Autumn Thanks

For me, autumn is a cozy time of year.  Our windows are no longer open to the sounds of birdsong.  Instead the winds blow a cold rain against the house and the birds huddle at the feeder.  The gardens are brown with frost and dark comes early.  The house is saturated with the scent of baking apples and soup simmering.  Soon it will be time to think about pumpkin pies and Christmas cookies.  I’ve already begun picking out Christmas songs for the choir to rehearse.

 

"You crown the year with Your bounty, and Your carts overflow with abundance.  The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.  The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."   Psalm 65:11-13

This season passes us so quickly that I'm always afraid I'll miss something.  What a shame it would be to neglect the beauty of the changing seasons – the grouse in the rushes and the geese on the wing.  The hills are as colorful as a bowl of Fruit Loops!  The last of the monarch butterflies dance over the milkweed pods flinging seeds into the air.  The wind rattles in the browning corn rows like the sound of a heavy rain.  And the smell!  Only God can make the dying season smell so delicious!

 

God's gifts of wonder arrive each day, whether we notice them or not.  But a grateful heart is a happy heart.  Please take time to look outside and see what He's brought you today! 

“May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.  Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.  God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.”  Psalm 67:5-7

 

Love as always,  Elaine (peel, chop and stir)

Blown Away

As I turned over the calendar page to October, God closed the door on summer and its balmy breezes.  Gray, blustery days sent wet leaves through the air.  Will there be any left on the trees for autumn color?  We sleep with all the windows closed for the first time since early spring.  I do miss the sound of birds.  But they are scrambling, too, feasting at the feeders as they prepare for migration.  I’ve already heard complaints about the chilling air.  There are some people who are never pleased with the weather -- too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry!  I try to remember that what may be inconvenient to me is just what’s needed somewhere else.  On our trip to Tarifa, Spain, we passed acres and acres of wind turbines taking advantage of the constant strong winds along the coast in order to provide power to millions.

These seasonal breezes mean different things to many people.  To a sailor, it can mean a lovely tour around the lake.  But the same breezes could become an obstacle to him on his return to the marina.  The same brisk wind could distress a farmer in dry times as he watches his topsoil picked up and carried away.  On the other hand, a youngster cheers the wind with a shout when it lifts up his kite, bearing it aloft.  His mother smiles to see her sheets snapping in the breeze.  She anticipates the pleasure of fresh beds tonight.

Through scripture, God sometimes uses the wind to teach us life lessons.  We might be responsible for our unanswered prayers due to our ambivalence:

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.   But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  James 1:5-6 

But in the book of Job, God reminds us that His decisions concerning weather are motivated by our need for correction or the needs of the earth or to show His lovingkindness to man:

Job 37:13  "Whether for correction, or for His world, Or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen.  (NASB)

Next time, instead of complaining about the weather, let’s remember it as a sign of God’s constant care and watchfulness because:

He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  Matthew 5:45.

Love as always, Elaine (rather windblown)

You Missed September

I wrote this way back in 2002, but September is still the most beautiful month to my way of thinking.  Hope you enjoy this look back…

Once again, you missed September in upstate New York!  The pungent, citrus smell of goldenrod lifts on the mild winds, mixed with the damp, earthy smell of freshly dug potatoes.  Canadian geese awaken us each morning and are the last wild sounds of evening's onset.  The light is softer as the sun dips towards the horizon to shorten the days. 

Our female pheasant appeared once more, out of the shelter of heavy brush, to feed on our birdseed.  All through the month, we were delighted to observe a doe and her two youngsters stepping out each afternoon to feed in the field next to us.  After the farmers cut it for hay, the new green grass was just too tempting for her!  We had seen the spotted fawns just a few times during summer, but now they are nearly grown up.  Soon she'll leave them to start a new family for the spring.  

The salmon run has the fishermen vying for choice positions in the Salmon River but who has time to fish?  Leaves are turning colors but dropping almost as fast as they turn.  The dry summer will make for a quick autumn, I'm afraid.  We still haven't had a frost -- testimony to a long hot summer.  Maybe that means a mild winter?  I'm still picking tomatoes and fighting off the frustrated potato bugs.  Once the potato plants are killed before the harvest, the bugs march across the street to my tiny garden and eat everything that begins with P or rhymes with "potato"!

 Birds are a real barometer of the seasons.  The huge flocks of grackles, blackbirds and cowbirds no longer come to us for seed.  Goldfinches are losing their brilliant mating colors and beginning to all look alike.  The bluebirds visit us as a family unit now, having raised two broods in our yard.  The dying cat tails are alive with song sparrows too numerous to count!  Chickadees and blue jays are leaving the trees again to feed at our feeder and the white breasted nuthatch has returned for the winter.  Soon I'll have to hang out my homemade suet for the woodpeckers.  The hummingbirds must be gone for good -- I've not seen one in so long.

 My flower gardens continually change, too.  Black-eyed Susans, daisies and sunflowers have gone to seed to be replaced by nasturtiums blazing like the sun.  Zinnias tempt the last of the butterflies and the purple asters are full of bees.  Dainty cosmos wave above sweet white alyssum.  Soon I'll have spring bulbs to plant.  A garden is always a work in progress.  In this way, I suppose we are like a garden to God.  Different seasons bring different fruit and some times are just "dry" times in our lives.  May you be fruitful for Him no matter what the season!

  “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My Word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  Isaiah 55:10-11

Love as always,  Elaine (planting in hope)