10.25.16

At 5:00 pm, everyday, the kitties go down to the dock and wait for me to come down for cocktails.  Although they are fattening up fast for winter, they seem to be oblivious that we are leaving those days behind us, for a long time.  Their invitation is hard to resist, so if it’s not raining, I put on my parka and sit on the bench with a cold beer, a cat on either side, to keep me warm.  There’s time to watch the sun go down before I go up to the house to make dinner.  When I get into bed at night, often this is the moment in my day which soothes me to sleep.

There are so many lovely moments in these final days of October.  I walked around the village yesterday afternoon and photographed a yellow rose still in bloom, and red and gold vines hugging a big maple tree.  A black cat, with a white face, posed next to a jack o’ lantern on a porch stoop.  Two little kids with rosy red cheeks rode their bikes through every pile of leaves they could find, their jackets flung open–I know just what they smelled like when someone hugged them as they came home.

We finally got all the boats into the boathouse.  The wicker chairs have been stored away and wool blankets are snuggled into the seats of two chairs left on the porch for the kitties.  With only a handful of leaves left on the big Aspen tree, Don blew off the yard yesterday and mowed the lawn for the last time.  The entry porch is piled high with newly split firewood.  We are ready, now, for the new season.  In a few days, we are off for our Tour de Oregon holiday.  When we get back home, it will all be so different.  The Time will have changed and our mornings will be even darker.  Hopefully, there will be streams of sunlight, now and then, as we watch the light leave the sky before dinner.  But, the kitties will soon learn that cocktails by the water are definitely over.