Ah, autumn!

 October 1, 2025

There are just so many things I enjoy about autumn!

Despite the fact that the arrival of autumn leaves means winter is on its way, I love the colours. There are times, especially if I’m facing east with a west hanging sun behind me, that those trees simply shimmer.

I’ve only recently seen the first trees in our neck of the world beginning to show their fall colours. My daughter thought that the calendar was not as it used to be. She said that these days, at least with regard to the seasons, the calendar was at least two weeks behind.

Her first example was when I pointed out that a few of the trees we passed which had some yellow and red leaves mixed in with the green they were the first I’d seen. She told me her theory and pointed out that we were just now seeing those colours, and it was already the end of September.

The second example came when she recalled her school days. Local farm kids would be excused from high school for the first two weeks of September, because it was harvesting time.

There were a lot of ginseng and tobacco farms in this area, market-garden ones as well, and they were, almost all of them private family endeavors. This of course required an “all hands on deck” approach. As we were driving about last Sunday, we passed farms that were just now getting to the business of harvesting their crops.

This past weekend was one for the record books, at least it seemed so for me. On Saturday, daughter and I went to St. Jacob’s Farm Market, a first for just the two of us. We’ve tried to go once a year, in September, but somehow missed last year. David usually comes too, but his scooter was on the fritz, so he stayed home.

We had a list as we left the house just before eight-thirty in the morning. Despite a good beginning to our own gardening season, the green beans faltered. So top of the list was a basket of those, to freeze for the months ahead. On the fruit side of things, we wanted some peaches—I like to make a pie or two with fresh local fruit. And we wanted to make a good amount of apple sauce. I though a half bushel of apples should do it.

David wanted me to get so pears so I could do with those what I was planning to do with the apples. I agreed and brought home a basket of those.

They have a good selection of meats there—some from herds raised without antibiotics and growth hormones. We purchased three enormous “smoked pork chops”. They would be our supper that night.

Jennifer wanted some good black forest bacon, but the only bacon she saw was smoked, so we passed. We did, however, bring back two pounds of mixed deli cold-cuts—much to David’s delight.

Of course we bought some home-made jam, some local maple syrup, and the one thing we never leave that place without—freshly made-before-our-eyes apple fritters.  Jenny and I stopped for breakfast upon leaving the market and were home before one p.m.

While she napped, I set about making a potato salad to go with the chops we were having for supper.

I did worry some, once I got home, that I might not be able to process everything in a timely fashion. But I managed, over the next couple of days, to do just that. And that was even with doing our regular grocery shopping on Sunday.

I believe with all my heart that my heightened energy level from Saturday to Tuesday inclusive was divinely inspired—thank you, Lord. Only the apples remain to be “sauced” but they do keep well and are scheduled for processing this coming weekend.

And now, if you’ll all excuse me, I think I am taking the rest of this day, Wednesday, off.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Keep trying...

 September 24, 2025

The first supper that I ever made in my life was bacon and eggs. Yes, “breakfast for supper” was a popular option at our house when I was a child and has continued to be so forever after. And while bacon was an acceptable supper option back in the day, it was only used for breakfast for very special occasions. For breakfast, if one was allowed to make an egg and some meat for that meal back then, it was eggs and bologna.

The secret to using bologna as a fried breakfast meat was that since the meat was round, one needed 4 small slices every quarter-circle, so that when it was fried it would stay flat.

I was 10 when I attempted cooking my first breakfast-for-supper supper, bacon and eggs—and I cooked the eggs first!

Boy, were those eggs chewy, and did I feel like a failure by the time my mother got through giving me her honest opinion of my efforts. But that chewing out (pardon the pun) didn’t defeat me. It made me get better at cooking that meal, until I was the only one of the four of us living in that old house on the Brock Road (except for Mother herself) considered to be an adequate bacon chef.

In time, she would even brag to my uncle and aunt (her brother and sister-in-law) about how melt-in-the-mouth crispy my bacon was. And it was, every time.

I have always loved cooking. Like my mother before me, I discovered a talent for looking at the selection of raw materials (food) available and putting a meal together. David has always enjoyed the meals I made us. Next to writing, cooking has been my greatest talent.

Don’t ask me to knit something—though I have in the past, provided it was something truly basic like a scarf or a blanket. And don’t ask me to crochet, because I really have never had any success there. Graphic arts? A wonderful talent to have, though never one of mine.

But I can cook. Not fancy fare but good, comfort food, and my prime rib roast has reduced the members of my family to drooling fans.

