An Autumn drive for you who are far away...

'Shrooms...mmm

Autumn ode

To Autumn
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

What we've been up to

I processed some of my photos tonight and wanted to show you what Scott and I have been doing.

This is Bear Brook State Park, where we went in October. It's so beautiful there.


On the anniversary of our wedding, we went to the apple orchard in Canterbury, and saw these little chickens in the road~
At the orchard...

I saw this tree at Bear Brook and thought it was so stunning and comforting.
This is Sarge, my friend from Concord. We visited his sister's grave.

And you know this guy.
Here are a few great shots by Scott that you may have missed:

The spotted newt, New Hampshire's state amphibian~







Which was your favorite?

~Ally

Anniversary Findings

Scott took me around to local garden shops, greenhouses and farm stands for our anniversary a couple weeks ago. I picked out flowers, pumpkins, fall decorations, and orchard apples. A lovely day, just us.A picture I took for Marie. I know you love garden friends.
Fall maples.
Hydrangea in beautiful wedding colors.

Happy Fifth.
~Ally

Update

I love this picture. I will call it, "Determination."

So life goes on. I have been temping at a bankruptcy lawyer's office, and that work has been very interesting and nicely distracting. It feels good to discover I still have the work-work-work gene alive and well in me, when needed. The other day I got to visit bankruptcy court (and not as a client, thank god) - that was fun.

Mom is back from Mexico and we had a nice time reconnecting over lunch at Uno's and a walk in the woods, along the beautiful Merrimack River.

I just made an apple pie (with crumb topping), since Mom and her longtime friend Sandy are coming for dinner tomorrow. I'll be lunching with Laurel and Bumbers - it's my last day "off" this week. I am looking forward to regaining some of my own time when this assignment ends. It's easy to get wrapped up in the moments of the day and forget to take stock of what's happening inside. I don't know if other grieving people feel this, but I feel a sense of urgency or importance to feel what I'm feeling and let this new situation sit in my brain.

I have to forge a new life. That may sound dramatic to some of you. But to those of you who have lost a parent, I bet you understand. Everything has been tossed upside down and will never be "normal" again. We will all need to create a new normal.

Judy The Cat has just come round the hall, shaken the bell on her collar, and is thinking of asking for some food. I swear they eat all day long. Ever since we let them outside, they run around all day, up the trees, tripping their way down, along the fence, under the fence, through backyards, back through the hole in the fence, to the patio door, up the tree...you get the idea. I put out three pinecone bird feeders today (pinecones spread with peanut butter and then rolled in birdseed). I imagine they will attract birds tomorrow morning and that ought to drive the little kitties wild. They'll be hungry tomorrow night. Unless of course, they're full. Ahem.

Hope you are surviving your life. Hope you are getting a taste of beautiful Autumn - we are surrounded here and loving every minute of it. Very comforting, especially this year.

~Allison

This is a picture of Dad on the last day I saw him, August 9th; we were at the NH League of Craftsman's Fair. It was such a good day.

Tidbits

Did I tell you we got two kitties? They are both black, one the mama (Judy) and the other, her son (O'Reilly). Both are quite young and they are v sweet. They both have terrible cabin fever today though. Their spay/neutering was on Monday and they are supposed to be resting, but instead, they are running wildly all over the house, batting things off the tables, swinging at feet that pass by, thinking of terrorizing the dog, and generally, going nuts. They are big-time stir crazy. But the vet says 5 more days before they can go outside and burn this energy off. So it should be a loooooong weekend. ;)

Am going to lunch with Laurel today, to celebrate my birthday. I am finally up for a brief outing. This grief is so weird. I had no idea how many things it could affect - like my energy level and desire to socialize, to name a few. And it goes up and down rapidly - one moment I am ready to talk, make calls, see friends, and the next moment, the mere thought of answering the phone is overwhelming. So if you've called lately, please understand if I don't call you back for a while.

I did manage to use yesterday's energy to get a few job applications out. And to deal with some of Dad's estate paperwork. And to bring my plants in so they didn't freeze in the season's first frost.

It is fall here, and that makes me happy. Yesterday my birthday was a cool, slightly blustery fall day, like the day Rebecca and Molly and Lisa and I went down to the river to celebrate my birthday with a picnic, a million years ago. Coming into my favorite season will help me with the grief. I am both looking forward to and dreading the holidays. Should be hard, but also comforting in some strange way.

Remind me to tell you about the banquet we went to the other night to receive an award for Dad.

~Ally