Category Archives: Fall

Books, Fall

Fall Is Tapping on Our Shoulders; Reading Agatha Christie

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On Sunday evening, it was a little too chilly to sit comfortably in the screen house.

“Let’s have a fire,” I suggested.

For Christmas, Dee had bought us a new fire pit, and in early spring we had tested it once on the patio. We wanted to see if the fire pit worked properly—it did—and after that trial run, we set it to one side to be used come fall.

Fall, it seems, has come tapping on our shoulders. Both Clif and Dee agreed that a fire was a good idea, and soon we were having drinks around the fire pit.

I realize this fire looks out of control, but it really didn’t seem that way when we were sitting around it. I am happy to report that the fire stayed in the pit, and the only thing that burned was the wood that fed the fire.

As we chatted and had our drinks, the neighbor’s cat came for a visit.

Fortunately, he left without catching this little chipper.

Above us, the sky was a brilliant blue.

In Maine, September is surely one of the most beautiful months of the year—warm days, cool nights, and usually not too much rain. I probably should have saved this post as an item for Thankful Thursday, but here it is on Monday, a grateful way to begin  a week that supposedly will be filled with blue skies and sunshine.

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Reading

Agatha Christie: The Mirror Crack’d , A Caribbean Mystery, and Nemesis from Five Complete Miss Marple Novels

Confession Time: Until this past month, I had never read an Agatha Christie novel. Seems incredible, I know. I am nearly sixty-seven, and I hadn’t read the grande dame of mysteries.

My excuse? I am not a huge mystery fan. They are not the books I naturally gravitate toward. (That would be literary fiction and fantasy. Not the usual combination, I know, but there it is.)

So what changed my mind? Shane Malcom-Billings, a librarian extraordinaire who work at our town’s library. He has put together an Agatha Christie book club, and I thought, why not? Somehow, it sounded fun. Shane is a wonderful book club leader, and I’m looking forward to his take on Agatha Christie. Our first meeting is this Friday, and it will be one where we discuss Agatha Christie in general. After that, we’ll be reading specific books. I figured I should read a few novels so that I would have something to add at that first meeting.

I found a compendium of five Miss Marple novels—the three I read are listed above—and off I went, staring with The Mirror Crack’d.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading The Mirror Crack’d. Would I like it? Would the writing be full of clichés? Would the story come at the expense of the characters? Here are my answers: Yes, no, and somewhat.

The writing style is solid and is not loaded with hackneyed phrases. Miss Marple is a wonderfully sympathetic character, a woman who is dealing with aging and all that this brings yet who is still sharp enough to solve mysteries. If I were younger, I might not be as drawn to Miss Marple as I am, but as I approach my seventies—my, that sounds old!—I am completely sympathetic with her frailties.

There is also a fair amount of humor in the books, especially when Miss Marple puts on a doddering old-woman act to trick characters into revealing more than they want to.

The other characters, I’m afraid, are more one dimensional. They are there to commit crimes, to be suspected of having committed a crime, or to help Miss Marple. Not much nuance.

Never mind. I like Miss Marple so much that I’m willing to overlook the lack of depth in the other characters.

What will I think of Christie’s other protagonists?

I don’t know. Stay tuned.

 

Fall

A New Phone

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Amid all the excitement in our household that now includes five adults, two dogs, and one cat, I can add a new cell phone to the mix. My old phone had been going for some time, but when I could no longer turn it on without plugging it into a charger, I knew the time had come to get another one.

More not-so-merry confusion as Clif and the nice young man at T-Mobile tried to get all our information migrated from our old phones to the new ones. (The package came with two new phones so Clif figured: What the heck. Why not get a new one, too?) I will spare readers a detailed list of the troubles we’ve had. Suffice it to say we are not quite there with email.

However, one huge improvement on the new phone is the camera, which, along with having a zoom lens, takes 50 megapixels pictures. Holy cats, that’s exciting to me. As soon as the camera was charged and ready, I took some pictures, and I was not disappointed by their clarity.

From yellow leaves in the garden

to Mr. Toad

to a close-up of my favorite mug,

I am utterly delighted with this astonishing camera in my cell phone.

My wee camera, with 20 megapixels, has served me well for many years, but I suspect I will not be using it much anymore.

Farewell, old friend.

 

 

Celebrate, Fall

A Gathering of Scarecrows

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This year, the Winthrop Grange has sponsored a Scarecrow Contest for families, organizations nonprofits, businesses, and churches. The response has been wonderful. Scarecrows are lurking on Main Street. They are settled by light poles. One is even lounging by the library, and he is clearly asleep at the job. All have really jazzed up Winthrop’s downtown.

Here are just a few of the entries. They range from cute

to odd but arresting

to cozy

to elegant

to vibrant

to spooky

to just plain fun.

I can imagine all the scarecrows late at night as they slide off their poles and glide around town, gathering by the lake to have a scarecrow dance, careful to return to their posts before dawn so that nobody knows about their nightly escapades. But those with sharp eyes and a notion for the uncanny might notice clumps of straw here and there by the water, evidence that there was some kind of wild, spooky gathering.

 

Fall, News

We’ve Got the Power, but…

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On Thursday, the electricians came, and after spending most of the day here, they replaced the damaged boxes and got the electricity back to the way it was before the lightning strike. Hello, washing machine, dryer, vacuum cleaner, oven. So nice to have you all back. Goodbye, microwave. Thank you for the many long years of service. Your replacement will be arriving soon, and I certainly hope the new one is as sturdy and reliable as you were.

In theory, all should be well. In reality, we discovered our water heater was another causality of the lightning strike and surge. For the past week, it had been heating erratically, and yesterday it stopped working entirely. This means no hot water unless we heat it on the stovetop. The water heater will soon be checked to see whether it can be repaired or needs to be replaced. Yet again, thank goodness for our homeowners insurance.

Despite being a bang of a month, September has brought some pleasures.

Item: Most evenings, the weather has been mild enough for drinks on the patio. This time is soon coming to an end, and we are trying to squeeze as much time on the patio as we can.

Item: Because of the excessive rain, most of the nasturtium seeds I planted didn’t germinate, but the ones that did are oh so pretty.

Item: There were enough tomatoes for a final harvest, which means more tomato sandwiches for lunch this week. Although the tomato yield was way down from previous years, Juliette—the variety I planted—performed valiantly in the face of too much rain and not enough sun. But, Juliette’s time is over, and after harvesting the tomatoes, I pulled the plants.

Item: Our new whole house power surge protector has the Whovian name “Bad Wolf.” Protect us from future power surges, Bad Wolf!

Odds and Ends: We found a new place to play trivia on Monday nights, which is a great way to start the week. On Saturday, we will be meeting friends at Absolem’s, and on Sunday, we’ll be heading to Freeport to a brewery to celebrate Clif’s birthday.

Will we have running hot water by then? Who knows? But we’ll be following Bill & Ted’s excellent advice: Party on, dudes.

Note: This is an old trailer. The movie didn’t play this summer. But the trailer was a short and snappy way to feature  the excellent Bill & Ted.

 

 

 

 

Fall, Home

Walktober: Walking Toward Our House on the Edge of the Woods

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With this post, I am joining Robin of Breezes at Dawn for her annual Walkotober event, where blogging friends are invited to go on a walk in October and then share it with her. This year, because home is so important to me, I decided to feature a short walk down the road toward our house.

As the title indicates, our home is on the edge of the woods, and the trees hide the house until suddenly you come upon it.

Here I am, just up the road, no house in sight.

I walk a little farther, and a school bus goes by. Before the bus disappears down the road, I manage to snap a picture of it.

Finally, a glimpse of our red house.

A clearer, view, but still through the trunks of trees.

Finally, here it is, our home: modest, cozy, in need of repairs (we’re working on it.) One of the places I love best.

Fall

Leaves, Leaves Everywhere

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Last Friday, a powerful storm blew up the coast of Maine, and because we are only fifty miles inland, we felt the effects, too. At the storm’s peak, over 100,000 customers were without power—keep in mind we are a state with a little over a million people.

Half the town of Winthrop lost its power, and although our lights flickered, we were not among those who were in the dark. Thank goodness! As I’ve noted many times, we have a well, and no power means no water.

Clif thinks our power stayed on because we are on the same line as the fire department’s new building, just up the road from us. Could be. Whatever the case, we keep our power through most storms, and when we do lose it,  the power comes back fairly soon. And, yes, we are ever so grateful.

Saturday morning, after the storm, there were leaves, leaves everywhere, making a colorful mosiac.

Here, from above, was the view of our backyard and patio.

Now for a closer look.

Leaves on the patio.

Leaves on the table.