That established, it takes a lot more energy and focus these days for me to put a meal together than it did even just five years ago. And it may sound strange, but that’s something that I worry about. That somehow, I might get to the point that I won’t be able to turn out a proper meal. Oh, not so much physically. It’s the evolution of that unknown and immeasurable quality called talent—when it comes to cooking, yes, but writing as well.

Other than to keep pushing forward while accepting my slower rate of progress when it comes to the latter, there is only one thing I can think to do guard against losing my ability with the former.

I’m always looking for new recipes when online, with a view to selecting ones I’d like to try.

My family rarely dislikes anything I make, and they have their favorites, one of which is my meatloaf.

Making meatloaf for supper was a challenge when our daughter, shortly after moving in with us, became vegan. But I was able to make her a meatloaf using her “meatless” hamburger. She’s no longer vegan, so I’m back to my making only one meatloaf instead of two when it’s on the menu.

Recently, I saw a meat loaf recipe by Ina Garten, whom I’m sure many of you know of, and have likely followed online. The recipe was different in several ways from my own, and I told my family to get ready, because I was going to make it. For their part, while they couldn’t understand why I would want to try another kind of meatloaf, they agreed to welcome the new version.

I made it last Wednesday for supper, and I liked it! It was quite different from my own, but very good. I followed her recipe exactly and was met with success. More importantly, my husband and my daughter both liked it, although daughter thought she preferred my version of the classic comfort food.

Pleased with my success, I have my eyes open for my next “new” recipe. I don’t understand the science of it all, but I do know I use different parts of my brain for cooking than I do for writing and than I do for other manual household tasks. To my own mind, those two activities—cooking and writing—define me. Which means I’ll continue to keep practicing both for as long as I am able to do so.

If you would like Ms. Garten’s recipe, you can find it here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/meat-loaf-recipe-1921718

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Miracles....

 September 17, 2025

If ever there was a time for someone to ask me that once almost-hip question, “how’s it shakin’?” that time is now.

As I bear down to find my focus and compose these words to you, my friends, my house is “shakin’” a bit too much and a bit too well, thank you.

Yesterday, the temporary dirt road in front of my house had an enormous and deep hole in it. The work crew was laying the new water pipe, which is the entire reason behind this particular part of the town’s infrastructure project for 2025.

The first time I felt this kind of shaking was a few years ago, when they replaced the narrow road on the south side of our house. It’s a compactor machine, and it rolls slowly over the newly refilled holes in the road base, to pack that soil in good and tight.

Back then, the vibrations that traveled not only through the earth between the machine’s position and where I was sitting, but through my house as well, made my stomach feel nauseous. That isn’t the case this time. But I still don’t like the sensations. Worse, I do worry about the effect of the vibrations on the house itself.

Don’t believe in miracles? I surely do. My house is still standing. And I have faith that it will continue to stand. I truly do. But I wouldn’t say no—in fact would be very grateful for—whatever prayers y’all would like to send our way.

Speaking of miracles, we have an addition to our family. David and I have a beautiful new great-granddaughter, Sophia, born last Wednesday afternoon to our wonderful grandson and his wife, who became our beloved granddaughter a couple of years ago when they wed. We’re overjoyed for them, and hope to go visit, but only after the new family has time to enjoy each other first.

It’s mid-September and I think that after all the rain we had not so long ago, it’s odd that we appear to be in a bit of a drought right now. And thanks to our current mid-construction environment, the state of the weather, while it is great for the construction crew and their timetable, creates a minor problem for me.

Pre-construction, we had a garden hose connected and at the ready, and if I wanted to go outside and water our garden, well, that was doable for me. Go outside, bring the hose off it’s reel, go over to the garden, depress the button on the nozzle to turn on the hose and apply the water.

Well, to ensure we have water during this time of water-main replacement, the construction crew laid a temporary watermain. This main which is on top of the ground allows for a hose to run from it to each house. That hose is then connected to where our watering hose was connected. Where possible, the crew uses the homeowner’s own hose. They connected, they turned it on at the source, and we have water. It’s ingenious! If the water can run out of the house via that spigot for the hose, it can run it that way, too.

Ah, you see the issue. When I realized this was going to be the case, that our garden hose would be unavailable for watering the garden, I ordered and received a new garden hose. One of those flex hoses that apparently will contract and be easy to store. It can be connected to our kitchen tap and can be run out the window which is only a foot and a half from the back door. And once connected, and out the window, that hose may be used to water the garden which is also only a couple of feet from the door.

It needs but one person capable of doing the work of removing the nozzle end on the faucet, connecting and then running the hose out the window.

It pains me more than I can say that that person is not me.

