Homesteading Middles: Winter Prep Drenched in Autumn Color

And so now each fall I begin my class in a garden, where they have the best teachers I know, three beautiful sisters. For a whole September afternoon they sit with the Three Sisters… One of my students in an artist, and the more she looks the more excited she becomes. “Look at the composition,” she says. “It’s just like our art teacher described the elements of design in studio today. There is unity, balance, color. It’s perfect.” I look at the sketch in her notebook, and she’s seeing it like a painting. Long leaves, round leaves, lobed and smooth, yellow, orange, tan on a a matrix of green. “See the way it works? Corn is the vertical element, squash horizontal, and it’s all tied together with these curvilinear vines, the beans. Ravishing…”*

As I puttered about doing fall cleanup/winter prep - this scene from Kimmerer’s book kept replaying in my mind. The colors of autumn are SO ravishing.

I took a break from dragging fences and moving leaves to gaze supine - up up up to admire changing color of the oak leaves - a perfect complement to the deep blue clear sky above.

The russet dogwood jousted with blueberry bushes for who could claim the deepest red - keeping me company as I transplanted ajuga for spring spread.

The carmine stewardia blazed in front of the deep yellow of the golden raintree, as I filled the stained canvas bag with split logs for the woodstove.