What the small road tells us

Already the camp road is covered with needles and leaves. There are pine needles and yellow leaves from birches and the early maples. Near the water, the maples are orange and bright red.

It was a great season at the camp, four months of that second cup of coffee on the front porch, brought indoors by the cool of early fall. We had lots of time to ourselves and big gatherings in celebration of milestone birthdays.

The heron, great big improbable bird, greeted us in the spring, went away, and bid us farewell in the fall. An eagle surveyed the cove.

We worked, real for-pay work, but we could take a swim when it was hot. It was a full summer. We took one weekend off and acted as if we were vacationers in town, doing touristy things and toured the lake by kayak and canoe.

A friend used to remind me that biblical storytellers would say that an event came to pass, not that it came to stay.  A few years ago, some of you might remember, we started to live at the camp. The death of my wife's father and chronic illness of her mother flipped those plans onto another path. With the resilient support of her family and caretakers, Sandra's mother is doing pretty well.

We have a few ideas for next year, but we're not through with our ideas for this year yet. I have a good array of work ahead. I have friends I've not seen recently; it's easy to let people get away.

We have clusters of birthdays, holidays, and birthdays again. Laid out on a calendar, it looks crowded, but each one is special and worthy. Each birthday forces a hard question: how well do we know what's important to the person having the birthday? With little kids, it's easy because they'll tell you directly. As people grow, however, they might not even know themselves and so we have to try to help.

We worked hard to put things out of reach of mice and squirrels who will come in from the cold. We brought home the obviously edible stuff and packed everything made of cloth or paper in bins. The acorn crop was a bit better than average, so we can look forward to a cold winter.

My father said each fall the wet leaves are slipperier than snow. We drive carefully on the road covered with needles and leaves.

Dept. of Superheroes

While getting ready for the school bus yesterday, Miss Cassie mentioned that a kid at school got a bit confused one day and put his jacket on, over his backpack. The kids called him Jacket-Over-Backpack Man.

Sleep easily, suburbanites. Jacket-Over-Backpack Man has your, um, back.

We can be grateful that we don't have to rely on Arm Fall Off Boy.

In which a stick becomes a root

Sandra has been in California for a few days, celebrating her friend-since-childhood Janet's birthday. She returns this evening.

On Saturday, I took care of my errands early with a trip to the dump and then the grocery store. I settled in for a couple of days of being alone.

The productivity folks suggest that you add a time estimate to the items on your to-do list. That way, it's easy to pick off short tasks and feel productive, even if you're a bit unfocused. My list was a mix of big and little things - paperwork for a couple of nonprofits, cut down a small tree that is growing too close to the utility pole, pay the bills, split firewood, and on like that.

Most of the things I was able to dispatch with ease. The firewood is like that. Some of the wood has been lying on the ground for a couple of years. (I thought I would be getting to it that summer, but those plans were overcome by other events.) Surprisingly, the bark protected most of the wood, leaving it damp but still solid. It split easily. In 20 minutes, I had enough for a day's burning.

Other chores went walkabout. I had some forms that were worth about 15 minutes. They took two hours and are still not done. They are state forms. Something happens to arithmetic when it enters that world. Numbers that should add up nicely produce random results.

It's easy to get discouraged and weary when you spent a long time on a simple task. You can walk away and do something else, which I did plenty of times. At day's end, though, in spite of many tasks crossed off the list, that remaining undone lump stands proud and defiant.

While walking around the yard, I bent down to pick up a stick. It was a root. I tugged on it, tearing up the ground for a couple of feet. The first set of clippers that I found was dull and couldn't cut the sinew. The next set was sharp enough. I cut it cleanly, repacked the tear in the ground, and went about my day. The root will grown back next year.