The sweetness of late autumn

This has been an excellent day all the way around—a nice change from some of the others we’ve had lately.  I could unreel it in any direction and enjoy it all over again.  It seems worth remembering each of its pleasures, because I suspect there is some other day lurking out there in the dim future when I will need help remembering blessings to count.  In no particular order:

• I took the Duo for a gallop in a meadow bordered with blackberry brambles and rabbit runs and the remains of an old apple orchard.  It was all bronzes and browns and pale straw shot with gold and red.  The Big Show is over, but there is great beauty in late autumn.

• Kenneth Edwards tramped around the meadow with us and told stories about the Civil War veterans and one-room school teachers and football players who used to live in the neighborhood.  I got to spend an hour happily wandering about in the nineteenth century.

• I got every bit of the laundry done.  This may be a trivial matter to you, but to me it made it a red letter day.

• The Romeyns had a Thanksgiving market over at Providence Farm.  I came home with delicious spinach—I swear it’s sweeter this time of year—and carrots and salad turnips and potatoes and onions and garlic and a bit of dill to go with the carrots and a bit of cilantro because it’s not worth keeping a kitchen at all if I can’t have cilantro.

• This little guy was at Providence Farm.  Every single person who walked in wanted to know if that li’l punkin was for sale.  Every one of us played with his little toes, and fell madly in love.

• We had baked whitefish and carrots with dill for supper.  Yes, all four of us had some.  We are all grateful.  That whitefish did not die in vain.

• I went to the Eastport Market for a long list of things I cannot eat but cannot do without: kibble, cat litter, red trash bags.  There was an excellent sale on the dog food, and I noticed that the butter was on sale, too, so I bought two pounds of that.  While I was standing in line I got to exchange Thanksgiving pleasantries with Angela and Ron and Dee Grammer.  Then I paid my bill and got a coupon worth a dime a gallon on my next gas purchase.

• On my way home I noticed a glow in the western sky and drove around by the bluff instead of through the woods.  I was rewarded with a smoky rose agate sunset.

• The Duo are worn out from galloping and investigating, and full of a good dinner besides.  It is utterly peaceful in the house.

• I haven’t finished Jerry Dennis’s Windward Shore yet, which means I get to read some more of it tonight.