Scary Pumpkins

When you live with a two year old, Halloween is a holiday of great contradictions.

While the event is hyped as the ultimate ghoulish, Day of the Dead, All Saints Day, Gothic, creepy night, all of that is hard to imagine with a two year old carving her version of a scary pumpkin. Then comes the horror of Abigail making her scary face!

(The pumpkin, incidentally, is from Perkins).

As other kids walked up Sweet Street hill dressed as ghouls, vampires, ghosts, and even half-dead zombies with the skin sliding off of their faces to reveal empty eye sockets and skulls, Abigail decides to be the purple cat from "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle.

To add to all the weirdness, as I'm typing up this blog entry, the 1979 seminal goth anthem "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus comes on the internet radio. I turn the volume up rather loud. Then Julie comes up stairs and shares with me that Abbey was digging the song and dancing about the living room.

Spooky.

Fourteen Hikers

Yesterday, Julie and I led a hike for the Western Michigan Chapter NCTA's "Fall Fun Day." It was a drizzly day, but in all we had fourteen hikers.

We took the group on a 6.5 mile hike in the White River watershed of Newaygo County, from 40th Street to Centerline Avenue on the North Country Trail.

As we began our hike, we walked through a forest dominated by oaks. The leaves on the oaks seem to be more vibrant this year, less brown and more red. The misty rain made the woods a particularly quiet and colorful place.

One crazy piece of trivia from our hike was that of the fourteen hikers, five had thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in the past. Two had just returned from their thru-hike less than a month ago.

The hike went pretty quickly. As wet as it was, no one was too eager to stand around too long to take in the fall colors or to stop and sit for a lunch or snack break. Instead, folks kept moving quickly enough to ward off the chill of the cool, damp air.

The other rather unique thing about this group hike is that there were no real speed demons or stragglers. Everyone walked just about the same speed; even Julie, who was pulling up the rear with Abigail riding in the backpack carrier.

Perkins View

Here's a quick, last look at Perkins while some of the plants are still standing. This picture was taken a week ago when the sun made a rare appearance. Frost this past week got the last of the peppers, although it stayed warm enough in the city that the home peppers are still producing, as is chard, kale, broccoli, zucchini and cabbage.

I'm hoping it gets dry enough between now and December to rototill some manure and straw into the Perkins garden. With my limited time and recent weather patterns, it's not looking good.

Getting Lost

One of the books I'm reading is "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" by Rebecca Solnit. Mostly I've been reading it on my way to and from work on the days I take the bus (and when a particularly chatty man from our neighborhood doesn't sit down next to me).

As the title discloses, the theme of the book is the many ways in which people go about getting lost. They get geographically lost, but they also get emotionally lost. People get socially lost, psychologically lost, and so on.

A curmudgeonly critic from the Boston Globe (who apparently rather enjoys reading textbooks more than personal reflections) wrote, "What's ultimately so frustrating about this "Field Guide" is the sense of what it could have been. Solnit is clearly an authority on more subjects than you can shake a stick at. But being knowledgeable is one thing; having something to say is quite another."

To this natty nitpicking I would add that knowing how to say something, and say it well, makes a tremendous difference. Here's a sample of Ms. Solnit's talent with words, reflecting on what it means for people to be in relationship with each other.

A happy love is a single story, a disintegrating one is two or more competing, conflicting versions, and a disintegrated one lies at your feet like a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a different story, that it was wonderful, that it was terrible, if only this had, if only that hadn't. The stories don't fit back together, and it's the end of stories, those devices we carry like shells and shields and blinkers and occasionally maps and compasses. The people close to you become mirrors and journals in which you record your history, the instruments that help you know yourself and remember yourself, and you do the same for them. When they vanish, so does the use, the appreciation, the understanding of those small anecdotes, catchphrases, jokes: they become a book slammed shut or burnt...

The stories shatter. Or you wear them out or leave them behind. Over time the story or the memory loses its power. Over time you become someone else.

I've always liked the power of prose writers who can capture reality in unique ways that help us see the world with fresh eyes. As those writers provide insights that help us understand the fullness of terra firma, Ms. Solnit exposes the geography between people and helps us understand that stories and memories are the road maps that keep us connected to each other.

In the Field Guide, she shares her experiences with getting lost, sometimes intentionally and sometimes by accident, sometimes with frustrating results, and other times ending up in places of wonder.

Last Pickins?

Life has been busy so the walking, gardening and blogging haven't gotten much attention lately. Yet old man Winter forced me out to the Perkins garden for the second time this week. While it's still uncertain, it looks like we might see our first killing frost this week.

The more certain thing in the forecast is snow. It's amazing how such a natural, annual phenomenon can get so many people buzzing. What I find even more amazing is the amount of people that talk about the impending white stuff with dread in their voices.

Let's face it folks, snow will be in the forecast in these parts for the next six months. Better get used to it (or move to Florida).

But back to the garden.

I was a bit saddened to take what could be a final look at the faded zinnias, the same ones that seemed to be seedlings just yesterday.

I clipped a dozen habanero peppers, a few chilies and premature sweet peppers, and picked up a few of the reddish tomatoes that had dropped from the vine since Sunday.

Then, dare I admit, with the threat of a tear welling up in the corner of my eye, I turned away from the Perkins plot and walked back through the mist to my Jeep.

Summer has truly come and gone. And while winter brings all kinds of good things with it, I will miss waiting for the next thing to sprout, bloom, or ripen in the garden.