instructing school-age children in outdoor recreation and the natural environment. It was there she cultivated many friendships and where she fell in love with Texas. It was there she met her husband-to-be–kindred spirits in life and love. Surrounded by their families, far-away friends, TOS and Austin friends, they began a new adventure together.

The world looks rosy in those heady, dazzling days of the beginning of a romance when we anticipate seeing and spending time with that special person. When the infatuation falls away, like the shimmering leaves of autumn, the real work begins. We examine our roots, our values, the things that matter to us, and we verbalize our wildest dreams of what we want in life. Then the big questions: Is this the person who will walk with me in love and respect, who will be his own person and allow me to be mine, who will commit to the hard work of partnership, who will hold my hand and guide me out of the woods when scary things happen? Is this love sustainable through a lifetime of choices, the huge commitment to parenthood or not, the really hard things in life that make your insides feel like a blank space of despair? Can this person make me laugh and feel truly loved year after year, forgive my mistakes and limitations, talk it out and shake it off? Do we make a good team, do we serve others, do we embody the things we hold dear? And when we realize that we have constructed a long list of Yeses to those big questions, we can move in bold style down the aisle in front of our people who love us and God who sustains us. No longer do we murmur, I wish you would…, but we profess with conviction I do, I will, and we walk together into the perpetual new beginning of each new day.

To Love and Be Loved

October 15, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. –David Viscott

Gleanings from September 2015

October 2, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

We have all heard the phrase that a picture is worth a thousand words, and some have enlarged that value to ten thousand words. The saying has been linked to Fred R. Barnard, a United States advertising executive in the early 1920’s who promoted the effectiveness of graphics. Barnard attributed the saying to a Japanese philosopher and later as a Chinese proverb. With my amateur photography and mission to showcase the beauty of Nature, I believe in the power of an image to convey something words cannot express. And yet, there have been some frustrating moments for me these past months of August and September where I could not capture the essence of the experience with my camera. The latest of these moments was the super-moon eclipse. The first half of the eclipse was visible between roiling clouds that eventually took over and obscured the ‘coming out’ phase.

There are many wonderful photographs of the eclipse shared on the internet, but even a series of professional images could not capture the essence of the eclipse experience. To see the huge, shining full moon taken over by the shadow and how the atmospheric particles shone red was awe-inspiring. It made me realize the movement of our earth and universe and just how small we each are in the whole scheme of things.

While autumn finery is easier to capture in pictures, part of our ability to appreciate the images is our familiarity with it. Most have experienced the miracle of changing leaves, the smell and sound of dried leaves crunching underfoot, and coolness of air on a blue-sky fall day. By looking at a photo, we can ‘imagine’ the rest.

We have had a dry September–only one measurable rain at a much-needed, yet insufficient half-inch. We all drank it in.

Our dry weather is turning the changing of the colors to the drying and browning of leaves, but one of the fall perennial stand-outs is in full bloom–‘Fireworks’ goldenrod. This deer and drought resistant cultivar has an explosion of tiny yellow flowers on horizontal stems.

Many of the common goldenrod growing in the wild areas have an interesting feature–a purplish, rounded gall on the stem. The Goldenrod Gall Fly is a parasite that lives its entire life cycle on the goldenrod plant. After mating on the plant, the female deposits her eggs into the stem with her ovipositor. The larvae hatch in ten days and eat inside the stem. Their saliva has a chemical in it that causes the plant to grow the abnormal galls. The larvae stay in the galls for a year, producing an anti-freeze-like chemical to keep them alive through the winter. In Spring, the larvae become pupae and then adults, and then they leave the galls to find mates. The armor-like galls protect the larvae from most predators, but the Downy woodpecker seeks out the galls to break them open to feast on the juicy larvae.

September was also the month of the Monarch. Our intention to let more milkweed grow paid off in the currency of butterflies.

A picture is worth a thousand words, ten thousand words, and maybe more. They are valuable in the appreciation of Beauty and the conveyance of details. The Essence of the Experience of walking through the Lost Forty forest last month or of viewing the super-moon eclipse could not be captured by photography, however. It could not represent the other senses–the smell of the pine needles, the quiet wind whispering through the tree tops, the feel of three hundred year-old bark– or the ‘other worldliness’ of moons and planets aligning and of the deep history and holiness of the land. As we live our entire life cycle on Planet Earth, pictures, words, and imagination cannot be stand-ins for the Essence of Experiences, for no matter the currency, they are worth millions.

Welcome to the Season of Preparation

September 23, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Moving a household of five people after nine or twelve years in one spot takes some preparation. Even more so if one does not easily get rid of things from the past–“But I love this picture she did when she was four–remember how early she held a pencil just right?” or “This showcased her musical talent–she played it so easily when she was little” or ” These plastic snakes were his favorite things when he was three–we should keep them for grandkids.” So, we did this twice in our lives–and we still have the picture, the instrument, and the snakes. I was fairly good at the preparation–I loved the neat stacks of boxes that accumulated against the wall as the closets and cupboards emptied, and I even felt a swift satisfaction with the large give-away and throw-away piles. But as moving day was in sight, I would hit a wall. Like a stubborn horse who will not move forward, I would find myself sitting back on my haunches and stiffening my neck–all of a sudden, I didn’t want this to happen! My mental preparation hadn’t kept up with my physical preparation.

Of the four seasons, Fall is the season for preparation. Spring brings many changes as it tumbles into Summer, but it seems joyful and effortless. Autumn slowly, methodically prepares us for Winter. And with that preparation comes paradox. Harvest of apples, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, beets, and squash showers us with abundance and food for the coming months while drying and dying vines and grasshopper-eaten leaves wither and eventually freeze.

Brilliant beautiful leaves inspire us and make us breathe deeply of the clear, crisp air–before they fall from the trees leaving bare branches and emptiness.

Animals prepare their nests, bodies, and food piles for Winter, and some become food for us.

Three months of waxing and waning, harvest and loss, work and rest, brilliance and decay.

Preparation–a proceeding, measure, or provision by which one prepares for something. Mother Nature prepares us, the animals, and the plants for Winter and all that comes with that in the North of North America. A proceeding, step by step, into the lenten season of dormancy.

My balking when the moves became inevitable illustrates my sudden realization of the losses I was about to incur–the loss of good friendships and family get-togethers, the loss of our home, jam-packed with memories of the kids growing up, the loss of every bit of work we did to make our place better than it was when we got there. My quarter-moon readiness illuminated the boxes and empty rooms, yet the darkened part, the side not seen, was not prepared and was struggling against what was to come. We work hard to prepare ourselves for certain things in our lives…and yet, sometimes, we just don’t get it all done. As my husband reminds me quite often, ‘You can only get ready for so long–pretty soon you have to leave.’ And we did leave–with loaded U-Hauls and vehicles stuffed to the brim, with tears and anticipation, with sadness and joy. The preparation carries us forward to what lies next. The time comes for us to lay our heartaches down (with all due respect to Emmylou), and we walk into the next Season of our Life.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: