High in a fruiting apple tree, harvest bags slung over our shoulders, we stop picking to glance up the road…gravel scrunching noise…a car winding its way down the road onto the farm. A neighbor or a visitor? We narrow our eyes to see where it goes, who is returning home? Who is visiting whom? By car, wing, or scales, we welcome all sorts of friends returning to Molino Creek Farm.
A String of Celebrations
The harvest festivals have already begun. We are pressing apples with two pressings already behind us, 40 gallons of divine apple juice in freezers, refrigerators, or in carboys fermenting. Upcoming is Samhain, the midpoint between the Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice, a time when the veil grows thin separating the ancestors with those here now. We will be attentive to the shadows, echoes and whispers of those who walked and loved this place before. John Brunie used to perform the astrological calculations of the exact date and time of these sacred holidays, but he’s gone so we seek a new calendar keeper for the Farm. Thanksgiving means some leave the farm for gatherings elsewhere and others arrive, a string of quiet days, friends roaming the fields and trails sharing stories and luxuriant first rain smells. The forest floor and roads are often littered with evergreen branches at Thanksgiving, blown about by the winter’s first storm. We weave fallen boughs into circles, recognizing the cycles of time. Winter solstice lies shortly thereafter and then the Wassail brings the string of celebrations to a temporary close. We are at the threshold of gatherings a’plenty.
Equinox Birds
The Fall Equinox has hellos and goodbyes. We said hello to hundreds of golden crowned sparrows who returned to this place from Alaska on the very evening of the Equinox as they have done time and time again. With strong site fidelity, these birds love this place more deeply than we can ever understand. These same families, these same clans, have potentially been returning for hundreds of thousands of years to this very spot. If we peer at them enough, we can recognize individuals; they already know each of the neighbors and maybe many of our friends. The Equinox saw the flight of the barn swallows, who returned to Central and South America. They may have spent days singing goodbye, soaring one more time past their favorite trees, and then they were off. As they left, the particularly whiny sapsucker(s?) dove into the orchard from the great migration from who knows where. We need help to see how many there are: last year there were three in the family. Sapsucker is elusive and shy, requiring some focused time searching for each individual to figure out how many will be here this winter. The changing birds greatly alters the soundscape. The dominant noise in the spring and summer were the creaky whistles and laughing chatter of swallows. Now, the dominant bird noise is the golden crowned sparrows’ forlorn call, a descending set of notes that might be, ‘Oh dear me,’ repeated from every shrub and tree. What hasn’t changed is the sheer biomass of birds inhabiting the Farm. Stepping out the door still flushes 50 birds. A walk down the roads or paths creates a continuous wake of fleeing birds. Feather flutter and alarm cheeps everywhere.
Winter Waves
The sets of roaring and breaking big winter waves have returned. Lately, there has been no still peace as the reverberations of the ocean form a white noise backdrop to a cacophony of warm night crickets interspersed with bouts of hooting owls. The waves create a mist that blankets the ocean side farms, spreading a bit up the coastal canyons. When the waves are big and there’s even the gentlest onshore breeze, we can smell the fresh sea scent from the Farm, 2 miles inland and 900’ up. When the waves get really big, it seems the ground rumbles beneath our feet. These are familiar phenomena which make this seem more like home.
Coyote Friends
In Spring, we saw a female and her pup coyote. She had a peculiar white line behind her shoulders, a ridge of brighter fur that stood up a little above the rest. She was lithe and wary, always on the move, never playing as so many of our wild dog friends had done before. The other day, I saw her again, following the large male neighbors had been talking about. We have a pair of coyote friends! May they find a fine place to have pups nearby and feast on the rabbits and gophers that are so common around the farm. From their scat, it looks like they are enjoying apples and tomatoes for now. The two sing many nights, a deeper growly staccato barking paired with a longer noted, high yipping song.
Fall Scenes
The cycle of seasons delivers us a quintessential peaceful Fall. Time slows. The sun very gradually sets into longer and longer nights. The hills are muted colors now, dry leaves rattling. Once tall upright golden grass has settled, askew and gray-brown. The fruit and nut trees show hints of yellow. In the forest, maples, thimbleberry, and hazelnut are dropping lemon yellow leaves, splashes of color in the shade of the towering redwood forest. Bright squash litter the Two Dog fields as their peppers turn deep red. The poison oak is still moist, only a few bright red patches on the drier shrubby sites. The sunset sky is streaked with smoke from prescribed fires, humans returning to their roots, stewarding the land once again.
May you take the time to meander about, soaking up the warm fall evenings.
Grey Hayes 