Category Archives: nature

When I looked up, I saw — much beauty.

church, my garden, nature, , , , , ,

I heard an unusually big sound of wings between me and the creek this morning, and looked up to see a pair of Bald Eagles!! I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this bird before ever, and were they actually right here a few steps from my own house?

Yes, they were. They were leaving the branches of a tree as I walked by, and flew low through the creek bed a little farther, lit again briefly, and then lifted up into the blue sky above me where I got a movie with my phone, of them circling around me and the treetops. They are not too high and small in the movie to recognize their markings and confirm who they are. I can’t get over my astonishment, but I don’t mind it hanging on to me longer….

Also down by the creek many of the trees have colonies of mistletoe like this. One day I counted several dozen “decorated” trees, and when I went back in the evening the light was perfect for documenting the clumps that I normally don’t pay attention to.

Much prettier sights are also to be seen looking up:

I heard a lovely choral Christmas concert performed in our church last week. Beforehand all the electric lights were turned on, and looking up there one could see the dome brightly even though it was night! For the winter liturgical services we still only use candles, even at night, so it was different to get this view:

I have started cleaning up the garden in preparation for the dormant season. The sunflowers are still blooming, but I don’t want to wait until a frost hits to try to stuff them all in the bin, so I am filling it with sunflowers weekly. These Delta Sunflowers are the best! The birds adore them, too — Every time I go out the front door, a dozen are under the thicket, where a million seeds must have fallen by now and are still dropping.

 I brought in the last bouquet:

In the back garden, Christmas is more obviously on the way!

Staying with the moon.

nature, reality,

Thinking back on what happened early this morning, I’m all at once surprised, pleased, and disappointed, that I didn’t take a picture. The fact that the idea did not occur to me shows how the moon was saturating my soul with its bright reality, leaving no entrance for something as intangible as the future with its theoretical possibilities.

A night or two previous, I had caught a brief glimpse through my bedroom window of the moon waxing gibbous. But it was 4:30 a.m., and my eyes soon closed again in sleep. Last night before climbing in to bed, I saw on the Moon Phases app on my phone that the moon was full! Might I see it again, I wondered? Would I wake at the right time, or would clouds hide it from me? Several times I did wake, and saw only the blank, midnight blue sky.

But around six o’clock, I sat up to find the moon shining in on me, hanging bigger and brighter than a streetlight, right in the middle of my big window that faces west. So I lay on my bed to watch it, and wondered if I might stay with it until it sank below the horizon. Could I actually mark its descent? Well, yes, I could very easily do that, because the blinds over my windows were not drawn up all the way; the slats made lines across the picture, by which I could mark the steady movement of the white moon.

I thought, how sweet, how rich a gift, to be awake at just this moment, to be with the moon in its fullest display, loving it. The moon may be full every 28 days, but I certainly don’t see it every month. To not have to crane my neck, or stand in the cold, but to enjoy its presence from the comfort of my bed – well, who knows if I’ll ever have that chance again.  But this is real: I watched the moon last night until it was just one bright spot above the neighbor’s roof, and then it was gone.

This is what that window looked like at close of day when the sun had gone down:

And because it doesn’t seem right to publish this post without a single photo
of our dear moon, here it is as I once saw it in the evening:

I know some of you were also watching that moon
at some point in its course across the sky;
it is surely a wonder, a regular and familiar, beautiful thing in our world.

Glory to God!

Changes, always changes…

family, my garden, nature, , , , , ,

I’m not speaking of anything life-shattering, but just the day-by-day
and year-by-year transformations…. nothing is ever the same,
and yet everything important remains steady.

Brodie eating some of the Boston Brown Bread his father has been making:

Every time I am with my children and grandchildren I am overwhelmed with joy and also with awareness of how the moments are golden — and then gone.

For Thanksgiving Pippin’s and Soldier’s families were here,
ten extra living souls in my house for a few days and nights.

The children love my vintage toys, many of which are about forty years old now!

And crafting salads in the playhouse, with gleanings from my garden.

This year we did not eat turkey, but tri-tip barbecued by the guys.

 

 

 

And I helped the children make these puff-pastry goodies I saw a video recipe for on Facebook. They are pretty but not very tasty, because the pastry dough in the bottom of the muffin cups can’t puff, and comes out too dense and doughy. But it was fun, and they look pretty!

