The Fall of Autumn–Flight of the Geese

We humans are paradoxical beings. We tend to stew our lives in hope, spiced with either pessimism or optimism, depending on how we view our circumstances of the moment. When times are rough, we sprinkle heavily with pessimism; when all is well, we’re liberal with optimism.

The term ‘karma’ is largely misunderstood by most of the western world. It is not a predetermined destiny as we’ve been trained to believe, but a predeterminable outcome based on our reaction to a given set of circumstances. In order to change our futures for the better, we must change the way we view and interpret the way our life plays out, which will change our reactions and, thereby, the results of those reactions. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your goals and aspirations; quite the contrary, what you have to give up is the habit of giving in when you encounter obstacles in your pathway to achieving your goals and aspirations.

 

All my bright and beautiful leaves are falling, stripping the luster of autumn.

The geese are flying over our place every morning at around ten o’clock to spend the day at the reservoir to the west of us. At seven in the evening they fly back to the field beyond a ridge to the east of us. A couple of weeks ago there were probably about four or five flocks of around fifteen or twenty geese per flock. Now there are nearly twice that many. Before long there will be more still and then, one day they won’t stop at the field beyond the ridge and they’ll be gone for another year.

We haven’t watched the geese as closely as we did last year, when they landed in the field across the road every evening. We carried our chairs out to the front lawn and sat there every evening just before seven o’clock to watch them return from the reservoir. One evening early last fall, when there were still only a few flocks, we noticed a couple of geese in one flock flip a quarter turn in the air as they began their descent. We weren’t quite sure we saw what we thought we saw until the following evening when we then saw a few more do the same flip. The sound from their wings fluttered as though they had faltered, but they did the same thing again just before landing, some of them flipping halfway over and then back upright.

Over the next few nights several more geese began flipping on their descent and within a week or so geese from all the flocks were flipping. Shortly after new flocks joined our original group, some of them began flipping and by then most of the originals were doing flips, several now flipping a full circle. Before they all left, nearly all the geese were doing flips and some of them flipped several times, plummeting toward the earth before pulling into a soaring coast into the field.

This year we were curious to see if they were still doing their descent flipping, but for the first several evenings we couldn’t see, since they were descending on the other side of that ridge. We watched carefully for several days, then finally saw – as they flew over a saddle in the ridge – that, yes, they were still doing their flips. We clapped and cheered as they vanished behind the ridge.

 

Ben took this photo last week and within a couple of days the aspen leaves were turning brown and the red Amur maple leaves were falling.

 

The wreath we made today from some of the last leaves of the grove of trees above.

 

A foggy day last week.

Garden color – broccoli leaf

Parsley

Meatballs and White Sauce

We humans tend to hate chaos. We want everything to fit into neat, tidy parameters. But the entire universe functions on chaos and all the plant and animal kingdom, except us, thrives because of that chaos. We want tidy, weed-free lawns and flower beds – and we work hard to achieve that – and we want the rest of our lives to be like our lawns and gardens. We also tend to want simple answers to everything,and for everything to fit into a well-planned scenario we can buy into without having to study or think about it. And when chaos enters in spite of all our efforts, we fall apart.
I made meatballs yesterday. They’re not Julia Child kind of food, but I am really fond of meatballs. I researched meatball recipes on the internet, combined a few recipes and took out ingredients we don’t have and came up with a really delicious dish. So here it is. Change ingredients around according to your own taste. (For example, those of you who love garlic, add more to the meatballs and put some in the sauce as well.) It’s a complex recipe, but it’s really worth it.
Meatballs
1 lb. lean burger (I used beef, because we grow our own beef)
2 eggs
1/2 C. onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced fine
1 C. cooked brown rice or bread crumbs
1/4 C. soy sauce
1/4 t. cloves
1/2 t. allspice
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. white pepper
1 T. Italian Seasoning
1 T. fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1 T. fresh oregano, chopped fine
1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese
Mix thoroughly. Roll into ping pong size balls. Makes about 30 meatballs. Fry on medium heat in a few tablespoons of canola oil until browned all around. (As they warm up they tend to flatten some, so roll them often to keep them round.) Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes. (Although you can skip frying the meatballs and just bake them, they will go flat on one side. You could, though, fry the meatballs, set them aside while you prepare the sauce and simmer them, covered, for twenty to twenty five minutes. If you do that, though, you won’t need the oil or the flour, but after you’re done simmering the meatballs, add two and a half tablespoons of cornstarch to a quarter cup of cold milk or water and add that to the sauce to thicken it.)
When the meatballs have only a few minutes left to bake, prepare White Sauce:
3 T. canola oil
3 T. flour
Heat oil, (I used the oil left in the pan from the meatballs, which added more flavor to the sauce) add flour and stir into the oil. Cook for a minute or two, then add:
3 C. milk
1/2 C. grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 T. or 1 cube beef bullion
2 T. ground dried onion
1 T. Italian seasoning
Bring to a boil and simmer on low until thick. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water and stir. Add meatballs to sauce and simmer for five minutes or so. Serve over pasta with salad on the side.

Our weather has finally shifted and it appears the cool temperatures will be around at least for awhile. We got snow on the mountains which showed up yesterday when the clouds finally lifted.

Happy Hollandaise and S@!*# Soufflé

We have to keep picking ourselves up and trudging along, striving to maintain our balance and improve ourselves. If we can do this and pass what we learn to the next generation, and if they can improve on that and pass their wisdom on to the next generation, then some day . . . some day we’ll have a genuine era of enlightenment.

It won’t be in our lifetime or the one after, or even the one after that. We can make remarkable improvements in our own lives; however, until we learn that if we don’t each allow others to grow and develop and advance, it will never be possible for ourselves.

 

I did finally get to making a proper hollandaise sauce. The eggs are not cooked, but since we have our own chickens and I know that our eggs are safe, I didn’t worry about them. However, the sauce was rather boring compared to a lot of other sauces made in America. I decided not to pursue hollandaise, since I cannot recommend the sauce for any of you who don’t know the diet and health of the flock laying your eggs.

So, I moved on to soufflés. I read that section very carefully a few times before my first attempt, which was a cheese soufflé. And, actually. it turned out exceptionally well. The essence of a soufflé, Julia said was getting the eggs whipped up to form shiny, stiff peaks and to fold your sauce into the egg whites quickly and smoothly so you don’t flatten the whites. Simple enough. I got it.  I was so confident, in fact that I decided to try a rhubarb soufflé just yesterday. It looked beautiful (and tasted wonderful) as it went into the oven.

It flopped.

I studied several other types of fruit desserts to see where I might have gone wrong, but found that Julia doesn’t reference any sauced fruit soufflés. She did make something similar, but called it a custard, unbaked she called it a cream to put into cream puffs. My crashed rhubarb soufflé, had actually tasted really good and reminded Ben and me of a bread pudding. (Custard.) But it wasn’t, of course, a soufflé.

Today, then, to soothe my corpulent, male cranium, I decided to try a chocolate soufflé. Simple, right?

It flopped.

It did make a good chocolate pudding. So, after Ben and I had a dinner of meatball burgers, Swiss chard with balsamic vinegar, and borscht, we ate the chocolate pudding with chokecherry sauce. It was so unbelievably delicious that I nearly cried when it was gone.

But it wasn’t soufflé.

Obviously I didn’t learn the lesson. Therefore, I’m heading back to the book. (I was so ready to move on!)

 

 

So, I’m drifting back into the beauty of Autumn for a couple of days to console myself.