Drag racing

...(and other things) at the Detroit Zoo.  It's just another part of fall fun.

More pictures in the October 2009 album.

All good things

We must have known that it couldn't last. As we went about our days enjoying the novelty of the cool but beautiful fall weather and all of its charms and activities we had to have known that the tempest was just about the bend. Cool weather, even cold weather, is completely enjoyable, especially when the sun is shining, but even when not. Wet weather, on the other hand, can be hard to work around, though far from impossible to enjoy. We intended to greet yesterday early with beautiful plans for a fun filled morning downtown followed by a relaxing fall afternoon of football. Instead we would find our first waking moments tempered by dark gray clouds urging us to roll over and return to sleep. So we lured ourselves out of bed and into the chill, damp morning with visions of pancakes and coffee at our little breakfast place at the edge of town. Being in a little town diner so early on a Saturday morning is like putting ones ear to the heart and lips of the village, and I'm sure we came away from our meal knowing more about the pulse of our town than we could have gleaned from reading its little weekly paper. Almost as alluring as warm breakfast was the draw of the monthly used book sale at the library, right around the corner. Where else can one go shopping amidst thousands of titles, coming away with armloads and bagloads of books, including several anthologies (of great poems, fiction, and short stories—some really great writers included) all for a total that didn't even require a Hamilton, which is good because we needed him at the fair that came next. And wouldn't you know, just as the fair was opening up, so did the clouds, letting loose the mournful deluge they had been hinting at since dawn. No matter, really. It is just as fun to attack a clown, feed a sheep, and ride a horse (not any horse, mind you, but a percheron, since the itty bitty pony wasn't good enough) in the rain as when it is dry, and in fact, the warm cider and doughnuts, ingested under the protective canopy of the gazebo, was an even more gratifying snack in such fall-like fall weather. Really, we didn't lament the outcome of the day until some four plus hours later, faced with a disappointing end to a bitter football game, putting our first loss of the year up on the board. Yes, all good things must come to an end.

Take that!  Who likes clowns anyway?

Frolicking, and some portraits

Like spring, the arrival fall is sometimes a matter of subtle finesse, and sometimes a more of a rude awakening.  The overnight cold snap, demanding that we turn on our heat and collect all our lingering tomatoes regardless of ripening stage, was much a rude awakening.  Today's high reaching into the sixties, with the sun bathing the harvest land in warm hues, was much more like finesse.  Calvin and I walked to the library again today, visiting with our friends, the squirrels, as we went, and taking our lunch along with so that we could pick a resting spot on our way home.  Calvin picked the gazebo in our little downtown park, and, before settling in, stopped by the bakery for fresh pretzels and tomato juice (the lady at the counter double and triple checking with Calvin that he knew it was tomato juice not apple juice, and my deciding not to enlighten her with the fact that he's only ever had and loved one of these, and not the one you'd expect).  Cheese, bread, and apples enjoyed in the sun that, at its fall slant, was creeping in under the vast geometric roof.  While there Calvin let me have a little fun with the camera and then, with that boundless three-year-old energy, took off frolicking through the green park space in the afternoon sun.  And I could have no better thirty-plus-year-old enjoyment than watching that boundless energy from a reclined and relaxed position on a nearby park bench.  The rest of the shots are in the October 2009 album.

Waxing into fall

The final days of a summer that was almost non-existent seem to have come and gone.  Day after day we waited for the high temperatures and humid air that we usually complain about through most of July and August, but they never really came and now we are here, summer waning, fall waxing.  I'm hoping for an Indian Summer (though I'm sure that's far from pc), but these wee hours of autumn's dawn are equally as pleasing.  It is still warm enough, if we bundle up, to go for evening walks, and because the sun sets earlier every day we see more bats before we have to go in for bed, and we love to look for the bats.  Even better, it's cool enough that the throngs of people who usually crowd our tiny village streets on summer nights are mostly home, ensconced in the light and warmth of their hearths, when we don sweaters and descend upon the Dairy Queen, then take our cones and, in the dimming light of day, walk along the newly released flow of Mill Creek, investigating the construction that is still underway there.  This time of year means it's cool enough to walk into town for story time without arriving at the library drenched in sweat, but warm enough still to walk.  On our way Calvin delights in pointing out the changing colors on the trees and the squirrels who are foraging for nuts to bury in preparation for the winter.  We spent upwards of fifteen minutes one day watching a squirrel do just that, and I'm sure I enjoyed it as much as he did.  On days when the sun is out, warming the earth just that little bit more, we are still able to enjoy one of our favorite summer pastimes, packing a picnic lunch and choosing somewhere, anywhere in the village, to sit and enjoy our food while watching the world go on around us.

I think I say every year that fall is my favorite season, but I'll say it again just for good measure.  I love the anxiety of the college football season, the colors in the trees, the cold nights and cool days, the warmth of traditional fall meals, the smell of the harvest.  It is a sensational time of year.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

And some of his other shots from the day (of me trying to figure out the new carseat configuration for the car... more on that later).