About the only time of year I like driving down our driveway is the few weeks in the fall when the Eastern White Pines shed their old needles and carpet it in gold. The rest of the year, the route is a gravel cart path at the mercy of the rain, which regularly pirates portions of it into the creek. It is a hardscrabble road with many scars and a chip on every shoulder, uninviting to visitors. But this time of year, it swaps frog for prince and becomes an enchanted passage into the forest.
We took such passage, walking out and back this morning, Huckleberry racing ahead, as always. It was all golden light – morning sun, yellow leaves and soft golden needles underfoot. As fond as I am of green woods, I could be happy with yellow, which must occur someplace in the world. Maybe you know. Consider the effect in the morning or evening light. Nothing but bright amber hillsides, as they appear now in substantial amounts. Wouldn’t that work to brighten most people’s days? Why not yellow leaves all the time?
We sat after our walk in the wine barrel chairs, so-called, because they are made of cast-off wine barrels. We discovered these marvels on a trip to Napa during our years as innkeepers, spending a torturous week visiting four to five wineries a day in pursuit of knowledge – something of a forced march and not how to do it. But we came away with these very fine chairs, roomy and comfortable, perhaps 50 to 60 pounds each, made of curved barrel slats, with adorable notches at the ends of the arms to cozy your wine glass (stem martini glasses work equally well). Outdoor furniture that is the apotheosis of form and function.
The truth is, we don’t sit in them much. Early in the season, it’s the black flies. Then, other gnarly biting insects. The chairs are positioned on a small rise overlooking the field and vegetable garden, with a distant view of the pond. Quite nice in that respect, though too hot in the blazing sun through July, which is when we are most inclined to be down by the water. The competition for our spare time over the summer is fierce. So it is now when the wine chairs have their strongest claim on us. The sun only skirts the treetops on its trip across the sky, and the only airborne insects of note are dragonflies, which I could watch for hours.
We sat in the chairs after our walk and watched billows of mist come off the side of the (sadly) large dead oak in the field as the heat of the rising sun evaporated the moisture in the bark from the previous day’s rain. The same was happening to other trees fortunate enough to be in the way of the sun’s early morning rays. A veritable woodland bathhouse, made more true by the mist coming off the surface of the pond as the cold morning air collided with the warmer water.
But the mist was mostly evidence of nature shifting down from the growing season to winter dormancy, breathing through its mouth in the colder air at the end of a long race. My wife breathed quietly in the chair next to me. She does not look forward to winter. The mist is beautiful, but a warning. Cold cometh. Outdoor chair time is waning. We will be back on our feet soon to rake into piles the yellow leaves left behind and carry them away.
Then, good night, sweet prince. Good night.
Jarvis Coffin writes fiction and essays on rural life. He is a retired media and advertising sales executive and former chef/owner, with his wife, of New Hampshire’s oldest inn, the Hancock Inn. Reach him at huntspond@icloud.com, and keep up with all his musings at jarviscoffin.com.