Friends, I am sure you are thinking right about now, “Morgan it’s a good thing that you’re not an elderly woman living all alone, isn’t it?” I will never disagree with that sentiment. In fact, I give thanks every single day that I am not an elderly woman living all alone.

Now if only someone would be kind enough to do more than agree in theory with me that the tomatoes need to be watered and see to it.

Then, I would be even more grateful.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Attitude is everything...

 September 10, 2025

If there is one thing that I wish I’d truly known, understood, and taken to heart earlier in my life it is this: attitude is everything.

How we, as humans, react to the things that happen around us and to us is inexorably tied to how we fare, emotionally and spiritually on our life’s journey.

One of my favorite sayings is that “life is 5 per cent what happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it.” Friends, truer words were never penned. I say that in full awareness that they were not my words, first. They belong to that amazingly prolific writer, Anonymous.

Who among us can precisely judge the value of holding fast to gratitude, a positive outlook, and a great sense of humor? This is not to say that there will not be days when we’re sad, or grieving, when we’re in pain, or depressed. From time to time, we will experience all those emotions. I would even argue that you need to taste of the bitter fruits that life can hand us in order to truly appreciate the sweet.

Please, friends, notice that I used the word “taste”. I’m careful of the words I choose, because words are very powerful. Taste is a world away from gorge. Taste implies, at least to my mind, a subtle extension of the tongue, the gastronomic equivalent of sticking one’s toes in the water.

I have been a person who knew bitterness and my reality as a young married woman was really very harsh. I know what it is to be in want, and I know what it is to feel abandoned of all hope. It feels ugly inside. Ugly and dark and utterly scary and alone.

I am no longer that woman. And when I see others who are trudging through their lives, exuding the dark clouds that used to live deep inside my soul, I feel such sadness, and such ache for them. It doesn’t have to be that way. In every book I’ve written, and at the base of almost all of my essays, is the message that how one feels is a choice. How one reacts to the inevitable hard times, is a choice. And one is where one is as a direct result of all the choices one has made to that point in their life.

As I always have said, your choice basically is between saying “Good morning, God!” or “Good God, it’s morning!” It’s all up to you.

Of course, being transformed from one who is miserable and bitter to one who can embrace the good and receive the joy just waiting to be had isn’t something you can do alone. But it will come if you make the choice and ask for help. I can tell you that when I made that choice and asked for help, it was a holy and humbling experience. It took me a bit time to understand that the absence of darkness within me was real.

In 1776, Thomas Payne began his famous pamphlet series with the sentence: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”  That sentiment is one that seems to be in vogue once more. As we look back over the years between then and now, we understand that there have been many occasions when that sentiment has been felt.

There are times when it takes determination and not a little audacity to find the positive in life. But if you can, you will find, that the colors are brighter and the air is sweeter than you knew it could ever be. If you can hold onto the positive, and a good sense of humor, there will be peace within you, and you will find the ability to take the next breath, and then the next one after that.

No, not alone. Never alone. But it does start with a decision, and that decision is all yours.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

September...

September 3, 2025 

I’ve reached that point in my life where I close my eyes and take a deep breath every time I’m confronted with new technology. Okay, well, maybe I reached that point a few years ago. Truth to tell, the only time I did well with “new modern tech” was at one of my jobs (in the 1990’s) when my department manager said to me, "here's a computer. Tomorrow, I'm going to show you how to use it. Today, just play around with it and see what it and you can do."

I worked in payroll at the time, and my manager wasn't too happy with what our boss did, but it more or less worked out well in the end.

The first word program I ever used was Word Perfect, and while I don’t recall the details of it, I do remember that it was easy enough for me to navigate. I really liked the part about not having to retype an entire manuscript from beginning to end in order to produce a second draft. And the keying required less strength of finger compared to using a typewriter.

In this day and age, the boogey man for me, technology-wise, is AI. I have never gone to Chat-whatever the hell it is. Nor do I intend to. The first thing I do when I open a new word document is to close “Copilot”. I’m an author for goodness’ sake! My words must all be my own, or they are worthless. Hard line. Full stop.

I do however kind of like the application of AI in the search engines. I can ask a question, and I get a better result than I did before AI. As long as the AI applications are happy to shut the hell up and stay in the background unless I speak to them, I’ll be content.

Writing continues to be a slow process for me. A combination of the changes that getting older have brought to my mental as well as physical capabilities, and believe it or not, a second round of Carpal Tunnel on my right hand. I will eventually undergo surgery for this, but until then the funny sensations in my fingers impede my ability to type as quickly as I’m used to. I can’t necessarily feel when a finger is on two keys instead of one. But it is what it is, and I shall carry on.

