One degree above freezing at sunrise. A breeze reshuffles the walnut leaves on the porch. I find small patches of frost up by the barn.
Cold, clear, and quiet. The wind has almost died. Through yellow leaves, just a bit more sky.
Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.
Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on.
How can it be so yellow out and yet so cold? But the winter birds sound happy: chickadees, nuthatches, a red-bellied woodpecker.
Light rain seasoning the breeze. A squirrel perched on a swaying limb chisels open a walnut—that haunted-house sound.
A mid-morning break in the rain. The sun almost comes out. From up in the woods, the shrill panic of a squirrel just missed by a hawk.
Overcast and cold. A furious back-and-forth of chainsaws from the powerline, where a crew works to refresh the century-old clearcut.
Breezy, cold and clear. Perfect weather for my favorite autumn sport, watching leaves fall: those that tumble, those that plummet, those that twirl.
Overcast, windy and cold at dawn. Soft thuds as the black walnut tree releases its ordnance onto the road.
Rising late to find the sun already in the trees and the air redolent of autumn. Silhouettes of birds pass as quietly as thoughts through the canopy.
In the half-dark of dawn, something runs across the porch toward my feet—I scream and jump. The rabbit too appears to be discombobulated.
Showers give way to tentative sunlight by late morning. It’s quiet. A lone blue jay calls.
A couple of cold nights and the yellow has spread like a contagion through the birches. A squirrel hangs down among the green walnuts.