November Lives Up To Her Reputation

"November comes 

And November goes, 

With the last red berries 

And the first white snows.

With night coming early, 

And dawn coming late, 

And ice in the bucket 

And frost by the gate.

The fires burn 

And the kettles sing, 

And earth sinks to rest 

Until next spring."

- Elizabeth Coatsworth

How's it looking where you are? 

This Day In History - The Edmund Fitzgerald

Greetings!

A new feature at Jane's Jewels will be the occasional 'This Day In History'. Today's story takes place on Lake Superior, that huge, treacherous, yet oh so beautiful Great Lake. I lived in Thunder Bay for six years during my late teens/early twenties, and what I remember most about my time there was the wind, which never seemed to stop blowing.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that made headlines after sinking in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew. When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest boat on the Great Lakes, and remains the largest boat to have sunk there. Nicknamed the "Mighty Fitz", "Fitz", or "Big Fitz", the ship suffered a series of mishaps during her launch: it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle used to christen her and she collided with a pier when she entered the water. (Wiki)

Gordon Lightfoot immortalized this tragedy in his haunting 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. This song quite often comes to mind when I hear or see the word November; in fact that's how I ended up profiling this story. 

I love Lightfoot almost as much as I do Neil Young (and that's saying a lot :)


Have a great day! 

It's November!

Greetings! I trust you survived last night's festivities. 

It was an exceptionally warm Halloween here, but an exceptionally quiet one as well.

I don't know where all our goblins were...

"No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds -
November!"

Haha! What can be said about November - no matter how much we try to put a positive spin on it, the above poem perfectly sums it up. The beauty that was Autumn has past, the trees are laid bare and the geese are wisely making their way to warmer climes. If I had wings I'd join them! Still, I refuse to allow this time of the year to get me down, 'This too shall pass' is my faithful adage. 

I turned the page on my Inuit calendar today.

It's a lithograph by Pitaloosie Saila entitled The Red Mitts.

What are your thoughts about this time of year?

Do you have a special saying that you use to motivate or cheer yourself?

This too shall pass is something my mother often said to me in encouragement while growing up.