someone’s gotta love them…

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
Elie Wiesel

(an heirloom pumpkin / Julie Cook / 2016)

So to take my mind off of my life’s never-ending train wreck…
trying to delve out into something that I use to actually enjoy doing…
I thought I’d force myself to go do something that I once really looked forward to….

Since it is Fall, why not do something fallish…?

You know….
as in a change of season, a change of pace….??

And by the way, it is Fall right?

If it is actually Fall, and actually just a few days away until October….
why am I still wearing shorts, dripping sweat, while the thermometer reads 93?

Why are football games still hot as blazes as players fall out one by one due to
heat related ailments?
Why is it still so dry that my entire yard is now dead?
Why have I not wanted to even ponder the thought of “sweater weather”
let alone putting on something other than shorts,
a tank top and sandals…????

I did however spy the pumpkins arriving at the farmer’s market..
I use to get so excited when the pumpkins began arriving…
That meant Fall…
Cool nights
Crisp days
Warm drinks and the inviting colors of Fall….

I have also noticed that the grocery stores are filling their shelves
with caramel for the apples, Indian corn and all sorts of colorful pumpkins and gourds….

At least somebody is thinking Fall!!!!
It’s just that someone has forgotten to tell this unrelenting Summer that it’s time to GO!

So in the mindset of Fall and doing something that once brought happiness,
I decided I’d go get some pumpkins.
Because once upon a time, I use to like decorating for Fall…

However that whole decorating thing ain’t happening this year…
as I am just not in the mood….
Decorating requires a good bit of movement and time…
two things that are in short supply at the moment.

But pumpkins, I could muster getting a couple of pumpkins…

I found them…
I saw them…
I loved them…
I had to have them…
I bought them…

And in a word, they are…
unique…

Happily I brought them home and lined them up and down the backsteps
and out by the edge of the garage.
All festive like.
I added a couple of those cinnamon scented straw brooms by the back door
and was actually quite pleased that I had made the effort and had succeeded at said effort.

That was until my husband came home wanting to know why I’d bought the ugliest pumpkins
I could obviously find…..
…That surely they can’t really be real pumpkins…
Because who’s ever seen a green lumpy pumpkin or one that looks like it has peanut tumors….??

So much for decorating for Fall…..

He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;
Daniel 2:21

Indian Corn, a kernel by any other name should be so colorful. . .

“Colors burst in wild explosions
Fiery, flaming shades of fall
All in accord with my pounding heart
Is not this a true autumn day?
Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize.
The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit.
Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
George Eliot

(Indian corn / Julie Cook / 2014)

Images of Indian or Calico Corn, otherwise known as Flint Corn.
Did you know that Flint corn is one of the original species of corn grown by most tribes of North American Native Indians? The yellow and white sweet corns, that ubiquitous staple found at most back yard BBQs, that humble buttery and salty corn on the cob, was developed many years later, long after corn was introduced to the first European settlers.

Indian corn is also known as Flint corn because of its very hard exterior–as in, it is as hard as flint. This variety of corn consists of less water molecules and less starch then what is known as “sweet” corn, so when it dries, its kernels remain uniformed and compact unlike more traditional corns whose kernels pull away from one another leaving the familiar “dent” around the kernels— therefore earning the more familiar yellow corn the name of “Dent” corn. Because Indian corn does dry compact, leaving the cob appearing full, it is a wonderful little byproduct of Nature suitable for Fall decorating.

And because Flint corn contains less water, it is much less prone to freezing—which in turn allows for the corn to be harvested much later, well into the late months of Fall. It was one of the few, if not the only, crop recorded in Vermont to have survived the harsh harvest season of 1816 when Vermont and her sister New England states recorded the phenomenon known as “the year without Summer.”

The year of 1816 was recorded globally as one of the coldest and harshest on record. Many people were left to starve due to the lack of harvestable produce as snows and frosts were recorded late into the Summer months. Many people in North America and Northern Europe froze to death during the long brutal winter. Climatologist associated the never ending winter with the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mt Tambora in Indonesia. The thick suffocating and wide spreading ash cloud literally dimmed the warming effects of the sun on a massive and global scale— which in turn caused a catastrophic food shortage. Indian corn was one of the few sustainable crops to survive.

Flint corn is most often ground into meal for polenta, posole, or even for animal fodder. It is the preferred corn for the making of hominy and is a popular corn used for “popping” corn—