Category Archives: Autumn

An Autumn Walk in St. John’s Cemetery

Autumn, birds, catbirds, Cemeteries, chickadee, Don't Blink, Eastern Kingbird, Foliage, Gothic, hawks, massachusetts, Nature, New England, Redtail Hawk, St. John's Cemetery, Worcester, , , , , , , , ,
Between Halloween and fall foliage, October seems the perfect month to post blogs on my cemetery visits.  St. John’s Cemetery is one of my favorites, a beautiful rural setting that was just starting to put on display its lovely autumn colors.  Unlike the rolling hills of some Romantic-style cemeteries, the layout is fairly flat, but it has a plethora of  old trees providing shade in summer and wonderful colors in the fall.  A river runs alongside with all kinds of  brush that serves as home to many different birds.
There is plenty of beautiful statuary in this cemetery, as well.  Some of it shows magnificently against the backdrop of autumn’s leafy splendor.  Here we’ve got Jesus.
And here we have a sad woman shouldering the sacred cross, perhaps striving to lift the burden from Christ’s shoulders with repenting her sins.
There are so many beautiful statues here celebrating Catholic figures of holiness-many of which you won’t find in non-Catholic cemeteries.  We found many different versions of the Virgin Mary.  These are some  especially interesting ones.  This monument evokes the Infant of Prague motif.

 

 

These other two images of Mary are intriguing as well.  The first figure reminds me of Our Lady or Lourdes or of Fatima.  The second shows her crowned Queen of Earth and the Heavens, with the Christ child.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The images of angels were fascinating, too.  I love this relief that seems to show Saint Michael, sword in hand, ready for Someone Special.

 

 

 

 

 

However this exquisite carving of an angel struck me the deepest.  I’m including more than one shot, I’m so impressed with it.  Look at the deep contemplation in the features.  What is this angel thinking?  Brooding on the fall of some many angels and humans once bright with promise?  Or is there a trace of a smile in the subtle shaping of his cheeks and lips?  Take time to delight in how the material of his gown seems to drape gracefully as a part of his body.  What does he hold tucked behind?  A sword or a staff?  The features are so gracefully, believably carved that not a single Dr. Who fan would blink in his presence.

 

I’m just not sure who this saint is.  He’s in monk’s robes, so it can’t be Joseph-and no baby Jesus. There are no animals around, so it wouldn’t be Saint Francis.  No baby Jesus on his shoulder-not St. Christopher.  Maybe St. Anthony or St. Peter?  He is holding a cross, the way Peter was martyred, but what about the skull?

 

 

There are other wonderful statues that are not of Saints, much in line with what you’d expect in any cemetery.  Behold this piece that looks like a cathedral.

 

 

 

 

Then there are some lovely statues of women, like this one of a mother reading from a book to her daughter. The book is probably a Bible, but I like to think of it as something by C. Brontë.  Charlotte was actually pretty spiritual.
You can also find some impressive examples of Celtic Crosses in this cemetery, some with intricate relief designs carved on them.  Below are two examples I found captivating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The river that parallels one side of this cemetery hosts many wonderful critters.  We’ve seen ducks and a Great Blue Heron here.  Once we even saw a muskrat swim gaily upstream.  The brush and trees along the banks host flocks of Robins, Chickadees, Vireos, Phoebes, Catbirds,  and King Birds.  In the summer, we’ve seen Orioles and woodpeckers flying and perching on the imposing tress on the grounds.
Speaking of birds, one time we showed up in the cemetery too late to be allowed to continue our walk.  As we were driving slowly toward the main road to leave, Yang asked me, “What’s that on the tomb stone ahead?”  It was a great big red-tailed hawk!  The pictures aren’t perfect because it was night and we took them through the windshield of our car, but they are pretty darned neat.  I especially like the one where Mr. or Ms. Hawk does an almost 180 with the head and stares right at us.  Yikes!
Lastly, this gravestone raised  an important question for me.   If Curley’s here, where did they plant Moe and Larry?  Or Shemp?

