What is
there to say about November? It’s
all about waiting. It’s about
absence.
The very last yellow leaf
that held on for dear life, even in the strongest wind, is gone. Disappeared. It seems to have happened when I wasn’t looking. The geese aren’t flying overhead any
more. No ducks are visiting the
pond. Hummingbirds are a distant
memory; I think they checked the calendar one day and took off even before
there were signs that summer was planning to turn into fall. I can only wonder what became of the
muskrat family that holed up by the pond or the weasels that lived under the
patio. The hawks and turkey
vultures disappeared too, after days of graceful swooping across the fields,
fields they have now abandoned to the crows. Squirrels and chipmunks are all I’ve seen of mammals
lately. Not even deer. It’s rifle season for deer as of
November 1st and they’re not likely to make themselves known. Yet––and of course there’s an “and yet”––it
is still beautiful, especially on clear sunny day that last only until 4:30 in
the afternoon when the light turns yellow.
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| Late afternoon light on the fireplace wall |
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| NOT November on the Robert Frost Trail: October fondly remembered |
It has in
fact been more sunny than dark from September until now. Our solar panels have generated more
kilowatt hours from January to December than they did last year. (We got the panels halfway
through June of 2013.) One way to
measure this by comparing the solar credits we have from Green Mountain Power
compared with last year: over $1,700 as of November 1st , $200 more
than last year. This was not
profit as we pay (leasing) for the panels. So far they have provided 39,000 kilowatt hours since June 2013
and offset 30 tons of carbon emissions.
What is amazing about solar power here in Vermont is how much of it
there is throughout the state. I’m
impressed at what Vermont is doing in the direction of carbon neutrality. Solar companies are putting up arrays
with great enthusiasm. So much so
that array siting has become an aesthetic issue. There is a backlash against very large arrays, say, five
acres or more. I happen like the
way our three panels look. They
tend to disappear into the background from most angles and they are far from
the road. However, this isn’t the
case everywhere. In some locations
they are unshielded and smack against a road. In other places large arrays it’s a question of the acreage
they cover. It’s also just the
fact that they cover: panels create ground shade where there
would otherwise be sunlight, removing yet another potential area from bobolink territory;
these are birds who will not nest in or near shaded areas, and like so many
ground-nesting species, they are vulnerable not only to natural predators, but
cats and, notably, mowing equipment.
It’s is why in many fields late season haying is their only ticket to
survival.
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| An ugly solar array in Middlebury at Vermont Sun Fitness Center; across the street is the Cabot Creamery. |
On the other
side of the season’s arc, fall instead of spring, the maple syrup
ritual was replaced by apple cider time.
Our apple trees produced delicious, if seriously misshapen, apples this
year on two of our four trees.
Since you don’t need to have male and female apple trees for fruiting
(unlike holly, for example), I can’t understand why we have two productive
trees and two utterly stubbornly unproductive trees. Ideas, anyone? The
apples produced by the Good Two trees were deep red and tart, like Empire
apples. They made the tastiest applesauce I’ve ever eaten, but, alas, only after
endless and tiresome peeling and trimming of their bumpy, crooked bodies. The Bad Two made nothing
whatsoever. They didn't even try. Our Huston family next
door has several huge old apple trees, plenty of apples for making cider, and
then some. The biggest obstacle to
churning out cider is the challenge of efficiently turning whole apples into small
chunks for juicing in the press. A
while back the Goudey family came up with the idea of using a garbage disposal that got attached to an old sink the Hustons supplied that turned the apples into mush
before they went into the press.
Running the press then became a piece of cake.
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| The sink with garbage disposal arrangement for cider-making |
Nothing else
to do then but wait for the snow.
