Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 93)

It’s Autumn on Bittersweet

After every strong gust of wind walnuts thud to the ground. We have over twenty black walnut trees growing in a gentle, green swale that runs across the middle of our acres northwest to southeast. Black walnut leaves are bright yellow. They have been letting go and blowing down for a month, a continual reminder of the arrival of fall. Last week the maples began to show their color up in their tops and now the lawn is speckled with bright yellow color against the green when I look down from my loft.

Last week we visited an orchard. Lois made apple butter. I have a cup of coffee before me and I enjoyed two pieces of whole wheat toast this morning smeared with real butter and buried in home-made apple butter.

An electrician friend (you want an electrician friend) has been dropping over after work to beef up the electric service to the loft of the carriage house where I am writing right now. Now I can run lights, heat, air-conditioning and the electronic tools I like to use for my writing and I can stay cool in the hot months and warm in the cold months year-round. Kyle built the wall to enclose my writing space (with some encouragement from my son-in-law Dale). I installed the insulation and the faux ship lap on the knee walls and end walls. I need a little work on the metal roof and when that is finished I will insulate and finish the ceiling. My goal is to have that done by the end of November when the cold will start to get noticeable.

I came up to work a little on Friday night and had a surprise visit from a bat. He was a confused and frightened little critter so I opened things up and turned off the light and left him alone so he could get his bearings and find his way out to resume his every-evening duties of keeping the insect population in hand. In the morning he was gone. We welcome bats on Bittersweet but not in the loft. I love to watch their erratic flight over the north meadow on a summer night at dusk.

Every day I am in awe of God’s creation. I have never understood how a person can observe the wonders of nature and deny the existence of a Creator.

One autumn afternoon the school bus stopped on State Route 47 in a little village of Logansville, Ohio. I got off the bus with my sister and some friends. Logansville was a wide spot in the road with a church, Helen’s General Store, and Mr. Knight’s Sinclair, the Christian Church and the parsonage.

That afternoon my mother was leading the Good News Club that met every Tuesday evening. She taught us Revelation 4:11 and it has been in my heart ever since:

““Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”” (Revelation 4:11, ESV)

We memorized it in the King James… “… for your pleasure we are and were created…”

Every day I thank God that my mother and dad helped me understand the world around me in a secure, consistent Christian home with an open Bible and simple, sincere faith.

Every thing from the leaves scattered on the grass, the busy squirrels gathering walnuts for the coming winter, the patter of the rain on the roof, the angular flight of the bats, the trembling aspens in the evening sun, the fields of golden corn ready for harvest, the call of the owl in the night woods, the moonrise and sunset are all created by God who is worthy to receive glory and honor and power.

And I am a part of God’s creation. And I am subject to his sovereign purposes. And I have on the desk before me His infallible, inerrant, inspired word to guide my life.

Those are comforting thoughts with winter coming on.

Bittersweet Farm
September 28, 2020