October Finally Fall

October 2025                                                       Most Recent Posts
Greenfield Mountain Farm              September – Hiking, Reading, Movies
Afton, Virginia                                     August was a Great Month but HOT 

The saddest thing to happen in October happened on its first day with the death of Jane Goodall at age 91.  She was an amazing woman who lived an incredible life of dedicated service.  The world is a lesser place without her though she has left a wonderful example for us all.   I’ve taken my favorite picture from the internet.

For me October was a lot like September.  Hiking, reading and friends and only one movie.   Late in the month my friend Pam returned from her house on the Outer Banks and we went to Firefly for dinner and then she treated me to the Springsteen Movie “ Deliver Me From Nowhere”.  It’s a biopic focused on his Nebraska album and was very good.  Of course I was too busy having a great time to remember to take any pictures.

Fall progressed and flowers grew fewer, leaves fell off the trees.  I know some folks consider thistle a weed, but I love it and so do the bees and butterflies.   I think its downy seeds are also lovely

Early in the month there was a beautiful full moon with wonderful clouds.  If I were an artist, this is a picture I would love to paint.

One day when coming back down the farm lane from checking the mail box which is over half a mile away, the house looked like a spotlight was shining on it.   No idea why but I loved it with the fading fall colors.

October also brought beautiful skies at sunset.

Another thing I love about October is that the scuppernong grapes are ripe and the grape arbor is overflowing.  We never made wine with them but we made a lot of delicious grape juice.   If you don’t or haven’t lived in the south, you may not know them.  They are a large variety of muscadine grape native to the southern US.  They are large, greenish and bronze when ripe.  The grape is white with a thick skin and SO SWEET!!   I picked bowls of them this year.

October has couple of important birthdays that I always honor.  My Great Aunt Carrie’s birthday is October 12th and I cannot find a picture on my computer of this wonderful woman who lived to be 102  and visited us at age 92 to meet her name sake great-great niece.

The other birthday of note is October 14th,  Winnie the Pooh is 99 this year.  We celebrated with pancakes with blueberries which he likes very much but sadly I was out of honey so we used Maple Syrup from St. Johnsbury Vermont.

I think I have mentioned Shannon Wilber in my blog previously.  He is the man who painted the entire house and helped me get everything ready in 2019 for the memorial gathering I had for David.  He has been a great friend ever since and has done so many “chores” for me I can’t count.  He winterizes the house every year and opens it back up in the spring.   When storms bring down trees, he clears them.  He mows the fields each spring and fall and in general looks after the farm in my absence.  My life would be much more difficult without his help.  I can’t believe this is the only picture I can find of him but I guess it’s appropriate since he has  his head in Winnona fixing who knows what.  But it’s a good one since his assistant Eddie is also in this picture and it is Eddie who helped me so much in October.  I have always had to take Winnona into Charlottesville to a Chevy Truck dealer to get her oil change and lube done.   When I mentioned to Shannon that I’d be taking her in and what a pain given where the farm is.  He said, Why?  Eddie or I can do it.  That’s what he always says when I ask who I should get to…..clean the chimneys, replace the house water heater or ……  his answer is always, “I can do it.”

So Eddie did do it and also resealed the roof, sanded and put rustoleum on all rust spots especially the sides of the bins, did maintenance on the Blue Ox hitch and washed and waxed the rig.  I didn’t have to take her anywhere.

How LUCKY am I that they take such good care of me.  Of course I pay them but there is no money that can express my gratitude to them.  They give me peace of mind.

Several people commented that they enjoyed knowing what I was reading so here are some, but not all this time, of the books I finished in October.  Portrait of An Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe by Laurie Lisle is one of the biographies of O’Keeffe on my shelf and one I can recommend.  It’s much more doable than what is considered the definitive biography of O’Keeffe by Roxana Robinson which is nearly 700 pages long.  I do think Lisle had a lot of chutzpah to use that title.   And what a formidable picture of O’Keeffe.

The Antidote by Karen Russel, author of Swamplandia, was a finalist for The National Book Award which is what brought it into my purview.  I like following the book awards for this reason, they are a means of discovering books I might like.  This one is a gripping dust bowl historical fiction tale interwoven with magical realism.   It covers a period in 1935 Nebraska between two powerful storms that ravage a small town and five characters whose fates become entangled.   An excellent story about the devastation of the Great Depression and the dust bowl.

I also finished Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Franchesca Wade. 
This is non-fiction but reads easily like a work of fiction.  The period between the two world wars was one of big change especially for women.  It’s a group portrait of 5 women including Virginia Wolfe and Dorothy L. Sayers who moved to London’s Mecklenburgh Square described when I looked it up as “a hidden architectural gem in the heart of London”  It was a radical address outside of Bloomsbury and was known as the home of students, artists and revolutionaries.  Sounds like a fantastic place to live at the time.   Now I for sure want to visit it though it’s been 100 years since its heyday.  I would love to know who it is home to now.

And speaking of home, this is the view through the front door out onto the porch which has a swing, a rocking chair and  table and chairs for eating outside though we almost always use the picnic table in the  yard off the kitchen.  The view just caught my eye and I wanted to remember it.

For the deer lovers.  I met this fellow on one of my daily hikes.  During September I hiked 87 miles. I keep a record of daily mileage and was shocked when I added it up.

Late October brought more beautiful but different sunsets.

On my hikes I can now see the mountains through the trees.

Now that we can do our weekly meetings in person, Laurie and I went to lunch and to visit the McGuffy Art Center for this month’s exhibits of which we were not too excited it turned out.  Both featured artists work in mixed media.

This work was really the only one I found interesting.  The following one made me laugh.  It was titled Usual Headaches.

By October 25th it was getting colder than I like with a low of 33 degrees.

The Blue Ridge Parkway and Humpback rocks are out there on the ridgeline.  If you are ever on the parkway, let me know.

The big maple tree has nearly shed all its leaves as Winnona waits patiently in the barnyard to get on the road again.

It seems each time right before I leave, I get to have a last lunch with several of my friends.   My lunch with Pam at Firefly that I mentioned earlier was one of these.

Mary and I went to Riverside Lunch for lunch.  HA!

  Riverside is a long time fixture in Charlottesville from when it was still a small town.  They advertise they’ve been here since “circa 1935”  and boast “Flat out, the best burgers in town”.  I wouldn’t argue.  We had excellent burgers

We each had a burger and split a huge basket of fries.  Yum is what Mary is saying.

My friend Laurie and I meet once a week all year long.  When I am away we video chat and when I’m in Virginia our first and last meetings are at Dr. Ho’s Pizza.

Love the décor.

Lucky for me, Laurie didn’t realize the salad she ordered came with so many beets which I love so she gave most of them to me.

We split a Big Schloss pizza, the one we now always seem to have.  We used to have Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie but once we tried Big Schloss, we never went back.  I didn’t think to take a picture until we were looking at the leftovers.

Two days later I was pulling out of the valley with one look back.

Last look at fall at the farm.   Be safe my special place.

On to warmer weather and kayaking!!