At Autumn’s door step

A few days ago we started to notice leaves had begun to change color. First were the sumac leaves in red. Plus, there were hints of color in a large deciduous tree on the north side of county highway 36 ay the Sunrise river bridge.. Then, on Friday, we noticed color in a clump of maples as we were driving home from Taylors Falls. We’ve had color change this early in other years but it does go nicely with the cooler temperatures we’ve enjoyed for the past week or so.

even some local maples are beginning to turn

Photo by J. Harrington

Hummingbirds continue to chase one another away from the sugar water feeders. According to our traps, more mice are trying to move into the lower level and the garage. Although we see sandhill cranes in the fields from time to time, they’re in clusters of two, three or four. No signs yet of major flocks forming for migration.

A boule of sourdough just came out of the oven. The last loaf I baked had, to my taste, almost no flavor, so I reformulated the starter using about half whole wheat flour and the other half bread flour. I’ll know, shortly after this is posted, if the flavor has been enhanced or if more fiddling is called for. We’ll report in our next posting.

I have made some progress on one of the other writing projects I’m starting, and Sunday seems like a good day to post if I decide to shift to a weekly blog schedule. Blogger aappears to have made whatever adjustments were needed to allow me to again include images in these posts so we’ll just play it by ear.

Fall Song

by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures. 

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