Blazing Maples and Supermoons

For several weeks now, I’ve watched three red maples, tall and majestic, blaze their way through October into November.

The trio is quite the sight from my kitchen window while I cook, wash dishes, or read in the coziest chair in the entire world.

Yes, I’ve mentioned this chicken chair to you before, so named for the red chicken print on yellow upholstery, chosen for the chair’s second facelift.

That’s when my late husband and I graduated our first piece of new furniture from our living room to the kitchen corner beside the sliding door wall.

The chair companions well the tobacco cabinet I later found in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, while visiting my sister Patty. Indeed, the cabinet is made of slats harvested from a barn somewhere in America’s tobacco country.

Without fail, every guest who follows me into my kitchen aims for the chicken chair covered with a colorful patchwork cloth. This treasure, never quilted, caught my eye while I browsed the Armada Flea Market years ago.

The cloth protects the chair’s upholstery from sunlight, food and beverage spills, and cat hair. For guests and my cats Cuddles and Mitty also find the chicken chair a cozy place.

The cats snooze for hours, or watch squirrels scamper up and down trees with walnuts in their jaws. By the way, the squirrels find their walnuts elsewhere to bury them here.

As my cats, squirrels know no boundaries.

Morning, noon, or night, the chicken chair remains our favorite observation deck: Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter.

Truly, this fall, the giant trunks and limbs of the sturdy red maples yielded the most spectacular show, waving their branches in obedience to the wind.

And of all glorious sights, the light of the full moon November 5, one of a series of supermoons in 2025, caught my eye from an upstairs window.

There below, the light of the moon cast long shadows of the red maple trunks and triangular foliage of the branches upon the rolling landscape pointing eastward.

At first sight, the light appeared as snow, a breathtaking optical illusion. This most beautiful and remarkable planet called Earth surprised me again with another astronomical trick termed “perigee”.

I lingered in the light of the window, spied the elongated shadows of the smaller redbud trees in the valley. Meanwhile, the melody of Cat Stephen’s “Moon Shadows” played in my mind.

Dear Reader, in the thirty-seven years I’ve dwelled in this little house, I’d never seen this lunar phenomenon. And although my attempt to spy the supermoon failed, I’m not the least disappointed.

By the power and loving kindness of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, I have now glimpsed the glorious light of a Supermoon, a perigee, upon the small portion of the planet He granted my husband and me.

And I am comforted. For December 5 a new moon will coincide with the Moon’s closest approach to Earth. I plan to bundle up to spy this Supermoon.

Contact Iris at irisfarmletters@gmail.com