 

Early Autumn Beauty

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Yang and I started our foliage forays early this year.  By the end of September, you could find some lovely colors if you looked in the right places.  My first description is on the Blackstone River trail near Holy Cross in Worcester.  We went just before dusk to avoid running into too many people.  We saw some really nice colors on the boardwalk that runs along the river and through some marshland.
Here  the plants in the marsh are turning lovely shades of tangerine, gold , and crimson, highlighted by the still green plants around them.  All kinds of vireos, sparrows, and other small birds flitted from swaying stalk to trembling branch.  The misty grey of twilight lent a mystical atmosphere

 

Walking into the woods of the trail, you see saffron, ruby, and orange flame emerge through the dark green trees not yet turned.

 

 

 

 

Here, you see chartreuse and tardy green leaves, segueing into flames of orange and crimson.  Beautiful!

 

 

 

 

As the season progressed, we had a chance to go further afield, journeying to a trail outside of Peterborough, New  Hampshire.  Our walk through the soft light of green woods brought us to a lookout on a large rock extruding into the river.  Looking back, we could see the trees at the water’s edge were gradually putting on their  yellow and  orange finery.
Looking in the opposite direction on the the river, you could see the lovely colors mutedly reflected in the water. At one moment we heard a splash across the water, an otter-sized splash, but alack, we never caught sight of the slick furry critter.
I did manage to get a shot of this handsome guy enjoying the beauty of the spot!
Then it was back into the woods with soft dreamy light slipping through the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought this cleft rock was pretty neat!  Glaciers leave behind the darnest things!

 

And how about this cutie?  What kind of a frog do you think this is?  I’m not sure whether Yang or I took this shot.   Yang couldn’t detect him a first, for his  (the frog’s)  colors blent into the undergrowth so perfectly.  I guess that’s the idea!

 

 

The walk out was about 2  & 1/2 miles, so when we returned to the rock outcropping on the river, we must have covered about four miles.  Needless to say, we took a rest.  I love this shot of the river.  Doesn’t it almost look like a painting?  It’s a nice image with which to leave you!

 

NH Adventures: Claude Rains, Mt. Roberts, and the First October Full Moon

Autumn, birds, blue moon, Claude Rains, Fall, Foliage, full moon, Gothic, moon, Nature, New England, New Hampshire, Sharon Yang, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,
This month has blue moons, two in one month.  The first day of October this year was the first full moon of the month.  So, we celebrated  with a trip to New Hampshire that was a triple header for us.  First, we visited the grave of my favorite actor, Claude Rains, in the Red Hill Cemetery.  It’s a small, peaceful place, with lots of firefighters R.I.P.ing there.  The graves of Mr. Rains and his wife Rosemary are beautiful polished black stone Gothic arches.  To pay tribute, we brought one of the pumpkins that we had grown ourselves this year.  I liked presenting a little gift that Yang and I had worked hard to cultivate together.  The foliage by the cemetery hadn’t quite turned yet, but there were still some pretty trees.  When we go a bit later in the season, you often see some magnificent colors.  Check this link to a blog with pictures of the foliage in a past visit.
It was still a lovely place for Mr. Rains and his wife Rosemary to take their final rest.  I did want to place the pumpkin between the graves to honor them both, but I was a little worried it might roll off or get pushed away if it weren’t resting against the stone.  So, Mr. Rains got the pumpkin.  Maybe next time, I’ll bring two, especially if we have a bigger pumpkin crop.  Click here for news on what we did harvest.
We also did a drive- by of the classic colonial with it’s three pillars where Claude Rains last resided.  I wonder what the inside is like?  It was nice to see a Jean Shaheen sign out front.  You can’t see it in this photo, though you can see a beautiful sugar maple behind and to the left of the house.

