The sky cracked its palms in naked wonder (Bob Dylan)

Gracie enjoying autumn at Maple Grove

Wie geht's?

Autumn has officially arrived and my spirits have revived considerably as a consequence.

We have wood ready for April's first fires at Maple Grove, the grass hardly needs a cut (cooler, darker days), leaves are starting to turn, shadows are starting to lengthen, and the garden furniture as well as the shade sails have been stowed until November.

It's all deeply satisfying!

Go here for more of my annual celebrations of autumn.

Love and peace - Wozza

Do you know what's going on? Take me by the hand singing, "Yes, I do" (L.A.B)

Wie geht's?

Have I done my annual celebration of autumn post yet? 

It's a long held tradition so I thought I'd link to a few of my past efforts celebrating my favourite season.

Here you go:

One from 2015, one from 2018, one from 2020, and one from 2021.

Love and peace - Wozza

I take my chances every chance I get (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Wie geht's?

Maple Grove is well named. This might just be my favourite tree on the property. Especially dressed in its autumn cloak.

By the way, I normally like the maple leaves to drop naturally, as you know, but Jacky got a leaf blower recently and I couldn't resist a play yesterday.

This is the view from where I eat breakfast every morning (habit). I can't see outside Monday to Friday, but when the weekend comes...

Love and peace - Wozza

Woods (George Winston - from his 'Autumn' album)

Wie geht's?

Autumn! As you all know - my favourite season. Not even close.

Autumn in New Zealand is from March to May and has gotten off to a good start: warm days (last Friday's athletics sports was in full sun and a hot 25 degrees); shorter daylight hours (so travelling in darkness to school is now a thing); and crisp mornings are starting to be more frequent.

Time to dig out the George Winston album and prepare for the winter.

This has meant emptying the swimming pool (had to bail out the last 6 inches and boy oh boy did it stretch my hamstrings); stacking the three cord of wood that was delivered (some of which is pictured above); and collecting pinecones as fire starters (much less under the pine trees this year for some reason).

All is ready. Winter is coming.

Love and peace - Wozza

A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes as if to hide a lonely tear. My life will be forever autumn, 'cause you're not here (Justin Hayward)

Wie geht's?

More autumn thoughts for you:

We've had some great autumn days at Maple Grove lately - grey skies, rain, leaves falling, trees turning beautiful colours - you know the drill.

Yesterday, I had to drive to Gisborne for work and by mid afternoon I was stuck behind a cattle truck coming into Wairoa. Never great right?

Except this time it was!

The draft caused by the truck kicked up all the fallen leaves on the side of the road, and so I drove through a kind of snowstorm of autumn leaves for a couple of kilometres. It was so cool!

While doing this I thought about my deep seated and long established love of autumn.

Two things came immediately to mind: 

• That book I read as a child about an overgrown garden that Maple Grove's overgrown driveway continually reminds me of (I've written about this book a lot over the years in this blog - I wish I could find another copy)
• Driving home in Leigh-on-sea with Jade and Samantha from school in autumnal darkness. Cosy and safe, return to the womb style, I guess.

Both memories have really super impressed themselves in some fundamental part of my brain and they are triggered on weekends like we've just had - as I very contentedly gaze out of rain splattered windows at leaves on our huge maple trees changing colour under a dark broody sky, while a fire warms up the villa's kitchen.

Hard not to be in pensive and wistful mood on those occasions.

Love and peace - Wozza

If they make Tony Adams captain we could all go screaming in the park (Joe Strummer)

In one of my happy places

Wie geht's?

For the most part, I'm a happy sort of bloke. A colleague and I were discussing happiness recently and she offered to lend me some of Gretchen Rubin's books.

These are The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies (which I'll write about in the Baggy Trewsers blog).

Why am I generally a happy bloke? 

According to current research cited in Gretchen's book - its mainly about your genetics, so I have my parents to thank for 50% of my predelection for happiness (age, gender, ethnity, marriage status, income, health, occupation, religious affiliation make up to 20% and the other 30% is a product of how I think and act).

So thanks to Dulcie and Graham, Jacky Purdy (she's beautiful inside and out), and me - I'm a happy bloke. 

It also helps that I'm a teacher on a good wage who lives on a few acres in the country with no neighbours to speak of.

I'm pretty sure my other 30% comes from my love of music (15%) and English (reading and writing - 15%).