Around the front, leaves on our small deck.

And, finally, leaves on the moss.

Even without a storm, this is a time of year when the leaves come down, down, down.

Is it any wonder we Americans call this time of year fall?

authorpages, Books, Fall, News

October Delights and a Contest

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The calendar has flipped to October, and the weather has reacted accordingly. Mornings are a little on the chilly side.

There have been frost warnings for our area, but our yard is so well protected by the woods that the tender perennials haven’t been struck yet. Despite the cool weather, the impatiens are still thriving. What a year it’s been for them!

But the rest of the plants are definitely past their best. Nevertheless, they have their own fall beauty.

The ferns, no longer green, are instead a crisp brown.

Sedums mix with the red leaves of evening primroses.

And the seed heads of the black-eyed Susans stand at attention.

But what I like best about October is its nutty smell as plants go to seed and leaves lose their green. Unfortunately, I can’t capture this delightful smell. Sure wish I could.

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And now for the contest!

To celebrate the publication of Of Time and Magic, I will be giving away a copy of the book. Also, I will be giving away three calendars featuring the nifty map Clif is putting together for Of Time and Magic. To enter, all you have to do is tell me in the comment section, and I’ll add your name to the list. I will mail the book and the calendars anywhere in the world, so readers outside the United States, please don’t hesitate to enter the contest.

The contest begins today—Monday, October 3—and will end Saturday, November 5.

Whether you live near or far, don’t be shy about entering this contest.

 

 

Fall

In Maine, Winter Is Never Far

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As we wend our way through fall, Clif and I have been getting ready for winter. On Monday, we got our first pallet of wood blocks for our furnace.

Time was when we ordered five or six cords of wood, stacked it outside in rows so that it would dry, and then hauled it down cellar. This provided lots of warmth through exercise, but we are getting older and have decided to give ourselves a little break. We get these blocks from a local store, and they are made entirely from sawdust waste. One pallet is equal to about a cord of wood, and we can order the blocks as we need them.

Clif has rigged up a cart that, in about an hour and a half, allows him to haul the blocks and stack them down cellar. About the only bad thing about these bricks—which burn hot and dry, leaving little creosote behind—is that they are, alas, wrapped in plastic.

, of course, 

Here is a fun Maine saying for those of you who “are from away.”  When someone does something considered a little odd or off, we often say, “Well, that one is a few logs short of a cord.”

Which just goes to show that heating and cold weather are never far from our thoughts. When you live this far north, winter is always on the edge of your mind. Even during the balmy days of summer, we know that snow and icy winds are just around the corner.

The other night, as we were watching television, I heard the phantom sound of the town’s snowplow as it roared down the road. There were, of course, no lights flashing against the blinds in the living room as the plow went by. There was no plow.

But some sound jogged my memory, reminding me that winter is near.

 

 

Fall, People

Komorebi: Sunlight Streaming Through the Trees

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In a recent post, I featured this picture of glowing November leaves.

In the comments section, my blogging friend Susan Rushton noted “[t]he sunlight through the trees illustrates the Japanese word Komorebi I was reading about earlier in the week.”

Although I have long admired the Japanese for their ability to use a single word to express a concept, I had never heard of komorebi before. I decided to do a little research.

From the Chicago Botanic Garden I learned “[t]he dapples of light and leaf are caused by the pinhole effect—the same concept that allows a pinhole camera to work. Light passes through a small hole—or in this case, the gap between leaves—and projects an inverted image on the other side. This effect is especially notable at dawn or just before dusk, when one can observe a cascade of shimmering amber light. While the sight is familiar and nostalgic, there is no English word for this phenomenon. There is, however, a Japanese word: komorebi.

“There are three important parts to this word: 木 (ko) meaning tree, 漏れ (more) meaning to escape from, and 日 (bi) meaning sun. Together, the characters mean something like ‘sunlight filtering through trees.'”

Inspired by komorebi and the Japanese, I went out in search of more amber light filtering through the leaves of trees. I was not disappointed.

By the edge of my deck, I came across this astilbe. Even though the astilbe is not a tree, it seems to me that the sunlight glowing through the plant’s leaves captures the beautiful quality of komorebi.

Thank you, Susan, for introducing me to komorebi, a concept that I both knew and didn’t know, which has come to me each fall as the leaves change to russet and yellow and the sun slants sideways not far above the horizon, casting a golden glow over the landscape.