Sun with no clouds, sixty-three degrees and a light breeze. Well, you can’t stay in on a day like that. Camera Girl and I took a walk in the woods today. We haven’t since September. It was quiet. Then we saw why. The streams that came off of the big lake had dried up. The spillway from the lake was dry. November hasn’t been completely without rain but the number of heavy rain days has drastically lowered from previous months. So, it was quiet and that was fine. Sun filtered more easily through the trees with only the conifers green. We talked about the menu for Thanksgiving and we talked about leaves to be raked. We noticed that none of the few people in the forest we met wore masks and I said that was a good sign. She told me that very few people in the supermarket wore masks and most of those were elderly. And I said that sounds good. But before we knew it we were back at the car. Just a short hour’s walk, up and down a few hills in the woods. But it was a fitting tribute to God for gifting us a day this bright and warm, a week before Thanksgiving in New England.
AUTUMN (by Aleksandr Pushkin) (translated by Peter France)
…
A mournful time of year! Its sad enchantment
flatters my vision with a parting grace –
I love the sumptuous glow of fading nature,
the forests clad in crimson and in gold,
the shady coolness and the wind’s dull roaring,
the heavens all shrouded in a billowing mist
and the rare gleams of sun, the early hoarfrosts,
and distant grey-beard winter’s gloomy portents.
…
Aleksandr Pushkin (translated by Peter France)