From my kitchen windows the days are October bright: noonday sun begins to look too harsh for the birch leaves, and their voice has dulled from the liquid, green lisping to the dry, gold whispers of Autumn. The birdfeeders still empty regularly, but the convivial groups of finches and sparrows are not there; they have been replaced by secretive feeders, and among these may just be the chipmunk I sometimes hear rattling through a wall. Now the view fades, but it is not the fault of clouds. My windows steam up from the inside, as the stove warms to its work.
These days the kitchen turns out large batches of applesauce, vats of spaghetti sauce, and spicy-dark apple butter. Where just weeks ago, it seems, we were going through jars of mayonnaise on cold potato and pasta salads, cutting fresh summer vegetables and whisking up dips with summer dill...now the house has an air of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and thyme. From time to thyme: our food changes with the seasons. In August we want our sweet corn al dente, crisp-tender; in these falling days we want it creamed and thickened and slow-baked.
When the outer door opens, the sun-warmed breeze wafts in a sharp scent of retiring leaves, mingled with the sharp-sweet smell of chopped field corn. Instead of a pleasant cracking of seeds at my birdfeeder, I hear through the open door the exhortations of crows and geese in their traffic.
It is just this time of year that rain seems most poignant, and just a mite discouraging, for when it clears off, there is no return to bright blossoms with new-washed faces. There is only increasing gray and brown against the deep blue. We want to hurry in what we do, not to take advantage of the long-hoped-for grass and reborn days, but to gather up and bustle in, to hoard up and batten down.
I have snipped a late sprig of ballerina rose for my windowsill, where it sits at mischievous odds with the pumpkins and Winter vegetables filling my kitchen, blooming a cheery, "forget me not."