Next on the agenda was to hike the Mt. Roberts trail in Moultonborough.  It’s on the grounds of the Castle in the Clouds, but it’s free to visit and hike.  Usually, we go up Red Hill, but I asked if we could start with something that ascended a bit less steeply, as this was my first major mountain climb of the year-major for me, anyway.  It really wasn’t all that easy, but the hike was definitely worth it!  We enjoyed the terrain, the changing colors, sighting a Brown Thrasher and a Wood Thrush (thank God for binoculars!).  When we got to an overlook, we sat and ate tea eggs that Yang had made, then chunks of the yummy pumpkin bread I’d baked the night before.   I was tired when we got back down, but I loved it!  There are lots of trails on these grounds, so I’m looking forward to going back.

 

We thought this little toad was cute, too!

Does anyone know what kind of tree this leaf comes from?  It’s actually a little darker in real life.  The camera was accidentally set to overcompensate, so I’ve tried to properly adjust the color to match what I actually saw.  So, if you know what the tree is, drop me a line in comments of on FB.  I’d really like to know!

 

Last and never least:  the first full moon of October!  Yang took me to Weir Beach-I hadn’t been there since I was a teenager!  It was pretty deserted, after the summer season was done, but there was a nice boardwalk from which to view the moonrise.  When the moon first came over the trees, it was ENORMOUS!  I thought Kronos was rising.  These picture don’t do it justice.  Click on them to get a bigger image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a lovely evening to complete an exciting day.  Gosh, I love our autumn rambles through the Northeast!  I hope you’re having some fun ones as well.  And if you can’t get out, please enjoy these.

 

 

Tales of a Pumpkin Grower

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I was surprised to realize recently that I have been growing pumpkins for almost thirty years!  And it all started by accident.  One early summer afternoon, when I lived in Connecticut, I was sitting  in my yard under some shady trees with a friend, when I noticed we had these big orange flowers growing in the composting area.  I had no clue what they were.  When I asked my friend, she said they looked like squash flowers-but I hadn’t planted any squash seeds.  Yang was away in China visiting his family, but when he checked in with me by phone, he said those were probably from the Halloween pumpkins we’d put in with the compost last fall.  He told me to check for a bump under some of the flowers, which I sure enough found:  embryos on the female flowers.  I even learned how to pollinate the female with male flowers.  Happily, we ended up with some giant pumpkins for Halloween that fall. My pumpkin growing with Yang was off to a successful start!
Eventually, we had to re-purpose that area, but we created another pumpkin garden next to the house.  They loved it there!  We had gourds, pumpkins, decorative squash and even hulu!  You can see how the vines spread out and took over. The land was so rich we had the best of luck growing.  You can also see that in my thirties, I was a natural blonde-just saying.

When we moved to Auburn, we had a lot of land, but not all of it was good for growing vegetables.  Still, after the first year, we did get some nice pumpkins and gourds, as well as other veggies (peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, soy beans, corn).  However, the earth in the first garden we had started to wear out after almost twenty years.  About three years ago, we got NO pumpkins or gourds.  Yang decided to do something.
He developed a circular garden in the middle of our large lawn, filling it with lots of good earth and cow manure.  Last year, we got plenty of veggies and some outstanding pumpkins and gourds.  One white pumpkin is still whole and unrotted over a whole year later.  Of course, Yang also circled the garden with a fence and chicken wire at the bottom to keep out the critters.  This year he expanded the garden and replaced about six inches of bad earth with cow manure and good soil.  Boy did we do well with eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and PUMPKINS!

 

Here’s Number 1 Son, the first pumpkin to get fertilized (thanks to me), as well as the first pumpkin to be picked.  He’s not the biggest, but your first born is always special.  He came off the vine of some seedlings that we bought.

 

 

 

We also have a sister to last year’s big white pumpkin.  I think this one might even grow to be bigger than last year’s.  This pumpkin grew from seeds that I saved from an early pumpkin.  When I buy pumpkins for decoration, I always look for good “breeding stock” from which I save the seeds for growing the next generation.

 

I’m not sure what the heck this one is.  It’s green with stripes.  I don’t remember buying seeds or saving any that looked like this one, so it’s probably some kind of hybrid.  If anyone recognizes the type, please let me know.  Maybe it’s part squash?

 

 

We bought a bunch of pumpkin seedlings from Howe’s in Paxton, and I also planted seeds from previous years’ pumpkins of a similar variety.  I did plant the seedlings and the seeds in different quadrants, but the vines just went wild, so it’s hard to tell which is the source for these beautiful orange pumpkins.  this one, I can trace back to a seedling, but the others are hard to tell.
Some of the plants are more adventurous than others.  This guy snaked through the fence and is now growing wild and free (and subject to rabbits and ground hogs) in the yard.  What a rebel!

 

 

 

As you may have noticed, we have some sunflowers in this garden.  I successfully planted delphinium and bachelor buttons, then said, “What the hey!” and dropped in two sunflower seeds.  We’d had a mammoth sunflower that I bought last year, towering about seven feet.  Well, one of my seeds (either from a package or that sunflower) has shot way up.  Here it is next to me (I’m 5’3″) for scale.  So, I hope your growing season this year, despite the drought, was as successful as ours!

 

The Marvelous Marble of the Barre Cemetery

architecture, Autumn, Cemeteries, Don't Blink, Fall, Foliage, gargoyles, Gothic, Nature, New England, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, tomb stones, , , , , , , , , ,
I hadn’t had a chance to do up a blog of this wonderful, remarkable cemetery in Barre, VT before,  which Yang and I visited three years ago in the Fall.  What makes the spot so unique?  Well, this town in Vermont is famous for its marble quarrying and this local product is beautifully worked to produce the most creative, unique monuments.  Many of these take on unique forms to honor the life work or interests of those they honor in death.
Thus,  you can find a musician with this apt memorial.  I wonder what instrument this person played?

 

 

 

 

Appropriately, this man was a sculptor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re a fan of Dr.  Who, don’t blink. Otherwise,  you could be pursued by those pesky stone aliens by car or plane.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fukuda family chose to celebrate their Japanese heritage with this rendition of a Japanese house.

This man seems to be dreaming of or lovingly guided by the spirit of his late wife, though her wafting out of cigarette smoke probably wouldn’t please the Surgeon General.

There are also some startlingly unique works of funerary art, such as the following:

 

 

 

The blocks
The pyramids

 

 

 

 

The open book, as in his life was  an. . . all in French.

And there were more traditional statues, equally beautiful. There was the Pieta.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the traditional weeping women.

 

 

 

 

 

I particularly love the detail you can see in this closeup shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we can never forget the angels and urns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were also striking columns

  

 

and mausoleums
and reliefs:

 

All were lovely to see on a clear Vermont Sunday morning, with the fall colors tinting the trees in gorgeous contrast to the blue skies and white wisps of clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adams Autumn Delight

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Yang and I have some specially favorite rail trails to ride, and one of these is the Pittsfield to Adams line.  Even if we do it once in the spring, we have to do it again in the fall because the colors are so gorgeous!  This year, we made our trip around the Columbus Day Weekend, on Tuesday.  We thought we’d try something different by not going straight from Pittsfield to Adams, but by parking at the dam in the middle and first going down to Adams.  Then we’d come back and having lunch at a restaurant near where we’d parked before continuing on to Pittsfield and returning. As you can see I was able to take some beautiful shots of hill full of colorful trees across the river from the parking area.

It was a gorgeous day, a little colder than the weather had been before, but the sun was out and the air was crisp.  A warmer fall jacket did just nicely and the foliage was superb.  I had to stop here, not only to enjoy the surrounding hills but to inspect what I thought might be a beaver’s dam.

 

 

 

I  couldn’t help stopping to take pictures of some of the most wonderful flaming maples.  It was so cool to see colors that went from crimson flame to soft orange all in one tree!  I noticed that there weren’t too many  scarlet leaves to see as we’d experienced in our first fall ride here. My guess is that those leaves had either lightened in color or fallen.

We ultimately cruised down the hill leading into Adams.  I wished I could have taken shots of the dusky green woods and glacier-abandoned boulders on my right or the tumbling river on my left, but there was no stopping on that race down the hill.  Just before we entered the town, we stopped to take some shots, with the gold, orange, flame  hills shot with evergreen surrounding the town.  The pale azure sky forms a complement of color.  And here’s a most handsome guy in the foreground!

On the other side of the town, the trail runs along where the river has been  channeled into a canal.  Again, the hills embracing the town’s valley make you think that it must be glorious to wake up in the morning or return from work in late afternoon to such gorgeous colors surrounding you.

 

 

 

 

We may have raced down a hill to get into town, but we had to labor up it when we left.  I may not be as young as I used to be, but I made it, albeit panting a bit at the end. I didn’t need a sign to tell me to Stop! Luckily, there ‘s a lovely little bridge where you can  rest. Nice view, isn’t it?

You can tell by the look on my face that it was a loooong ride up.  Thank God for water!

Wouldn’t you know that when we finally got back to the parking lot, it turned out that the restaurant was closed on the only day of the week we were there!  We ended up having to forego the rest of the ride and scout out a place to eat in Pittsfield.  That’s okay, though.  We’d actually conquered the toughest part of the ride.  Even better, we found this great little (literally) Italian restaurant in town, Brooklyn’s Best.  Later, we took some fun pictures while walking off dinner.  We discovered this neat little gargoyle above.  I even made a new friend.  Do you think Rosie and ‘Tasha will share their litter boxes with him?

Birding with the Yangs

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These past few weeks, Yang and I have had some wonderful bird sightings, sometimes, literally, in our own back yard.  Case in point, one Friday, Natasha was meowing at the door all day. Then Rosalind was in the pantry window bird-chattering away, while I worked on my novel in the dining room.  I stopped and suddenly became aware that I’d been hearing a high-pitched hawkish call.  I got up and looked out the window in the dining room, and what did I see in the patch of sea roses, but two Merlins!  One flew away, while the other hung out for some time – before attacking a sparrow who out-smarted him.  I got these pictures through the window because I was afraid going outside would drive my visitor off.  Hence, it’s much blurrier than I’d like.  What do you think of this new guy?  I haven’t seen him since, but I did find an ominous splash of tiny white bird feathers on the nearby back porch.
Our bird feeders have returned to us the usual suspects.  Lots of Titmice and some Chickadees battle four pushy Blue Jays.  We also have two male and one female Cardinal  visiting.  One of the males is pretty aggressive.  While he’s fine with the little birds, he’ll go after the Blue Jays and drive them off!  We also have Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers, Goldfinches wearing their winter buff, and even a Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.  One day, a Carolina Wren gave me such a scolding when I came too near the juniper bush!
On a visit with friends on the Cape, we came across one of my favorite, but rarely seen, birds.  At first, seeing the creature head on, I perceived a bird with a brownish head and chest with a white belly forming a “v” into the brown chest.  I claimed I’d never seen such a bird before, until he took flight and I saw the luscious blue.  Bluebirds! A good-sized flock of them!  I noted in my Peterson’s that Bluebirds are usually found year round in New England mainly on the Cape.  How appropriate!  The Bluebird was one of my “must see” birds for the year.  I still need to see an Indigo Bunting, a Piliated Woodpecker, and a Scarlet Tanager.  It’s probably too late in the year for the first and last, but I’m holding onto hope for that Pterodactyl-sized woodpecker.  The Bluebird photos are courtesy of Andrea Krammer.
Today, when we took a morning walk (about 7:00) on the Blackstone River Trail, we saw some interesting birds.  A Great Blue Heron and a black Cormorant were fishing in the same part of the river.  Then, atop a tall dead tree, we saw a bald eagle.  We watched as he sat there majestically for some time before he soared off away from us and the river. We didn’t have the means to get a picture, so I’m borrowing this one below.

I can’t wait to see what the remainder of the year brings!
Source eagle image:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eagle_on_roots_-_crop_3_(430008061).jpg

 

Autumn Colors: “Brightness falls from air.”

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Last week’s wind and rain may  have stripped many local trees of their brilliant foliage, but some golds, rusts, chartreuses, and even scarlets still hang on.  Maybe you would like to enjoy some of that local “color” in its prime?  Yang and I did some traveling around New England, which I will try to document in later blogs.  Still, there were some exciting colors in my own neighborhood.

The colors came a little slowly, at first.  Here, you can see two Mourning Doves enjoying the slow change coming to the distant hills in central Mass.  It was so nice to  be able to look out my bedroom window every morning and enjoy the gradual change form soft to brilliant colors.

I love that you can see not only the varied fall leaves in some photos, but that others let you see the contrast of pure blue October sky with those reds, golds, and rusts.  And note the clouds, white with slate grey outline, racing across the soft blue.  Such a brisk and enlivening day in the weather as well as in the visuals!

Look at this gorgeous blend of colors!  The green firs contrast with the wine of the Japanese Maple, while soft orange segues into a somber rust.

 

 

This Swamp Maple is now almost entirely denuded, having dumped an intimidating load of raking in almost one night.  However, earlier, it was slowly turning this luscious orange gold, so different from what you might usually expect from a Swamp Maple.  When we first moved here, the Swamp Maples all turned a soft lemony yellow, but for some reason their leaves have been morphing  almost as fiery as a Sugar Maple.  Climate change?  Soil changes?  Anyone know?

Speaking of Sugar Maples, every morning, I woke to see ours turn, first, into  flame, then, slowly, into a mellow apricot.  Then with the big storms, I saw it turn nude.  Here’s the tree in its softer hued phase.

Looking down our street, you can see all the most wonderful fall colors come into play. The scarlet of sumac and flame bushes.  The dark rusty red of other trees and the metamorphosis of green into orange glory.  The sky provides a soft azure complement to the color palette.

And here are just some lovely shots for you to enjoy.

Until next year?

Mystery Making with Sisters in Crime in Vermont

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Recently, I had the fun experience of being involved in the Sisters in Crime panel Mystery Making at the Brattleboro Literary Festival in Vermont.  The authors with whom I participated were Sadie Hartwell and Max Folsom.  Lisa Lieberman was our MC. This panel is quite unique, challenging our creativity and drawing in the audience to  craft a mystery with us.  How does it all work?

The audience members are all given index cards and asked to write on a separate card:  a character name, a motive for murder,  a method for murder, and a location.  Each of the three members of the panel circulates with a bags for each category, and the audience puts the appropriate card in the designated bag.  Then, under the direction of our MC, the fun begins. Starting with names, each of the panelists selects a card from the bag, and we have to come up with a character whom we think goes with that name, including a back story and how the character fits into the story.  Sleuth? Suspect?  Victim?  Sidekick?.  Then we go through each of the other bags and create a story around the locations, murder methods, and motives, working with each other and the audience to resolve conflicts and develop the intricacies of a mystery plot. Lisa kept track of the projections on a white board in the front of the theatre. I was so impressed when my husband Yang jumped in from the audience to explain how you could have  a poisoning by tofu!

Initially, I had a little trepidation about whether I would be up to the task, ad libbing a story, but I had a ball! We ended up with an intriguing tale about a vengeful love child, a shady importer, a socialite with a stripper’s past,  a militant health food maven, a deceptive scuba expert, the Nobel Prize, and, of course, poisonous tofu.

 

The Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro was quite the venue!  An art deco theatre, likely from the 1920s, this building had gorgeous statues, mosiacs, carvings, and Spider Man.  How did Spidey get in there?  Listen, bud, he’s got radioactive blood.  He can do whatever he wants.

 

 

Mystery Making is a session that is available for libraries, schools, festivals, etc. through the Sisters in Crime New England Speakers Bureau.  Usually, there is a fee, but under certain circumstances, there may not be.  Check out the web site for details at Sisters in Crime New England.