Being grateful...

 October 15, 2025

Now that we’ve entered the third week of October, it’s safe to say we are fully entrenched in autumn. The sights and sounds and scents of the season have changed little over my lifetime.

There’s the panorama of the changing leaves, and the scent of outdoor fires. On weekends, as folks work to prepare their property for the onslaught of winter, the sounds of lawnmowers, leaf blowers and woodchippers combine into a symphony of household industry.

It’s a lovely symphony, best enjoyed after enough time spent outside to pinken the cheeks from the autumn chill, and with one’s hands firmly wrapped around a mug of something warmly soothing.

I never quite cottoned to the pumpkin-spice-everything craze that has been prevalent over the last few years. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to pumpkins. I believe that pumpkin spice belongs only in pumpkin pie.

The traditions related to early October have shifted only superficially over the years. Here in Canada our Thanksgiving Day is the second Monday in October. We celebrated the feast this past Monday at our second daughter’s home, which we have been doing for the past few years. My, but she has an excellent and patient hand with her turkey! She does such an excellent job of it that I cannot recall the last time I roasted one in my own oven. The rest of the meal is a group effort, so that the load is not only on one person. What an amazing feast we had!

I grew up in a rural community about a half hour’s drive from where we live now. In fact, my home as a child which became David’s and my first house as a young married couple, was basically next-door to the quarry where my husband ended up working for thirty-nine years.

In that community, each Thanksgiving weekend saw the arrival of a local fall fair. And until we moved to the town where we live now, our family’s—both ours as children and then as parents—Thanksgiving tradition always included a visit to that fair. And on Thanksgiving Monday itself, no less. Yes, indeed, the race to stuff the bird and set it to roasting, before heading out for a few hours…. Thanksgiving Day was a very busy time indeed!

Then we moved to the community where we currently reside in the early 1990s. The annual county fair here is held in this very town and on the Labour Day weekend. After our first couple of years here, our younger two children were old enough to go to the fair on their own, which they did on “bracelet day”. That was a wonderful innovation where the kids could purchase a bracelet and enjoy the midway for several hours for one low price. David and I did enjoy those quiet times back then, right at the end of the busy, back-to-school rigamarole.

Despite the odd variations, the heart of all of our Thanksgiving traditions over the years has never changed, and that’s the gathering of family and friends. This year, as we formed our own little community around the dinner table, we each took a few moments to pronounce what we were thankful for. There were nine adults, two tweens and two children gathered for that wonderful meal. And while the gratitude lists differed in some details the one item that was constant was family and friends. We were grateful, each one of us, for the gathering of loved ones and the bounty before us.

In these challenging times in which we live, we’re all experiencing the sense that things are not stable around us. Things are changing and we humans don’t like that. But if we can be grateful for the basics—our loved ones, and our homes however humble they may be—then I think we’re well equipped to handle whatever comes our way.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

Surfer beware...

 October 8, 2025

I can’t recall which program I was watching on television a week or so ago, when I heard something that made me literally sit up and take notice.

Now, usually over the course of my week, I tend to take an hour or so in my living room each day about midday, to put my feet up and rest. Feet up because, having arthritis it serves me well to elevate my legs after having had them down for several hours. Rest, because despite the fact that I am indeed seventy-one, I can’t seem to fall asleep if I go to bed and try to have a structured afternoon nap.

However, if I put my television on and assume the position in my recliner, I have no trouble dozing off, here and there, for a few minutes at a time over the length of the program.

And it was at this point one day during the past week when, drifting in my chair, I heard these words: “social media sites have figured out there is one thing better than sex for click bait, and that is rage.”

For me, hearing that statement was an epiphanous moment.

I had noticed lately, as I scrolled each evening through YouTube a number of videos which are similar in composition to short stories. I realize these stories are works of fiction, and because I do, I don’t for one minute consider that they represent reality or real-life events. And sometimes if the scenario that the title presents hooks me, I’ll click on the videos, provided they’re not too long.

Friends, I will confess here and now that while I thought I knew what I was getting into, I was wrong. These weren’t just a way for an aspiring writer to become “published” (which was my first thought). These stories generally present a situation where injustice occurs; and in the course of the story, on the surface at least, justice is redeemed. A happy ending in a few short minutes, and the romance writer in me couldn’t resist that.

It did take me a few clicks, and a few reads to understand that perhaps the author of these “short stories” might have another purpose beyond creating a simple short story. I began to get a clue when I realized something. As appealing as a short story about injustice being redeemed might be, the method of that redemption read, just a little, like hate.

It took that statement that defined that notion of stirring up rage as click bait and realized it made the puzzle pieces of my emotions fall into place. One thing I had noticed was that while the story did represent an injustice redeemed, it also, mildly, invoked anger in me. And that was closer to the point of the whole exercise than any of my other impressions of the story.

These videos all had the same “moral”. The solutions to the injustices tended to have a very real sense of “how do you like them apples, asshole?” about them.

That pseudo-revenge answer to a wrong—at least in my belief—is not healthy. Not emotionally (in the long run), and not morally.

Oh yes, reading those stories can give you a moment of “feeling good”, especially if the injustice you read about did stir your ire; but the “feel good” is only a temporary fix, and when it wears off, you want more—because while the feel-good was fleeting, the “anger/rage” elements of the story lingered. In other words, you want a bigger and badder piece of revenge.

Soon, the anger one feels can turn to rage, and friends? Rage is a the very least as addictive as any narcotic or alcohol or other substance or experience you can name.

Rage, constantly fed, can lead to violence. Oh, no, they won’t actually urge you to commit violence yourself, not at first. But they will, over time, serve you more and more examples of others using violence to stomp those bastards into the dust, and man, does that ever feel good when they do!

Other than bringing an end to social media (one could almost term that an act of violence), the only solution to the problem presented by these algorithms that seem to be in service of folks whom we do not know, that I can think of. And that solution is discernment.

I’m usually very discerning in my “surfing” habits, but this caught me off guard. So let me tell you what I told myself: what I see such as these videos, and all the things that show up in my “feed”, are informed by my viewing habits. I must therefore be very careful, not only what I am watching, but what sites I am going to.

Whenever I see something that raises a flag, I first look to see who or what the provider/poster/contributor is. A little research will show you, soon enough, if you’re looking at a good actor, or some sort of automated bot. And here’s a clue: bots are woefully unskilled in grammar.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to google a copious number of laughing babies, funny memes, and baby goats.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

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