quiet autumn

 A handful of warm days.  It is strange to walk out the door and feel hot.  The cluster flies have resurrected and swarm the sunny side of the house.  While we’ve also had more rain and the ground is inconsistent at best, the air is like tinder next to a sulpfherous match.    Even though the days are slowly becoming shorter, Time seems to be a bit longer.  There is still much to do, but there is not the same pressing need of things growing.  The plants themselves are drowsy if not altogether sleeping now—yet there are still  a few tenacious leaves hanging on trees and those roses still bloom, though their colors are more tea-stained, browned at the edges.  Only in the green house do the small starts of lettuces and bitter greens , the carrots and herbs need to be anchored in their new beds with tilled up soil and black compost.  This will be the winter harvest for the restaurant.

It is quiet in the late afternoon sun slanting through bare maple, bare birch.  It is somehow relaxing to hear only the small finches talk, the rushing water in the brook, the sound of the hoe hitting the roots of the unwanted campion in the vineyard, the burble of voices on the radio in the green house reciting the day’s news full of sensational stories and tragedies which I am frankly glad that I unable to hear clearly.  Much better to get mud on the hands and knees , and think of the hopeful, hibernating plants and the slow inspiration of soil. 

--Deirdre