on this cold, dark and rainy All Hallow's eve....

wandering from room to room in the creaky old farmhouse,

Sukey makes sure that all

is well this dark, cold & rainy All Hallow's Eve.

The hour is late.

A good fire is crackling in the kitchen hearth & just one candle is lit.

The wind howls down the old chimney and blows billows of smoke out into the room.

a cold rain pounds against the old farmhouse & rattles the windows...

There came a knock at the old kitchen door.

It blew open with a great gust of wind and rain

sending a swirl of wet leaves into the warm & dark kitchen...

and with it came

visitors.....

please join Sukey at the old Deerfield Farmhouse

for a bit of All Hallow's Eve story telling

later today...

an almost sleepy hollow day

It was almost a sleepy hollow day, but now the ghostly mist

that rose up

from the pond early this morning

has faded into the nearly bare trees.

Pale leaves swirl past my windows. I can't help but lay my sewing down and step outside.

The air is chill and the leaves are crisp underfoot.

I made a fire down in the orchard, burning some of the leaf piles

so I can plant bulbs in the orchard gardens.

It's very pleasant,even tho it's grey and dark...

my favorite kind of day.

an almost sleepy hollow day.

Days like these remind me of places and people I love.

I wonder what they might be doing this very minute

as I pile more leaves onto the smoky fire.

I send my thoughts to them as the smoke rises into the air

and swirls around the bare branches

of the old apple trees.

I wonder if my thoughts arrive in a swirl of smoke

to my loved ones...

do they know it's from me?

Wading ankle deep through yellow leaves, hands in my pockets, I feel

renewed and almost giddy.

I walk back

into the warm dark house,

to my chair by the fire.

I'm like a little child looking out of the school room window. I'm bent over my needle work and sew another seam...

I look out at the yellow leaves floating past my windows.

Just one more seam and another knot tied.

I have to lay my sewing down and go for a longer walk through the leaves...

while the air is crisp and chill.

While the light is just right

and the leaves swirl all around me

I love each season but none so much as when fall comes.

There's a peacefulness to it, a serene and quiet time

to enjoy things more slowly.

I hope that you are enjoying this lovely fall as much as possible.

yrs,

Christine

wooded path

~walking into the past~

wooded path into Williamsburg

the autumn wood the aster knows,

the empty nest, the wind that grieves,

the sunlight breaking thro' the shade.

the squirrel chattering overhead,

the timid rabbits lighter tread

among the rustling leaves...

dora read goodall

~~~

from the very moment I step onto the broken shell path, the world behind me falls away.

no sounds but for breeze in the trees and sheep in the pasture below.

life moves slowly here

giving way to breathing free, my spirit opens,

hope gathers.

my feet want to fly down the path,

but then I stop and gather it all in ...

savoring

wood smoke trailing from a chimney,

the sound of birds chirping in the berry bushes...

this is where my soul lives.

October

Smoke hangs like haze over harvested fields,

The gold of stubble, the brown of turned earth

And you walk under the red light of fall

The scent of fallen apples, the dust of threshed grain

There's the sharp, gentle chill of fall.

Here as we move into the shadows of autumn....

~a verse from the Autumn equinox~

~~~

This has been one of the longest summers I've spent since childhood.

the days were achingly beautiful under deep blue skies,

the sight of deer bringing their fawns to live in the fields.

15 pairs of ears and eyes

peeking up over the endless waves of wheat waving in the wind.

no sound but for the hum of crickets, the scent of hot sagebrush and juniper in the breeze

and meadowlarks darting from creek to nest.

the fields seemed to grow overnight, stretching towards the gold pink dawns

drinking up every bit of water we gave them, hot in the mid day sun

cool and wet at dusk.

every field of wheat, every leaf of fragrant tumbling mint and rows of

pungent garlic are harvested.

now safe and sound and under cover.

We sit and rest on the edge of the earth and watch the red sun going down over

mountains on fire.

The deer,now grown, walk gingerly through the stubbled wheat.

another season has passed.

and I am grateful that this summer has been as blue skied and never ending

as those summers we knew as children.