October Monday

As far as I can figure out, all my grandchildren are afraid of spiders. Sure, the youngest -- Juniper and Sandpiper -- aren't really expressive about it, but the older two more than compensate for that. Snowdrop calls out every time a daddy-long-legs (or a cellar spider) is in her path. She doesn't want me to squash it, just to pick it up and take it outside. Which I do. Again and again. Because the fact is, the farmhouse is not free of spiders. 

Most of them reside high up in corners that are unreachable by us and I tell the kids that anything that is unreachable and does not cross their path stays there. The thing is, Ed and I do have a great deal of respect for our spiders (and spider lookalikes). I'll admit to even having one who lives by the corner of my bed. When I see it in the evening, I smile. 

I was, therefore, enchanted, positively enchanted by the gentle opinion piece by Margaret Renkl in the NYTimes this morning. She, too, likes spiders, though she seems to like them on the outside of her window pane. Not a real spider aficionado, by my count!

It's not that I am bug crazy. And weird spiders do give me pause. Most spiders can't puncture human skin, but there are those who can and no, I dont like bug bites any more than you do. Fun fact: daddy long legs are known to attack and kill spiders that would harm humans. And by the way, they are not even spiders but opilionids: they lack silk and venom glands. We think of it this way: spiders (and opilionids) have a life and moreover, they are the most effective insect control you can employ in your home, trapping and killing mosquitoes, mites, clothes moths, earwigs, flies. What's there not to like?

Inside, a daddy long legs can live for up to three years. Outside, the frost tonight will kill off most of them. Their egg sacks will survive. New spiders will emerge in spring. You've read Charlotte's Web, haven't you? The cycle continues.

I count this as the seasonal turning point for us: the night that frost comes to farmette lands. It may come tonight, it most assuredly will come tomorrow night. On the one hand, nothing changes. The birds will dive for the crab apples despite the burst of cold. The woodpecker will continue to peck at the corner of our house. (Such a remarkable thing, nature's evolution is, allowing that bird to have protection of its pea brain so that it can absorb all those shocks!) The leaves will still cling to the branches of the maples, the black walnut, and yes, the dreadful honey locust ("dreadful" only because it shades the Big Bed and drops huge seed pods over everything). And yet, that frost marks a change for us. The annuals will disappear. The spiders will have done their life's work. The heavier jacket hangs now in the kitchen, because I can longer just dash out in my hoodie to feed the animals. Us humans need help keeping warm outside. And inside. The furnace is on. Winter is just around the corner.

Morning walk...

(Renkl got it exactly right: October sunlight is stunning! But then, so is February's. So different, and so beautiful...)

(Ed urged me to take a look at our one successful artichoke plant out back...)

(Right next to it -- our very successful lavender patch, which did a rebloom this October...)

(Perhaps an award should go to my sweet peas: do you see the one that climbed all the way up the crab apple?)

Breakfast of oatmeal. Tis the season. And snipped lavender blooms. Tis not the season.

Planting bulbs: just 25.

Today is a day of no school for the kids. I can't say I have entirely shaken my pneumonia just yet, but I'm making progress and Snowdrop requires no work for me so while her brother attends an afternoon of sewing at his sewing class (the little guy has a new hobby he loves!), I pick up the girl for an afternoon at the farmhouse. With a stop first at the Arboretum because we do not want to miss the fall colors this year.

(You know what's not supposed to blooming right now? Lilac.)

Colors? Just starting to emerge...

We find trees that head the show.

It's cold and in any case, I'm not in top form so we do not stay long. Still, I'm glad we went. I haven't missed this October walk yet in the last decades! I'm glad we could squeeze it into the afternoon.

At the farmhouse: a quick lunch, reading, math, play lines -- the usual.

(computer math -- she asks for help on this one....)

And in the evening I do a modest postponed "Sunday dinner" for the young family. 

(shows me his sewing class creation; "and it glows in the dark!")

(for the love of carrots)

(if those two get to be on my lap, is there room for a third?)

I don't rush to clean up everything afterwards. My bedtimes this week are on the very early side and I sleep (would you believe it!) a solid 9 or even 10 hours -- I am that worn out by this bug. I sit for a while with Ed on the couch and think about October. And frost.  Growing season behind me. All that's left is to look for beauty (and it's there!) in the barren landscape that will ours for the colder months of the year.

with love...