Stick Season Has Arrived in East Texas

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And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

— Simon and Garfunkel

The shortest day and the longest night approach as the winter solstice arrives Saturday. It is what Noah Kahan, a young energetic singer/songwriter from my beloved New England, calls “the season of the sticks.” That’s a Vermont name for the time before official winter. It comes just after all the foliage has fallen, leaving the bare limbs hanging in the air like abstract sculptures created by amateur art students.

Here in East Texas, stick season arrived just a few days ago. Leaves skitter along the driveway, fill the backyard. The hardwood trees are nearly bare. Here on Three Geese Farm, leaves get mulched, not raked, or they are ignored and allowed to turn into compost. There is plenty of work to do without bothering to rake leaves.

Speaking of compost, as we enter our fourth year on this hobby farm adventure, we have finally figured out how to be somewhat more environmentally conscious. It pained us upon moving here outside the city that we could not recycle, though the city’s recycling program is in shambles, which alleviated our guilt. Recently, Sam’s announced it accepts plastic bottles and cans, which comprise a large amount of our waste, since we are both addicted to Maison Perrier, which comes in 16-ounce bottles, and an occasional beer, though most days we savor a tasty non-alcoholic IPA. Times change.

We also plan to begin composting in earnest in the New Year. We have contracted with a carpenter friend to begin building a chicken coop just after New Year’s, which will be able to handle about a half-dozen hens. That means, besides eggs, plenty of chicken poop along with food scraps to turn into compost. If fortune smiles, we will have a surfeit of eggs and plenty of compost to grow vegetables.

Winter solstice also means a three-week break from toiling away at LeTourneau library — toiling being a bit of an exaggeration. It is hard to fathom I am completing seven years working part-time as a reference librarian/archivist there, a post-retirement job I am blessed to have. But I enjoy having a break in order to concentrate on other long-delayed projects here on the farm.

Since it’s raining a lot lately, I have largely been ensconced on this break in our shop, which serves several purposes. It houses stuff we probably ought to get rid of, plus the tractor and zero-turn mower, our small gym, and my absurdly extensive collection of woodworking tools. And a large stack of beautiful but as-yet-unplaned black walnut lumber, which I imagine staring at me balefully, wondering why it has been left untouched for more than 20 years.

I am making a small dent in that untouched lumber, awakening power tools that have not been used in years: a mortiser, a table-top sander/grinder, a heavy-duty jointer-planer, etc. Using any of these tools requires cleaning, tuning them up, watching YouTube videos to recall how to replace worn sanding belts, blades and more. Thank goodness for YouTube and the stack of owner’s manuals I have kept since buying all this stuff when I was a far-younger man.

I built a small wooden box to warm up my skills, something I have been meaning to do for a couple of years. It houses the ashes of our first two pups since My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I became a couple in 2008. Rosie came first, in 2010, a rescue dog of uncertain lineage, likely part Havanese, part Yorkie. Next came Sam in 2012, found lying up the hill from our house by my BMC when we lived in town. He was almost certainly a poodle-cocker spaniel mix. Both dogs lived full lives and brought us great joy. Sam died first in February 2021, Rosie a year later.

I work with the shop doors wide open no matter the temperature, ear buds in place, bundled up if necessary. That way, when I take a break from making sawdust, I can look out at Pancho’s Pond, watch the last few leaves tumble across the ground, the red-winged blackbirds taking off in droves.

The shop is not a bad place to hang out during stick season.

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