September is upon us, and as I mentioned in my last essay, the last couple of weeks have been chilly ones, comparatively speaking. I keep reminding myself that sixty degrees Fahrenheit on a day in mid-February would be considered incredibly warm. However, the one good thing about September officially arriving this past Monday was that it was no longer August, and I could therefore, in good conscience, turn on the furnace for an hour in the morning.

I know it wasn’t my imagination that my husband cheered when I did so on September 1st.

These last two coolish weeks have slowed down the ripening of our tomatoes. The last couple of days, however, turned a bit warmer so I am hoping that those many green tomatoes on our plants have had the opportunity to grow some in size, before ripening. We’ve already had more tomatoes this year than last but are nowhere near the bounty of the summer of 2023.

I have a countdown happening in the background of my mind, ticking down the days until some of our favorite television shows return. One of our favorites returned mid-summer. We have really been enjoying Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, this season. Considering that it’s been a couple of years between season 2 and 3, once we watched the first episode, we were caught. I still feel cheated that a television season is only ten episodes instead of the fondly remembered twenty-plus. But that’s life for you.

I look forward to the new major-network fall television season so that I can fill up my viewing hours with entertaining programming instead of news. It’s getting bad out there, folks. I’m content being vaguely aware of events. I do not want to obsess. That’s life for you, too.

At least, it should be.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

It's your decision...

 August 27, 2025

As of today, there are four more days left in the month of August. I think this may be our new normal, sliding into what one would consider to be traditional late September temperatures for the last week of what used to be thought of as the hottest month of the year.

I’m not complaining, exactly. I can cope, especially first thing in the morning as I get out of bed and begin to shiver. I can run hot water into my coffee mug to take the chill off it before brewing that first cup. I can drape a blanket over my legs, and struggle into a sweater. I can even turn on my office’s “electric fireplace” to get the chill off the air. There most definitely was chill in the air first thing this morning.

However, it’s a solid line I draw against turning on the house’s furnace in August. And yes, when the idea crosses my mind that there is no way in hell that I am turning the furnace on in August, it is my mother’s voice I hear.

The last few days have featured rain, and that’s okay too. My arthritis will act up regardless, but the lawns and the gardens need rain. The crops in the fields need rain as this is the crucial build up-time to harvest. I’ve never been the sort of person who believed, or wished, that the weather should be just so to suit my individual needs or desires.

Chilly and damp? I have heating pad, blanket, topical balms and if need be strong medication to counteract the effects thereof.

This past weekend we attended a baby shower for our soon to be born fifth great-grandchild. The baby, a girl, is due mid-September. The event was held outdoors, at a beautiful, large, city-run park. Bathroom facilities were just across a small narrow road from the location of the party, which was held under and around a nice and spacious pavilion.

I don’t generally attend outdoor events, because, again, the arthritis. But I do when the event is one that I truly want to join. And I accept as fair enough the consequences of my decision to do so.

That has always been how I have managed the inconvenience of osteoarthritis. This condition has, of course, become progressively worse through the years. I began using a cane more than 30 years ago, to help me walk, and because there were times my ankles would threaten to give out.

These days, if I can’t walk it with my cane, I use my walker. If the walker won’t cut it, why, I have a three-wheeled motorized scooter at the ready. That scooter is sturdy enough to support me and small enough to fit inside most stores, shops and malls.

I don’t let my condition prevent me from doing what I truly want to do. If the next day I’m sore, well then, so be it.

Life is 5 percent what happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it. I won’t tell you I never break down and cry, because that would be a lie. I will tell you I do my best to do that in private. I’ve always advised in these essays that it’s ok, once in a while, to get on the pity pot. Just as long as you clean up, and then flush when you get off.

I don’t break rules, especially my own.

Getting older is no picnic, even if you do occasionally attend one. It’s not a journey for the weak of spirit. But it is a part of the lessons I believe we are meant to receive and hopefully master as we travel this path of life that we’re on.

The difference between learning to cope, and giving in to the negatives is this, and only this: when you learn to cope you find a peace and contentment within yourself. You’re happier, and if you hang on with both hands and your teeth to your sense of humor, you’re a joy to be around, too.

However, if you prefer to wallow in self-pity like a hog will wallow in the mud and manure of its own pigsty, you’ll find yourself miserable and for the most part, alone.

That decision, and the inherent consequences of it, dear reader, is yours and yours alone, to make.

