Autumn

AUTUMN AFTERNOON AND AMBER SUNLIGHT #14 – Garry Armstrong

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Day and Light

It was one of only a few golden autumn days. I had gone into town for a haircut, but I’d also taken the camera. It was a beautiful day with the sun at its most golden amber. I took a few pictures. Eventually, I took a lot of pictures. It was so lovely, I couldn’t stop.

Sunny Autumn afternoon in downtown Uxbridge

The old library in the autumn sun

Sunshine on an old church

Along a road in fall. This photo is not processed. It’s straight out of the camera.

We didn’t have much autumn, but I think I managed to catch the best of it. Maybe next year, it will be better? We can dream.

DRY LEAVES THAT FALL BEFORE THE WINDS – Marilyn Armstrong

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I am not as nostalgic about the past as many people. I had a difficult and often unpleasant childhood. It’s hard to put aside the unhappy childhood memories to find happy ones. They get tangled up.

Maple along the Blackstone

It is in the autumn where good memories live on. That perpetual autumn I can sometimes smell in the air as October arrives. It is probably why I love this season. Fall signals the return to school and what passed for “normal” in my world.

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I was a New Yorker. I’m sure it was cooler there 50 plus years ago than it is today. Especially in the fall.

And, I loved school. I know this was not a popular point of view in the kid world, but I loved it. Home kind of sucked.

Crunchy on the lawn by the river

School was better. Orderly. I had assignments. Things to learn. Teachers didn’t beat students and there were very few moments of sheer terror with which to cope. Unlike home at home.

In generating fear, schoolyard bullies were amateurs compared to my father.

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The thing I remember best and most fondly were the sound of the leaves crunching under my squeaky new leather shoes. The shoes always gave me blisters, no matter what salesmen in stores told my mother about the perfect fit.

I don’t know why she believed them when they told her the shoes fit, but never believed me when I told her they hurt.

Colors by the Blackstone. Photo: Garry Armstrong

Fall seems to be shrinking and disappearing. It is the most saddening part of climate change in this region. To lose the season that always brought me joy is very sad and I hope we can bring it back.

At least we are still getting some of it. Not like we used to, but a week is better than nothing.

CHANGES — Marilyn Armstrong

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As we have been repairing the house, I’ve also been rearranging the house. Three crates of dolls have moved into storage. The organ is gone. The big dining table has be folded up — it is a drop-leaf — into its smallest size and become where the plants live in the light of the east-facing window.

Finally finished front door

Photo: Garry Armstrong — Finished new wall

Owen brought over a small dining table today. It will, when open, seat six and if there are more people than that, it will be a sideboard and everyone can find a place to sit and eat. It’s hard to explain how very much I wanted someplace in this house where I could walk three steps without bumping into something.

The front woods

I’m waiting for my next large box to recommence boxing up the medium-sized dolls.

Autumn through the dining room French doors

So these two pictures: the first was shot on an SD chip I’d forgotten to remove from the camera. It waited for me. The other was taken today. Finally, a room that has floor space!

A quiet place to sit and maybe a place for a computer, too

New gutters, from the deck

Meanwhile, it would appear that we are now also under siege from raccoons. When all the birds and squirrels are tucked into bed for the night, the raccoons strike.

I really wanted to feed the birds, but it appears I’m feeding everything.

THE THREE SEASON YEAR – Marilyn Armstrong

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We don’t get four seasons. We get three. Summer — hot, sticky, and buggy, but at least it’s warm. Okay, a lot of humidity, but you have to take the good with the bad.

I had been hoping we’d more Autumn, and we did. It was short — just about a week — but glorious for that week. Which is good because it’s only the first week in November and they are predicting snow. I don’t think we’ll get any here, but it would not be a surprise. I can remember many years when it snowed before Thanksgiving and stayed snowy until Summer showed up.

Sometimes we get a second Autumn in November that lasts until after Christmas. Last year, it lasted until March, at which point we had three blizzards in a row. The snow hung around until the trees began to bloom after which we got two months of heavy rains and wind. No climate change here!

