Fall is really here

September 30, 2008
Fall is really here

Yesterday after blogging I took Kenya for the first of the walks. We went about 2 ½ miles stopping every so often to cut wild flowers for a dark corner of the livingroom. They are all ones I hope can be kept dry, bull rushes, ornamental grasses, sprigs with red and yellow berries, an oak branch whose leaves are beautiful.

I discovered absolutely beautiful mushrooms along the road.

Flock upon flock of Canada geese flew overhead all day, streaming V's of loud honking below the clouds. I heard the last flock after dark when I took Kenya for her evening walk. Here is a small sample of one of the earlier groups.



I love fall but its colours are often dull until the leaves burst into flame. I wrote a poem about it a few years ago.

I'm Reminded

September flowers are mauve
like estrogen pills.

September leaves are shriveled
like our aging skin.

Some turn porous and lacy,
old demented brains or osteoparotic bones.

Last week sumac was red.
Today it reminds me of
dried up menstrual blood.

But some plants flare into life
like magic sunsets.

Dead embers exposed to air
for that last party.

Back at home I did some cleaning, and, as I washed the oil lanterns, realized that I quite like cleaning when everything else in my life is under control. And if I were cleaning someone else's house for money I might quite like the sense of creating order and beauty for them (and the money which might help me get my own house in order.) So I checked on the going rate and answered an ad in the local newsletter.

Then I shortened a pair of slacks I bought at Frenchie's this summer. They are a pair that would be perfect if I get the house cleaning job.

I talked to a few people during the course of the day ... Dirtwitch who is looking at a place with an extra house for me in the summer or after I leave the lake ... Claire who is doing well with her chemo ... Tamarack who is back from a weekend at a cottage ... and Linda who cleans houses for a living.

Linda was in a four car pile-up at the end of the summer and has had a real financial setback because it occurred in Quebec. With no-fault insurance you have no recourse if some idiot squashes you between two trucks, totalling your car and preventing you from working for a couple of weeks. Oh, your insurance company pays the going rate, but that does not equal the value of the car, and there is no recompense for lost work. She is philospophical if displeased. That seems to be all any of us can do, I guess.

Imagine how it must feel to be an American right now strangling in the mess that is the Wall Street failure. I hate my RRSPs so much I figure my best bet is to use the remaining ones quickly, accept that they have half their value, get out from under the financial load I am carrying, and forget about savings.

What I will probably do, instead though, is live today almost as if there is no tomorrow. I will file the house insurance bill due the end of October, pay Bell with a postdated e-payment, call the municipality to find out what their incomprehensible tax bills mean, write letters to a couple of friends, phone a couple of others, walk the dog, feed the cat down the road, greet Tango when he arrives, and feed the wood stove to keep the house cozy. Of course I will also continue to prepare for winter. There are boards and fencing to move, rosemary to pot and bring indoors, and summer chairs and boats to put away till next summer. I hate to put away the kayak till the last minute, but I have faced the fact that the ladder to the lake will serve no purpose till next June.