Time is Getting Short

The sun is rising later and setting sooner all the time now. The cat comes and wonders at me what's going on when it's dark and I have not yet put him to bed.

One of these days we will have to fire up the wood stove again. We notice that the masonry beneath it and on the hearth has cracked. We may have put too much soapstone on the top last year, trying to capture the heat in the living room a little longer.

The garden looks wistful. Of course it is the time of year when the white rose bush puts out its third crop of blooms-- they grow on the tips of stems that grew long and rangy when I pruned it back a couple of months ago. We have seen roses on that bush at Christmas time! It's an amazing thing -- old, and so productive. The base of the plant is like a bonsai-- tortured looking and mis-shapen. Some sort of canker has tried to kill it in the past, but it just keeps living on and flourishing. Amazing.

Fall is a good time. It's really like a beginning, in many ways. You get out different clothing and linens and fold up the bathing suit. You find pockets of dust "bops" where you have not been for a long time. You clean up as you go. It feels good to see a change inside as well as outside.

The chipper duty is a pleasure in this season. And the little woodchip path is growing slowly as the piles of brush are receding. I can see that the forest floor is going to be lovely and calm where we have cleared it a little. There's a tree out there in the woods -- just a simple narrow Juniper like tree with very prickley needles and only about ten feet tall. Very pointy. I have let it be known that I would like a set of solar Christmas lights to put on that tree. I think it would be magical to have a little tree with lights appear out in the woods. Neighbors would be able to see it out their back windows. Wouldn't the children love it? (This child would.)

Right now it's getting light outside and another day will begin with us struggling with our uprooted computer files and the current project. Coordinating with "offices" next to each other for this project, instead of in different rooms. Setting some conventions for working -- how to say in a nice way that you shouldn't be interrupted just now. Maybe a little "IN CONFERENCE" sign to put up?

Tomatoes are not coming in droves as they did last summer, so I will not have to frustrate myself about much boiling and freezing, etc. I will miss the yummy stuff we had so much of last year in the freezer: juice, stewed tomatoes, puree, soups. It's all right though-- I have plenty to do. Maybe this will be the year for typing and not so much cooking?

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