Here are the things that are currently adding to my happiness:

• It's autumn (I LOVE autumn) and we had our first frost yesterday (so good!)
• Music and reading (on the day I wrote this post I finished a Desmond Bagley adventure story, started another Anne Tyler novel, dipped a toe into The Happiness Project while listening to Brand X albums in the warmth of our Garden Room while the dogs slept at my feet)
• Writing (I worked on some posts to four of my blogs)
• I enjoy menial tasks like hanging out washing, picking up horse poo, baiting rat traps (rats don't like winter so they start casting around for some warmer lodgings)
• Following Arsenal F.C. - we play Liverpool overnight so I'm forever hopeful (if they lose I'll be momentarily less happy)
• Looking at my record collection and posting photos on the Facebook vinyl group I belong to (the Brand X live album is great so I needed to share that today)
• Listening to MNAC albums and writing about them (Herman Dune was the latest band I never would have discovered without Alex, Lew and Tom's input) 
• Seinfeld (the show - it figures in my daily life in many ways - quotes come to mind and Pinterest groups have stills that instantly make me smile)
• The Beatles posters in my music room (as well as my other decorations in there - they bring me joy everytime)
• Watching Asher interact with his mum and us (Papa and Mema) is a real source of happiness!

Love and peace - Wozza

It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way if we'll keep on the sunny side of life (The Carter Family)

Wie geht's?

Relentless positivity is the place to be (baby).

It's a phrase I heard from Jacinda Ardern during her recent (successful) campaign to win election. She got my vote!

I've adopted the phrase because I can relate - relentless being of the 'never give up' variety.

Luckily, apples never fall far from the tree. When I was growing up, my mother's sunny disposition and positive, pin your ears back, attitude was what I saw every day.

Optimism and a can do attitude can go a long way. They can also aggravate some people.

Rather than saying  'Regards from Karen', a colleague of mine signs off her emails - 'Rainbows and sunshine'. Some of my staff are annoyed by that. Go figure. 

The poem you're about to fall in love with is of the moment - autumnal changes can be seen as negative to some (all that leaf decomposition I suppose) but I love autumn. 

It clears away the old, ready for all that new growth in spring.

New Rooms The mind must set itself up wherever it goes and it would be most convenient to impose its old rooms—just tack them up like an interior tent. Oh but the new holes aren’t where the windows went. Kay Ryan (2015) Love and peace - Wozza

Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way (Justin Hayward)

Possess, as I possessed a season, 
The countries I resign, 
Where over elmy plains the highway 
Would mount the hills and shine, 
And full of shade the pillared forest 
Would murmur and be mine - A.E. Housman (1922)

The lengthening shadows are a dead giveaway - autumn is coming.

The cooler nights and shorter days are another - autumn is coming.

With three weeks to go (autumn takes over in the southern hemisphere on March 21), everything is starting to feel sharper as the temperature starts dropping, thankfully there's no humidity, with a changing sun pattern there are some distinctive earlier shadows in the day, and the first signs of leaves turning. 

I love autumn. It's my favourite.

Love and peace - WNP

Soon everything we've known will just get swept away (Bruce Springsteen)

Autumn at Rochdene is all about long shadows and leaves changing colour before dropping.

Unusually, it has also meant dry hot days for the last month!

Finally, this weekend it was colder, damper, mistier, cloudier.

The following views are of said Rochdene and from a walk SWMBO and I took across the road to the lake.

Love and autumn peace - Wozza

Life's too short to be afraid (Robbie Williams)

Sleeves

Yellow brown autumn leaves bunch up 
against my window.
I spend a little time watching them as they
fall onto themselves;
the sun is hiding behind a tall wall
that sends out a sharp outline.
It's a roughly textured wall in off cream,
age unknown.
The clouds are fairly racing across the milky blue sky
but the breeze down here is mild
and I am unseasonal in shirt sleeves.

It's a mid May morning;
the red leaved trees stand in relief
against evergreen
trying to be the last staunch hold outs.

There are many trees outside this window:
pines, silver birches, Australian wattles, Japanese maples.

It's good to watch them sway 
against the moving sky:

accentuating the positive.

I have only one burning desire, let me stand next to your fire (Jimi Hendrix)

You know that post I did a couple back about autumn's non arrival and the burn pile? Well guess what, it did the trick.

It's been raining. It's colder. The skies are grey. It's darker earlier. Daylight saving has ended. The fire restrictions have been lifted! 

As you can see - we celebrated!

Satisfyingly, even though the pile was a bit damp after some recent rain, it went up quickly.

Given that we are now enjoying a late autumn I thought it apposite to include some other autumn flavours in the spirit of Keats.