Last week it was pretty warm, but right now, it’s cold. Very cold.

House in summer

Summer by the Blackstone

Autumn by the river and canal

Now those are Autumn specials! – Photo: Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong –Winter at home

Junco atop the Toad

No pictures of spring because that’s a season we don’t really get. It’s winter, then summer. We always HOPE for spring, though. Even though we know it isn’t happening, we figure maybe one year it will.

You never know, right?

THE ARRIVAL AND IMMINENT DEPARTURE OF A SINGULARITY – Marilyn Armstrong

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Fandango’s Provocative Question #47

A provocative question today that I think currently means very little. It probably meant something 200-years ago, but now? I doubt it.

Here’s the question:

Technological singularity?

Personally? I think we reached it years ago — probably at least 50 years ago — and we are already in the throes of it. It did not need to become a net negative, but because of other issues — politics being the obvious one but also human greed, corporate greed, and a refusal to believe that the world was not made to accommodate us and when we push its boundaries hard enough, it will, in its own way, push back.

We have a dying world. We have a horribly over-inflated belief in humanity’s place in this world. And it will come to pass — is already coming to pass — that we shall discover how unimportant we really are. We are mosquitoes sitting on the back of a world that is getting ready to take a dip in waters lethal to our kind.

We shall be cleaned out and slowly but surely vanish. The planet will survive and recover in its own way. Whether or not that recovery leaves room for our kind? I’m not overly optimistic about it. While we are making enormous progress on one level, we are destroying what needs to be saved at the same time. It won’t do us any good to create a green world when we have already destroyed the greenery.

We can try, but we’d better start trying a whole lot harder than we currently are. Because I don’t think we can call a time out on the changes we have created and the desolation it is likely to bring.

Sorry for not sounding more chipper and cheery. If someone has something chipper and cheery to add that is based on science and not a personal opinion, shout it out.

FAREWELL OCTOBER – Marilyn Armstrong

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END OF THE AUTUMN – ANOTHER YEAR PASSES

It’s the last day of October and most of the trees are bare. It has been raining all week and last night’s wind and rain finally finished off the trees. So, in this vintage version of the old Inn around the corner, we say gooodbye and hope that winter is more kindly this year.

Photo by Garry Armstrong, processing by Marilyn Armstrong.

The 1700s Inn at at the end of our road. It has been added to, but the basic building remains. Until recently, it was a restaurant. Maybe it will be again.

ALMOST THE END OF THE LINE – Marilyn Armstrong

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ALMOST THE END OF THE LINE

Hard to imagine October is done. Finito. My favorite month. The only thing about it I don’t like is that winter is right behind it.

The cold is closing in quickly. I don’t have a good feeling about this winter. Last year, we had basically “late Autumn” until March. Then it snowed like mad for a few weeks. The rest of the season was not snowy. We had a lot of rain and mud and ice, but hardly any snow until my birthday.

Woods and fence blizzard

Welcome to my 72 birthday. It was a 15-inch blizzard. And there I was, thinking we were going to get through winter without snow. One year (during the past 20) we had a snow-free winter, but the following year we had so much snow we had to have our roof shoveled three times to keep it from caving in.

That’s the really bad part of really good attic insulation. The heat from the house never gets to your roof, so the tons of snow never melts. Each subsequent snow piles on top of earlier blizzards.

Farewell, October

The winters of 2015 and 2016 were both like living in Mongolia or maybe Antarctica. One of our cars (we had two back then) was literally buried. You literally could not see it. Driving down our narrow roads was like driving in a tunnel with the snow 10 feet high on both sides from the plowing. I remember when Kaity was very young and she asked if the giant piles of snow and ice were going to become glaciers which they were studying in school.

I explained that I didn’t think so, but who could tell anymore?

Nonetheless, this is still nominally October, so let’s think orange and pumpkin-flavored donuts.

MAPLE LEAVES BEFORE THE RAIN AND WIND – Marilyn Armstrong

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FOTD – October 26, 2019 – Maple Leaves

We have so many autumn pictures between what I’ve taken and Garry’s collection, I haven’t even had time to fully skim them. So here are a bunch of them — mine and his — and I think we’ve taken our full quote of autumn pictures.

There’s another big storm on the way on Sunday, so I’m not counting on there being much left when it is finished.

Maple leaves
Our maple tree
Maple along the Blackstone

Another picture of the first Quaker Meetinghouse, built 1770. If they could afford to install heating, the church would see a lot of use, but it is very cold in there and it’s now only used for weddings or other special events.

UXBRIDGE IN AUTUMN – Garry Armstrong

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Autumn Leaves in Downtown Uxbridge – October 24, 2019

I went out to pick up some pita to go with the hummus Marilyn was making. But I asked if it was okay if I borrowed her little Leica. Naturally, she gave it to me.

It was so beautiful out there I couldn’t stop taking pictures until the battery died. I could have put in another battery, but it was getting dark and I’d been gone for hours. Marilyn didn’t even ask where I’d been. She figured I took a camera, so I was taking pictures. So she got to refill the bird feeders, make dinner, clean the deck, figure out what to write and then I’d come home with a couple of hundred pictures. Which she would process.

I pointed out it was her fault. I didn’t take pictures until she stuck a camera in my hands and said “Shoot something. Don’t just stand there.” Who knew I’d get so addicted?

Marilyn knew and she knows I want that Leica. I absolutely assured her I didn’t really want the Leica, just to borrow it. She pointed out that the Leica was her “take everywhere” camera. On the upside, I can see in her eyes a new little camera taking shape. There are just a few other things that need to get done first. Like new gutters, a repaired back door. A camera is not currently on the agenda.

But the Leica is such a pleasure to use.

I took a few pictures.

The first Quaker Meetinghouse, built 1770. It’s at the corner of our road and Route 146A. It has no heating system, so it isn’t used much except for weddings or other events.

ANOTHER CRAZY DAY – Marilyn Armstrong

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Another day at the doctor tomorrow — and I have a ton of paperwork to deal with. Of course, I could skip all the paperwork and just stay with the same healthcare company, but I really should switch.

It’s just too much. Can I retire? Oh, wait. I’m already retired. Can I REALLY retire this time?

Taking an hour for some pictures!

It’s still beautiful, but it is raining. It’s not a huge storm, but it will bring most of the leaves down. They were falling like a brilliantly colored snowstorm yesterday and a day of rain will make a lot of trees rather naked. Not completely, but more than today.

it’s just going to be one of those weeks and I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop running. I need better running shoes. I need better running FEET.

SHARING MY WORLD – RUNNING SHOES! – Marilyn Armstrong

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SHARE YOUR WORLD 10-23-19

Questions Of The Day

Had any good conversations with yourself lately? Did you listen to yourself? And how’d that work out for you?   

It didn’t work out well. I was trying to find the chargers for two cameras I haven’t used in a while and I looked everyplace that ought to be and they weren’t there. I finally gave up which surely means I will find them. I beat myself up, but that didn’t help me find anything so I ordered them from Amazon. Sigh.

What is gravity and how does it work?

You get old. Your breasts sag. You get shorter. It’s because gravity is dragging you down. I no longer have a waist. My ribs sit directly ON my hips. I am solid, like an arthritic pipe. All my same-age friends have been dragged down by gravity too, so that makes me feel a little less traumatized. But only a little bit.

Trees in the front

Gravity. It ALWAYS wins the fight.

What is more real – Mind or Matter?

Neither. My mind is a whirling mess of things I should have done, have to do, need to do, but does it MATTER?

Nah.

Should a vegetarian (or vegan) eat animal crackers? 

Should animals eat people crackers? Would they want to?

Name (describe) something you wouldn’t want to run into in dark and deserted woods or alley.  Politicians are a given, so skip those, please.  

I have to admit I have ALWAYS avoided dark and deserted alleys and as for the woods, I stay away from where the giant spiders live. Creatures live in the woods. Some of them are pretty big. I’ll just watch this here World Series Game if that’s okay with you!