 

Love,
Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Sweet memories

 August 20, 2025

The last few days have been much cooler than the blazing heat of just a few days before, and it’s been a bit rainy, as well. I’m glad to see the rain, as the grass has turned that parched shade of brown it gets this time of year but will now soon be green again. Of course, the rain is appreciated for gardens, and in our case for the tomatoes and the green beans. Yesterday, I had my second lettuce, tomato and sweet onion sandwich of the season. The first step, of course, is going out to the garden and choosing a tomato.  Ah, the sweet memories from my youth. Strolling out to the garden to pluck a ripe tomato for lunch was forever permissible and actively encouraged.

When I was a child, my mother always had a thriving veggie garden. One that was big enough to warrant paying the farmer down the road each year to come by with his tractor to first plow and then disc the empty patch. My garden memories are all from after my father’s death, when there were four of us in the “big house”, a four-bedroom story-and-a-half farmhouse on a country road. We had three-quarters of an acre, which even now I consider huge.

In those days, the vegetable garden wasn’t just trendy. It fed us. We grew some corn. Of all the veggies we grew the corn was perhaps the most whimsical. One couldn’t grow enough in a couple of rows in our garden to garner more than a few meals into the freezer. The corn was just for us to enjoy in the moment. I know my mother froze some, but she also supplemented what we grew with a few dozen ears from another farmer, farther down the same road so that there could be several side dishes of the veggie to grace our fall, winter and spring table. 

We grew carrots and radishes, green and yellow beans, and plenty of cucumbers. We had tomatoes, squash, potatoes, zucchini a few times, and sweet green peppers. We grew cabbage and Brussels Sprouts. But not cauliflower, as Mother said it was too fussy. We also had dill planted, so that in the fall, when it was time to harvest and process, we had all we needed, grown on our own land to make dill pickles.

All of us worked that garden, weeding, hoeing, and watering. Picking here and there to supplement our supper through the summer. When it was time for a full harvest, that time Mother would deem to be the day when it was clear that the colder weather was on its way? It was a matter of all hands on deck, to pluck everything or risk good food being spoiled by the frost.

My mother never could abide wasting food, and neither can I.

On “harvest weekend” it was my job as the youngest was to wash all that came out of the garden (except the cabbages). Not that we used chemicals because we didn’t. But just to have the veggies clean, and dried and ready to use. We had a set of laundry tubs that we would pull out of the house and into the back yard. One tub was filled with water from the garden hose.

My most vivid memory is of ice-cold water and red, painful hands. I was about ten at the time.

After the harvest, there was the freezing and the canning. Potatoes which had been washed and then dried in the autumn sun and fresh air would be gently stored in paper bags and put into what we called the cellarway. This was a small, darkish room that resembled a cellar in that the walls were made of huge stones cemented together. This room had a five-foot-two ceiling, and contained our freezer, our water pump, and our hot water heater. The back of the narrow room held wooden shelves that we used for storage—a pantry, if you will—of goods both bought and made. On the bottom shelf went our potatoes, where it was the darkest and the coolest.

My mother always made sweet green relish, chili sauce (not spicy like chili. Not sure where the name came from), dill pickles and sweet bread-and-butter style pickles, too. She tired her had a time or two at making sauerkraut, but she found that to be a long, drawn out and frankly too smelly an endeavour. And she would also always make jam, but for that confection, she turned to other area farms for their pick-your-own strawberries and blueberries.

I do recall she made crab apple jelly once, from our own two trees—trees we gifted her for Mother’s Day one year and that she had planted, one each in two round flower beds she dug in our front lawn.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the large rhubarb patch that thrived close to the garden. Each year we looked forward to that stewed rhubarb which, of course, we made in our large aluminum saucepan.

One always knew when the sweet green relish was being made. I recall the way our eyes would run a bit as mother added the “bouquet garni” to the huge pot that contained ground up cucumbers, onions, vinegar, and sugar. Her process was to bring the mixture to a slow simmer and keep it cooking for a few hours, and over the course of a couple of days, before declaring it ready to be put in jars and sealed.

I swear that smell even worked its way into the woodwork.

In my career as wife, mother, and chief procurement officer of all things edible, I tried my hand at all my mother had made, save the sauerkraut. My canning days are over now, but I did what I could while I could and in that, I have no regrets.

My oldest son is the one who took up the mantle of sowing and reaping. And he’s added to his repertoire by learning how to “smoke” meats as well.

Traditions may be adjusted and modified. But the thread of them connects us, generation to generation. It’s a kernel of who we were and what we did instilled into the hearts and minds of those who come next. A very basic and lovely form of immortality.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury