Whispers of change

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Autumn always makes me pensive. It is a time when cycles are coming to an end; the world is going through change and I tend to ruminate on the passage of time and the accomplishments that have, or haven’t, been achieved.

When I took this photo, I didn’t see through the lens what I see now on the screen.

Through the lens I saw the grasses and their dry and brittle softness.

On the screen, I see, and feel, so much more.

When I was a child, I loved visiting my grandparents, outside of Salmon Arm.

Granny & Grandad lived on a farm across from the go kart track, bordered by Shannon’s golf course. The ancient (to me) farmhouse sat solid behind and beneath a behemoth of a weeping willow. My brother used to break branches off that willow, strip the leaves, and chase me with them, snapping it like a whip and causing me to run wildly away, yelling at him to stop! Sometimes I’d be prepared and have my own willow whip, but I usually lost all the battles. Granny & Grandad had cattle and chickens, alfalfa fields, a huge garden, a few fruit trees, a duck pond, and the most amazing flower bed. Granny grew magnificent dahlias and big beautiful gladiolas. She had a massive asparagus fern that she clipped fronds from to tuck amongst the cut flowers that she arranged artfully in glass frogs settled in lovely vases. I still have some of those glass frogs, most people have no idea what they are when they see them.

Grandma & Grandpa lived up the hill; their property included a sizeable apple and cherry orchard that also had some peach, pear, and plum trees. A massive black walnut tree shaded one end of the arced driveway that led past the little white house and its bright red garage door, emblazoned with “SHULTZ” in big white letters, so people could find the orchard to buy cherries in the summer. Their vegetable garden was equally impressive and filled with rows of corn, potatoes, peas, carrots, beans, and other vegetables that were enjoyed fresh, were frozen, or were root cellared for the winters. The garden was sunken from the lawn above, and edged in rosebushes that Grandma would toss the dishwashing water onto, from the basin that was in the sink for that purpose. Water wasn’t wasted down the drain, it was reused where possible. To the lower end lay a strip of forest that I used to love to explore, I could usually find some pheasant feathers, left behind when the pheasants had their dust baths at the boundary where the orchard abruptly ended and turned into a thick coniferous forest. Their property also had a large hay field that separated them from the neighbour down the road.

I have fond memories of the hay fields at both properties, but particularly so of Grandma & Grandpa’s orchard property.

I remember picking rocks in the field, following behind Grandpa while he drove slowly around and around, while we walked behind, bending over with gloved hands and pulling rocks from the dusty soil and throwing them into bin being pulled behind the tractor on which Grandpa sat. It was miserable work, but there was always laughter because we were together.

I remember the summers, running through the hay field being chased by the dogs. Or carrying a dog out into the chest high hay and telling it to sit, stay, before running back to the orchard and calling it. We’d laugh and the grasses wobbled around as the dog would work at finding its way out, every so often leaping straight up into the air to see where we were in relation to where it was. Probably not as fun for the dog as it was for us, but it would always be rewarded with lots of love, so it was made into. game.

I remember running through the chest high green alfalfa, to take pea pods and egg shells to the Weidinger’s farm on the next lot, to feed to their goats and chickens. Sometimes I would run headlong into chest high thistle bushes, leaving me involuntarily crying out in painful surprise. I remember rushing along and having pheasant, quietly picking away at the ground, hidden in the deep foliage, suddenly exploding into flight from my feet, almost stopping my heart.

I remember the golden hay in the fall, around Thanksgiving, and I remember the different sound that the drying hay made compared to that of the lush summer growth. Pushing through the golden stalks in the fall, running my fingers through the brittle, but somehow silky, stalks, the world seemed to whisper around me. The seasons are changing, it’s time to go dormant, to go to sleep and prepare for winter, we will see you next year…..

Walking through a hay field was like pushing through a veiled curtain, never quite knowing what was up ahead. But pushing forward with curiosity and anticipation. The scene shifts with each gentle breeze. The stalks bend under the gusts of wind, they ease aside under the pressure of a human touch, but they are strong in their seeming fragility. They bend when they need to, resisting gently and returning to their upright position when the force passes by, ready for the next pressure, until their time is done and they recede into the background until spring returns and a new cycle starts again.

There is beauty in the small moments that make up our days; everything ebbs and flows but the small moments are to be cherished because they hold meaning and memory.

Everything has a cycle. Every loop eventually closes, every cycle eventually ends.

If we pay close attention to the little moments, and the richness that they bring, we can see where a new cycle begins.