Onward Into the October Country

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• JoeDaddy September 30, 2018, 3:50 PM

  The best month!

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• Dr. Jay September 30, 2018, 3:55 PM

  “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond . . . nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands”

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• rabbit tobacco September 30, 2018, 6:07 PM

  I had a friend who believed you needed moonshine just like you need sunshine.

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• bob sykes October 1, 2018, 5:13 AM

  Moonshine is fine, but I prefer bourbon.

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• BillH October 1, 2018, 7:48 AM

  Yankee talk. Here in the deepest south November’s best. Hell, we’re forecast for 90° highs and that delightful southern humidity as far into October as the eye can see. I will admit the days get shorter and the nights get longer just like everywhere else in the mid-latitudes.

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• ghostsniper October 1, 2018, 7:57 AM

  That’s because you haven’t had the right kind yet Bob.

  Yes, fall is starting. As in, the leaves are FALLing.
  Not robustly yet, that will be a few more weeks, but still.
  My Stihl blower is tuned, gassed and ready and has had a few minor workouts so far.
  It’s the sycamores that cause the most grief cause their leaves are so big.
  Big enough to trip over. Or, if rained on, surfboarded across the deck.
  They are jaggy on the edges, much like their relative the maples, so they get hung up in the cracks between the deckboards, too big to fit under the bottom rung of the railing without a direct full speed assault. Stack 3 or 4 sycamore leaves together and you have a problem that requires effort, like maybe a boot in it’s ass.

  By mid Nov I’ll have all the leaves on 1-1/2 acres of our property that is lawned stacked up in 2 or 3 huge piles. I’m talking 5′ high by 20′ in diameter piles. Because of the overhanging branches and not wanting to burn the lawn I can’t burn. So I turn the blower end for end, yank the little pipe and install the big one, and start mulching them leaves. That takes 2 days. I do not install the bagger and just blow the mulch all over the lawn. When that’s done I break out my Harley with blades – my Craftsman lawn tractor with dual blades powered by a 22 hp V2 Honda engine. Yeah, it sounds like a Harley too. Barump-a-rump…. Then I go back n forth over and over reducing that mulch to molecular size. Yeah, over the winter when not covered by snow the lawn has a dark brown hue rather than the light brown most people have but that mulch is breaking down and come spring next year it will start feeding those wakening grass blades and by May I’ll have to break out that Harley with blades again. This is our 13th winter here and we love every minute of it, as long as there is propane in the tank, stacked hardwood in the yard, and the larder is packed to the rafters.

  One of the cool things about snow is while sitting around the firepit on Christmas eve on vertical log “stools” you can just sit your brew right down in it and it stays frosty – the minus 30 degree air helps too – but after you’re 13th one it don’t really matter cause that’s when the good stuff comes out of the crawl. Yeah, moon in a glass gallon bottle slammed with marachino cherries 2 months prior. DaWgEeZ!!!!

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• Jack October 1, 2018, 8:24 AM

  I love October and November. The earth finally receives a break from the stifling heat and the deer seasons begin to open, the best time in all of creation to enjoy a chilly morning sunrise and watch the earth come alive. Even with a bit of cold it’s a comforting time.

  After November, I want it to be early May again when the pompano begin their runs.

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• JiminAlaska October 1, 2018, 9:20 AM

  Last night I dropped a friend off at the airport in Fairbanks, she’s returning to Japan. Driving back home during the first hour of the first day of October I noticed the aurora dancing overhead and my Jeep’s thermometer moving 2 or 3 degrees above or below freezing as the road’s elevation changed with the terrain.

  Back home I increased the draft on my banked wood fire in the stove upstairs, went out and snapped a few shots of the Northern Lights dancing overhead, came back in, opened the doors on my Vermont Casting’s Defiant stove, and poured myself a shot of Jameson’s as a nightcap, sat in the dark watching the flames dance.

  One October’s my birthday and I tipped my glass to the four score years behind me, life’s been good and Octobers are grand up here on top of the world.

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• ghostsniper October 1, 2018, 10:22 AM

  HB, JA!

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