Soggy-Footed and Full-Bellied

Shrooms.

This is the time of year I love the most. I love the leaves, the arrival of the rains, pumpkins, and the excuse to drink hot tea all day long. But mostly, I love the mushrooms. I like the secrecy of mushroom hunting, that it gives me an excuse to go out by myself, at odd times of day, and in the middle of the week. I love the excitement of finding a blooming cluster, knowing that my hiking hasn't been in vain. I love the necessary days of cooking, mushroom tacos, soups, and delicate sauces, the small of drying fungi permeating the kitchen. This part of the season appeals to the child in me, the little girl that likes surprises, scavenger hunts, and still believes in the magic of the forest. Each year I take the arrival of the mushrooms as proof that simple pleasures, small rewards, and things beyond my understanding and control are still alive and well in the world. 

You've gotta get it somewhere.

Simple Things

Morning.

Fall brings with it such a hustling and bustling that the simple things in life can slip right through our fingers. Why should we stop to smell the newly rain-scrubbed air or savor the warming of our hands wrapped around a cup of tea when there are football games, little leagues, school projects and the impending doom of holiday shopping, decorating and entertaining to attend to? 

This week, I reject both hustle and bustle, regardless of deadlines and obligations. Instead, I choose to whittle out space to savor the season, the changing of the leaves, the sound of rain against the roof, and early night fall. Most of this time is carved from the earliest parts of mornings. Some simple morning gratitudes:

Piano practice.

Soggy mushroom hunts.

Pumpkins roasting in the oven.

Leaf prints, stained into the sidewalk.

The filling of the root cellar.

Coffee by the fire.

Garden beds, neatly turned for winter.

Pooh Bear

Honey.

Once a year I drive to an old church in the middle of Oregon farm country to buy my winter pantry in bulk directly from the growers. These events are less like farmers markets with their well-groomed displays and valued-added products than they are traditional farm stands.  Family's sell apples at twenty-five cents a pound out the back of their pickups and tiny old women offer fifty pound hand-milled flour in home-sewn sacks. There are great, long braids of onions and garlic and piles and piles of squash nestled next to buckets of wild rice.  There is also the last of the season's honey. Every year I buy honey, a pint or two, maybe even a well-priced quart, but always, I stand and long for the giant gallon jars. They are beautiful; a whole winter's bounty of honey-sweetened tea, sauces, oatmeal, and muffins in a single jar. Even knowing that I will use it, such an investment has never seemed reasonable. Until, for some reason, this year when I finally toddled down a gravel country road with a fat, golden jar hugged to my belly; the sweets of winter, secured.

Photograph:

www.rubygonewild.com

  

Flight and Freedom

Today I sit beside the window and watch the birds, visitors here, just passing through to warmer winters south, and am jealous of their easy freedom. I too, wish to so predictably turn to sunny days and fat times. I worry over my pepper plant, so absurdly out of place but still producing bright green fruit in some silent tribute to life's challenges and absurdities. I think that I should cover the rye beds to over-winter. Finally, I go outside and pull the last tomato plant, leaving the its proffer on the sill to ripen. 

An excerpt from a poem for the turning of the season, Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

       love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

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The Wilds Of Fall

Rye.

Just in time I am finally bedding down the garden for winter. The rye has finally broken through, and will hold the soil until the first days of spring. Garlic and onions are nestled, waiting under cover for warmer days, and I too, am reminded of the need to hunker down and bide my time. 

In celebration of the turning of the leaves, some reasons to remember to love autumn:

The changing of the leaves.

Pumpkins.

The return of sweaters and fires.

Chanterelles.

Migrating birds.

Hot tea and books.

The sound of rain on the roof.

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

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Photograph Courtesy of:

www.rubygonewild.com

Under The Cover Of Pines

Rain.

The rains have come.  They arrive this year, unlike the previous few, with a thud, a heavy settling of clouds low in the valley. They come in torrents, more rain than we have seen in any September in a hundred years. I am glad for them.  Autumn is my favorite time of year with its late harvest abundance and brilliant displays of color.  I love the challenge of making something other than Jack O Lanterns with my pumpkins, the delight of finding a new patch of mushrooms, and the Aspen, golden and lean.  I am glad to witness these passages, strange birds only passing through, wildflower stands disappearing into duff, antlers, fully realized. I am glad to be reminded of my own passages, and to find myself whole and on the other side, I take the rains as a sign of more big things to come.

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

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Photograph by:
www.rubygonewild.com

The Thrill Of The Hunt

Shroom.

Nothing says fall to me like piles and piles of Chanterelle mushrooms.  This year they have started early and I am celebrating being able to hunt in dry weather.  I love the mystique of mushroom hunting, the secret locations, returning to old familiar stomping grounds, the same tree stump year after year.  I love the excitement of finding a hidden cluster, the leading edge of one mushroom turning into a pound with some careful brushing aside of debris.  With time, I have learned patience in the hunt, knowing that two hours of futility can be reversed with one or two good finds.  I also know that nothing in life is a guarantee and I should be cautious about taking my harvest personally, skill and experience may help, but in the end luck always seems to to win.  More than anything though, the autumn hunt encourages me to slow down, step off the trail, and look closely at the forest, to scrutinize it with a clarity and openness that I rarely accomplish charging up the trail, a destination as my goal.  I appreciate this annual reminder of the complexity of things and the need to pay attention.  The journey, after all, is only one part of our experience.

Happy hunting.

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

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In Consideration of Fall

Squirrel.

Though summer is still burning, the return of children to school and the hardy work of the backyard squirrels turns my mind towards fall.  I find myself in consideration of the consequences of the previous months; a weighing of my progress towards my goals and obligations. I sympathize with the squirrels, hastened in their work by the knowledge of limited days.  I feel the pressure of my own harvest, the enormity of the tasks ahead of me. I worry.  I wonder if I will know when it is good enough, when I can shutter the windows and bed into winter. The squirrels look as if they will continue until the frost.  I suppose then, that I shall too.

Photograph Courtesy of:

www.rubygonewild.com 

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1731666363/girl-gone-wild-a-guide-to-being-a-woman-outside?ref=city