Poetry Tuesday: Autumn Grasses

Autumn Grasses in Moonlight, Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891) Two-panel folding screen; ink, lacquer, and silver leaf on paper

Autumn Grasses
Copyright Margaret Gibson, 2003

In fields of bush clover and hay-scent grass
the autumn moon takes refuge
The cricket's song is gold

Zeshin's loneliness taught him this

Who is coming?
What will come to pass, and pass?

Neither bruise nor sweetness nor cool air
not-knowing
knows the way

And the moon?
Who among us does not wander, and flare
and bow to the ground?

Who does not savor, and stand open
if only in secret

taking heart in the ripening of the moon?

I don't know a lot about poet Margaret Gibson, but I chose this poem today because its tones (and the mysterious tones of the painting from which it draws inspiration) so perfectly convey the way that I feel as we slip into autumn, with winter just ahead.

On Saturday morning around 5 am as I was getting ready for hunting, the moon was so bright and near-full here that I didn't need a flashlight. But it also held that secret, slightly frightening edge, "ripening" in the autumn sky.

Somehow in the spring the moon seems soft and not as present. In the summer and fall we have the harvest moon, sometimes romantic, but warm and welcoming. In the winter, though, that moon takes on a different cast. Bright and grey behind clouds, the moon can be downright eerie shining on a winter landscape of sparkling fields of ice. In the winter the moon is lonely and cold and perfectly at home. The ice queen surveying (and shaping) her slick kingdom.

We're not quite there yet, but soon the end of autumn will come and the cricket's gold song will set and we will watch the cold silver moon of winter rise.

7"x7"

Postage stamp block 1: from scraps. Or, as my husband said, "That's 49 pieces of fabric... Are you crazy?"

Weekend Update: Cubbing from Willow Oaks

This week was spent in a haze of cold medicine and sleep, which is why there was no posting past Monday. I rallied enough by the end of the week to go cubbing yesterday morning from Willow Oaks, near Glenwood Park in Middleburg. This meet has a very oblique driveway, and to get into the driveway from the farm, I have to go to Glenwood Park and turn around so that I'm angled in the right direction. Yesterday, I had to do this twice since I got there too early (6:40 for a 7:30 meet!), having misjudged the length of the drive.

The meet was a relatively small one, with perhaps 10 riders in the first field and 8 in the second. One member rode sidesaddle. The huntsman drew down the driveway and back around to the rear of the property, where we waited for the call on top of the hill. Willow Oaks is beautiful rolling country with stone walls and reasonable coops. About half of the territory is wooded, and that portion can be very hilly.

Anyway, on the first draw we saw the hounds shoot out of the woods hot on the tail of a beautiful red fox. We had a great view as the fox ran one field over, and then we were off. It was a fun and relaxed day, perfect for cub hunting and legging up the horses. Since I rode second flight (all the better to have a calm, early-season experience for the horse-- and me), the only tricky moment came at a check on a very steep hill. There was little room to maneuver off the sandy, slick path in the woods, and Josh got a little anxious as we waited at the check for about 10 minutes. Other horses were more anxious than Joshua, though, so I suppose I have very little to complain about. Overall, a very enjoyable day. Good commeraderie with other riders and smiles all around.

As I was riding up one of the many hills of the day at a gallop yesterday, I realized what the smell of a really good run is. Wet wool. Both the wool of my horse's sheepskin saddle pad and that of my hunt coat. It was a good day.

The photo above really reminds me of September in Virginia. A beautiful clear and breezy sky, bright clean light, and the promise of winter to come-- look at the clouds in the very top of the picture!)

Handsewing: Puzzle Ball

We had a lovely weekend in the North Carolina mountains with Brian's family. The weather and days there were beautiful, but unfortunately I was sick with a terrible sinus cold the entire time (I hope no one else caught it!).

Today has been spent in bed and on the couch, trying to get well. I took my copy of Joelle Hoverson's Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts with me to the mountains, and simply couldn't wait another moment to get started on a project when we got home. It's such a beautiful book! The puzzle ball seemed just about the right speed, since there is a lot of hand-finishing involved. It was hard to get a good photo of the finished product through the Day-Quil haze, but it was a fun little project. Next time I would opt for fabrics with a little more contrast between them for the inside and outside of the ball.

Foxhunt Friday: Cubbing from Mount Pleasant

Alas no foxhunting photo, but I had to share the view from the barn. Beautiful, huh? That's Crow tied to his favorite tree taking a nap before his ride. On to hunting. We met yesterday at Mount Pleasant, a farm on one of the roads that runs between 15 and 50 south of Aldie. The farm is across the road from the National Beagle Club's Institute Farm. This area of country is wide-open and picturesque. Several times during the morning's hunting we came out of woods to a sudden sweeping view of grassy valleys below.

About 15 riders made up the field. Thursday was my first time out for the season, so I had planned to hilltop (go with the second "field" or "flight" of riders, which doesn't jump but goes through gates instead), but there are few coops in this part of the territory, and I thought Josh would be up for whatever we came to, so I decided to go first flight. At first. The huntsman drew toward Landfall Farm, and we were all impressed with how closely he held the pack together as we set out (this is this huntsman's first year with our hunt).

We had a check high up on a hill and we watched hounds work through fields and a small pond before hitting the first line. Unfortunately, the check gave me time to contemplate a couple of 10-board coops that we could see at the bottom of the hill. The riders (removable horizontal boards to make the jumps level with the rest of the fence so that livestock can't escape) were up, which meant that we probably wouldn't jump them, but they were enough to scare me back into the second flight. Which was just as well. No one, first flight or second, ended up jumping anything more than some small logs in the woods, but the day was a good one for just getting out there and exposing the horse to some hounds. The weather was beautiful and the air was clear (but for the dust kicked up by hooves), and we had a very enjoyable morning. The one down point was when we ran into a couple of bulldozers in the woods near the Institute-- bulldozers are definitely one way to put hounds off of scent! The development is coming everywhere.

I hope these foxhunting entries won't be too boring to readers who don't ride, but I'm excited to have a record of my hunting days. I tried to find an online dictionary of foxhunting terms to link to explanations of some of the terms here but I couldn't find a good one, so I'll have to keep explaining in parentheses, I guess. Also, we can all hope that maybe soon I'll get better at writing about the action. Have a great weekend.

WIP Wednesday: Brian's Quilt

Even Grady looks a little bored with this quilt, doesn't he? Maybe that's a sign that it's been sitting around too long. I began work on this simple star quilt sometime in 2004. I made about 10 blocks back in the period when I lived on the farm without tv service. Then earlier this year, I picked the project up again and pieced the entire top as a birthday gift for my husband. It's a generous lap quilt size, and after getting Brian's input on the backing fabric, I've been slowly hand quilting it with a combination of outline stitching and repeated shells. I'm getting closer and closer, and I hope to have it finished in time for his next birthday in April 2008! This is a crafting problem that I have-- it's hard to finish things.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

It's dinosaur season. Mornings on the farm are misty and mysterious. As the days get shorter and the nights linger longer, that shape in the foggy distance could be anything, and often is a fox or a baby deer or a calf hidden in a tuft of grass by his mother.

My friend Noelle named dinosaur season one morning six autumns ago, when she and Karen and I were going out to catch horses in the field. In the pre-dawn of a 7 am meet foxhunting day the fog was so thick that we could barely see our feet, much less the horses. The horses became suddenly visible only when we were right on top of them, and then they were as surprised to see us as we were to find them. They were our dinosaurs, emerging from the eternal mist. Dinosaur season is short-- soon the nights will be even longer and the days shorter, and the hunt will meet later in the morning to account for the dark and the dropping temperatures.

For now, though, I really love my misty early mornings. So quiet and soft that they could have happened in almost any era, and yet so close and insular that they hold me in this moment. Later, as the fog burns up and we gallop through the valley, the dinosaurs are gone and the modern is visible in the forms of shiny cars and big rigs. But the mist lingers as a sort of meditation in my mind-- a beautiful way to start the day.
And here are some lovely virtual flowers for my equally lovely mother, whose birthday is today. These are the last of the summer blooms from our farm share, and the marigolds smell so good I can hardly stand it. Their scent lingers on my hands (much more pleasant than garlic-linger, don't you think?) and I wonder why someone doesn't make eau de parfum de marigold. Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you very much.