 

 

 

 

 

The days were full of matchbox cars, Playmobil, Legos, and children
sitting up at the table yet again for more pie, eggnog,
Fuyu persimmons and whatever was leftover and handy.
Thanksgiving comes but once a year!

We took a walk and wondered over live oak acorns with stripes.
Pippin is usually the one who notices such things first,
but we all learn from her attentiveness.

She also showed me three new birds in my back yard!
I was captivated by the flocks of kinglets
flitting from plum tree to snowball bush to rosemary.

I had collected leaves on my walks and pressed them briefly,
and we enjoyed comparing them and watching them change
over the days they were on the table.
The only ones we knew for sure were liquidamber and tulip tree.

Yes, those are Moomins who are also admiring the leaves!

As is typical but always amazing, both my son and son-in-law found projects to do for me.
Soldier remade some junky broken drawers into useful shelves,
and the Professor cleaned rain gutters.
I am the most loved woman on earth.

Joy brought this simple and much-enjoyed cranberry building activity for the children,
and Pippin and I collaborated on materials for needle-felting.

When Scout was in San Francisco with his parents one day, and Jamie was napping,
Ivy and I had girl time, happily poking our needles into wool roving
to make ducks and monsters and a bunny.

All my family have departed now, and left me in this lovely afterglow of sweetness.
The leaves are still changing… and fading. Soon I’ll need to replace them with berries!

Feasting in weather and among friends.

friends, nature, travel, trees, , , , , , , ,

My son Pathfinder told me that Oregon — at least the western part — is a place trees really like to grow. When I traveled north from his house the trees filled my vision and my heart. I didn’t have time to pull over at every turnout and go hug one of them, but that is what seemed the reasonable thing to do.

My days were full of trees, ocean, rivers — and weather. I walked on this beach, four days in a row, and listened to the rain clattering on the metal roof at night, and the wind howling.

My trusty raincoat was necessary attire, but while I was at the coast there were daily breaks in the rain long enough for a good outing. But the weather could change so fast! These next pictures were taken within a couple of minutes of each other:

As long as I was on the coast I didn’t feel the cold, and the weather was only exciting. I had worried just before setting out, about the prudence of traveling to a colder and wetter climate in this month of the year when one wants to start hibernating. But I never regretted going.

When I left the coast and drove inland it was to Corvallis, new-old home of my former housemate Kit, who had been with me the last two years. She took me to one of her favorite eateries in that college town, the Café Yumm!, where they make their signature Yumm! Sauce that I have come to love because of her sharing bottles brought to our refrigerator from this store.

And she showed me her favorite tree on the Oregon State campus, a beautiful and comforting sight out the window of one of her classes the first autumn she was a student there. You can see why she would love it:

My first night with Kit we slept at the farm where she had lived for several years before moving to California. Several generations and families live here in Philomath, and they all work at chores such as keeping the forest floor clean by burning downed wood and trimmings.

As the sun was already lowering when we arrived, Kit suggested we take a walk around the property to see the animals such as Soay sheep, and also down the road to Marys River and the covered bridge.

I was really glad for my other new coat, a warm winter parka, because now the temperature was near freezing, and the air damp from the daily rain. Our walk was brisk in every way, and the children among us bump-splashed their bicycles through a string of potholes filled with rainwater.

As the sky grew dimmer the burn piles shone brighter, and their wood smoke scented the wintry air. I remembered in my body the cold fog of my childhood winters, but this was a cheerier feeling, like being in a Little House book, or a Currier and Ives video…?

I was thoroughly charmed, as well as humbled and warmed by the farm family welcoming me so heartily — and feeding me heartily, and giving me a spacious and cozy bedroom all to myself.

In the morning this was our view, the clouds hanging out between the ridges and in the little valleys of the wooded hills. And we all — about eleven of us — drove into town for Divine Liturgy.

I spent another night with Kit and her parents in Eugene, where I was also treated royally. I began to wonder if all my hosts were conspiring to see how much fattening up of me they could accomplish in a mere two weeks. All in love, of course!

Most of my driving was not in the rain, until the last day, and then I drove in and out of clouds so frequently that I was captivated by the times when I emerged from a downpour to see the white drifts hanging out prettily nearby.

Then suddenly I was back in northern California…

…and in another day or so was home again. Just in time for Thanksgiving! I’m oh so grateful for a fun expedition and vacation, but even more glad to be in my own bed and kitchen. When I came in the front door it was to a bright wood fire that housemate Susan had got going, the most welcome sight.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends!