September has always been about beginnings – it’s the beginning of both the school & liturgical year. For 25 years of my life & 17 years of my daughter’s life September was about buying school supplies, finding where the classrooms were, meeting the teacher & seeing just who was in your classes. For 3 years my daughter was even the teacher, half way around the world in Japan where school begins in the late spring. There is a franticness to September, an almost mantic level to it that even the natural world mirrors. Mushrooms appear, spiders are everywhere, various critters try to move into the house & every bug in the world is trying to find a mate.
This Spider has a Web the Size of the Picture Window
But September is also about ends. The motorcycle rallies have come & gone and 3 of the 4 rendezvous I usually attend are over. The annuals in my yard are fading & there will be no new growth until next spring. The berries have ripened & are now past there prime. And the first few leaves have begun to turn. I love fall, its my favorite season – but there is a pensiveness to it, a beginning that calls one to reflection on endings.
A Different Spider Made This Web
At the Labor Day Motorcycle Rally I rode my favorite rides in the Buena Vista area, rides I’ve done many many times since my 1st motorcycle rally there in 1983. Buena Vista is as it was then, rather a stepchild to Lexington with a good 3rd of its downtown empty storefronts. Various business come & go although it has some family run eateries that are still going concerns. Once the town had 3 factory employers, 2 closed their operations by 1988 and only in the last year has a 2nd factory operation moved into the old Blue Bird bus factory location.
But it’s the surrounding countryside that has changed. The Lexington Horse center is grand & has had a spinoff business effect in its immediate area; but farther on into the countryside the family run restaurants, independent convenience stores, small farm supply places and the like have all gone with the years. I rode through several once quietly prosperous villages that now have only a post office & for sale signs in empty buildings. Even a few of the 7-11s that replaced the independent places are now derelict. Changing demographics, changing economy, changing times – changing seasons.
Front Yard Mushrooms
August was a very active month for me, what with 2 motorcycle rallies & a weekend with Da Urchin. This last weekend it was time to rest, relax & tie up a few loose ends. Gypsy Jane is here, working in the area this week. Her RV roof got damaged in the storm on June 30 & it was time to finish fixing her rig. We got sanding disks from Lowes, a fiberglass kit from Advance Auto & had at it. The gel coat removal went well with both of us taking turns at the sanding. Jane mixed & applied the fiberglass patches as per instructions. Once it has cured properly we’ll sand it lightly, apply the new gel coat & paint the patched area.
House Last February
Remember the white pine limb that fell on my roof last February? Well the roof was patched right off, but the limb removal & cutting up the pieces has taken a much longer time. The pieces big enough to need a chainsaw I cut & stacked last weekend. This weekend I finished up the smaller pieces & stacked them ready to be burned in my fire ring.
The Little Branches Stacked Up to Use
I also cleaned the too-far-gone-to-burn-wood from my fire wood stack. (The big stuff in the photo is the backside of my knife & hawk target area.) As long as I was cleaning up the yard I also trimmed up the maple in the front yard & put the trailers back alongside the house.
There was also some routine house cleaning, computer maintenance and whatnot done. I even got a new field point hot glued onto an arrow for Gypsy Jane. Saturday evening Gypsy Jane & I played some music, which put a pleasant glow on the whole weekend.
A Time for Beginnings – A Time for Endings
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