Gopher Gulch: Making holiday presents

My friend Claire, who lives near Sacramento and swelters miserably in crowded commuter trains all summer, bursts into joyful song as leaves fall and autumn brings a nip to the air. She says the trains and their occupants smell much better in October than in August.

I’m a summer critter, and can be found pleading with the cottonwood tree to hang onto its leaves in early September. Arms wrapped as far around his trunk as I can reach, I feel each falling leaf as if it were a wound. I try to avoid the inevitable signs of autumn, like school starting and geese heading south.

But somehow, reaching the first of November makes a big difference. Denial behind me, I settle into winter as happy as if I had sense. I make soup, stuff squash, and replace the phony summer flowers in the front room with equally phony fall leaves. Just give me bright and shiny.

Ironically, while I hate to see leaves fall, I love naked limbs. My decor includes corkscrew willow, dry grasses, cones and feathers bestowed upon me by moulting hawks, gulls and corvids.

Among my favorite items for holiday gifts and decorating are cones. We have cones of umpteen varieties — pine, spruce, fir, even tiny redwood and alder cones. They’re easily available and free.

You could make someone a cone basket. Gather any size cones, paint them or leave them natural, arrange them with a small string of lights in a basket you’ll find at St. Vinny’s. A bow on top makes it a gift that says, “I was thinking about you.”

Give kids a box of assorted cones, paints, glitter, glue, ribbons, popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, then watch the fun. They can paint cones, glue ribbon-loop hangers on the top of them, and presto! Hanging ornaments.

Incidentally, before using cones, it’s a good idea to cook them. On a foil-covered cookie sheet, bake them at 250 for a couple hours. This opens them and gets rid of miscellaneous tiny critters, as well as making the house smell heavenly. The sap melts, then dries shiny.

Another cone trick entails wiring them together in a nice arrangement and adding a metal candleholder. You can find these in any craft department for a few cents. Stick a nice taper candle in the holder and you’ve got a centerpiece.

Claire says city people pay good money for the things we gather up in the yard to keep from hitting them with the lawnmower.