34 this morning. Light rain overnight, but the sun is out now. We seem to be in a pattern of low 30's at night, upper 40's during the day.
Not much to talk about lately. I'm still getting rid of the remnants of my cold; it's taking a l-o-n-g time to be over. It's cold and damp outside, very November-ish.
I've been wanting to get into some housecleaning, but haven't felt up to it. So I work on eBay, do simple things like laundry, sweeping, dishes, pricing things for the booths, and yesterday evening decided to sort through one of my desk drawers. It's always surprising to find what I've put in there: sterling silver spoons, old keys, prisms, pieces of broken jewelry, paper clips, lamp finials, pens, pads, calculators, bits of hardware, on and on. Some of it went to the trash, some I packed up for the booth, and the rest was organized a bit and put back. Although only I would know it's been tidied!
I sorted the top drawer of my dresser too, and it was much the same, but with prettier things like hankies and little boxes--and for some reason a few of the wood pegs that held together the last log cabin we took down. Those pegs really made me think about the early pioneers. Imagine having to not only hew the logs but also the pegs to hold it together. And gather or quarry stone for your fireplace, split and shape wood for doors, shelves, beds, tables, and anything else needed.
And that reminds me of an old house we looked at in the early 70's, near Front Royal, Virginia. We wanted to move to the country so badly we were looking at anything within our price range that had a little acreage. Even back then Front Royal was a little expensive for us. This old place had about 20 acres, mostly going to brush, a rutted road to the house which was in very poor condition. There was no running water, just a well out back where the outhouse was also located. No electricity either. And the floors were puncheon floors--the kind made by laying logs on the ground and smoothing the top of them so they would be fairly flat. There were boards nailed over this floor when we looked at it, but it was like walking on the deck of a rolling ship.
The lay of that land was lovely, gently sloping down to the highway. I think perhaps we missed out by not buying it, although in truth the house should probably have been torn down. At that time, the place was for sale for 20,000 dollars. But within 10 years, Interstate 66 was completed to Front Royal and property prices skyrocketed. It was probably worth a great deal more then, and by now it would be in the millions. We were young, had only a certain amount of money and little experience so it was likely for the best that we passed it up.
I often think of that old place, and the people who built and lived in it. What must the area have been like when they hewed those floors, cleared that land? And that old house, settling down into the place it was built, comfortably arranging its bones, full of memories, looking out at the world from its place on the hill.
Which led me to looking for poems about old houses in November. Very specific topic, right? And yet I did manage to find these, which I like very much.
Old Houses
Robert Cording
Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly
how old houses hold themselves—
before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—
as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.
I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil
without need of a sign, awaiting nothing
more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.
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When the Year Grows Old
Edna St. Vincent Millay - 1892-1950
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,
She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget—
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!
Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!
But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!
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November
Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;
Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,
For autumn charms my melancholy mind.
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier,
These waiting mourners do not sing for me!
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
The loss of beauty is not always loss.
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At day-close in November
Thomas Hardy
The ten hours’ light is abating,
And a late bird wings across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.
Beech leaves, that yellow the noontime,
Float past like specks in the eye;
I set every tree in my June time,
And now they obscure the sky.
And the children who ramble through here
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall trees grew here,
That none will in time be seen.
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