Here are five things I love about autumn:

1 The picture on the left has me and Bazil enjoying the milder autumn weather while also enjoying the fire. 

Bazie is old now, pretty much deaf, not the best at following me into the Red Phoenix Farm paddocks any more, can't jump into cars any longer, a little night blind, has to take some daily medications, doesn't like the high heat of a Nu Zild summer or the numbing cold of our winter. 

So autumn is perfect for him.

2 Keeping with an animal theme -this Bruegel picture - The Return Of The Herd (Autumn) - captures a wonderful essence: the gathering dark clouds, the still brown hills gaining some green, the change of clothing and the trees shedding their leaves. Love this!

3 Best short read on the essence and lessons of autumn? Try this http://peterborten.com/all/the-essence-and-lessons-of-autumn/

4 Bob Dylan composed this terrific song about a relationship. Like summer, it's ended and the winds are starting to howl. Johnny Cash's voice is a perfect complement and the whole thing is made even more wistful by the wonderful visual of a brooding sunset. Genius. 

Watch the clouds go by. Go on - you won't regret it!

5 Ed Sheeran is touring Nu Zild at the moment - this charming young man - so here's an Ed moment to finish us off.


Love and peace - Wozza

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (John Keats)

The spring collection.

Annoyingly, I wanted to write this post a while ago when the first pleasant signs of autumn started creeping over the land but since then we've had a second summer. 

Bah humbug!

It's April and yesterday we had 30 degrees on the deck's temperature gauge. We still have doors and windows open throughout the night to keep cool!

Last April we had fires going each day to keep warm. Right now I'd still need a council permit to fire up all the branches I collected and dumped into the huge burn pile in the paddock during the summer holidays (as exhibited in the photo above).

As you know, I love autumn, I really do. So I'm hoping this post will spur nature into action and I can dig out some singlets, prepare the thermals, attack the burn pile, and marvel at the maple tree putting on it's autumnal coat. 

Until then, sigh, I'll luxuriate in John Keat's Ode To Autumn and wait.



Love and peace - Wozza

Yeah, tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun (The Beatles)

We're in the late summer/ early autumn vibe on Red Phoenix Farm.

I love this time of the year. Autumn is like a boss!

That means the grass is about to need mowing again, the shadows are lengthening, the winter wood supply needs addressing, and the trees are looking lush with the recent rain but getting ready for the change of seasons.

This time of the year also signals that school's back in session.

My summer routine - 8 am lazy start/outside physical work/late nights, has been replaced by school mode - 5 am alarm/brain work/cream crackered by 9pm.

Like the start of a new football season, the start of the year is exciting every time. Students are super keen to embrace a different circumstance, and it's the same with teachers. We're keen to embrace the new signings - bring them into the team culture; get out onto the practice field and get ready for game day.

Speaking of football: pity about the Superbowl result. I felt sorry for Pete Carroll and the Seahawks but I felt worse for the smug New England Patriots. Nothing like a success to prefigure a giant fall.

The Seahawks will be better for the loss (they are already the bookies favourites to win it all next year), the Patriots will always be smug.

As for my other teams: Arsenal are in their usual January situation - poised ready to break into the top four (I'm trying hard to ignore the loss on the weekend to the old enemy),the F.A. Cup is still a target, and they are about to get knocked out of the Champions League play offs; Rochdale are doing superbly - just out of the play off teams which is perfect. I wouldn't want to see them in the Championship - they would change - and not for the better; and Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are doing well in the NBA.


Love and peace - Wozza

There's a mockingbird singing songs in the trees, singing just for me (Barclay James Harvest)

I've just finished 7 days of relief teaching at Woodford House and I've loved it.

I'm in my element in the classroom. I'm not sure exactly what that phrase/cliche means.

Let me put it this way - I got home from school last Tuesday, it's a 30 minute drive, so it was about 6pm by the time I grabbed a drink and headed out onto the deck at home - slight autumnal features - liquid blue sky about to go down in a fiery red sunset; slight breeze moving the few yellowing leaves off the trees, and I remember wondering 'when was the last time I was this happy?'

The thought/feeling kinda blind sided me and I felt self indulgent and great at the same time. It was a fleeting moment - those kinds of feelings tend to be like a movement in your peripheral vision. When you try to deliberately isolate it, it's no longer there.

Autumn often puts me in that kind of mood and the day of teaching had left me tired and fulfilled.

People at school have been asking me if I have any regrets. No. I tell them.

I don't.

Love and peace - Wozza