Ed and I head to the orchard. These are the last weeks, maybe days, when you can still pick up a huge sack of honeycrisps. I want that sack. I want honeycrisps to stay in my fridge for the tough days of winter. The name is warm and comforting.
Still, it’s wet outside. November wet. Cold wet. Gray, sad wet.
At the orchard shack where picked apples used to be in abundance, the shelves are nearly empty. We get our bagfuls and stroll out toward the rows of trees. And horses. It’s raining and the horses are looking like they need …something. A bath maybe? What do I know about horses. I used to ride them. I don’t anymore.
Ed and horses nuzzle in animal camaraderie.
I take my work to Ed’s sheepshed. I need to scramble now. The semester is near an end. It is an intensely busy period: I start writing exams, I plan next semester’s classes, I work on the remaining lectures for the Fall. The sheepshed offers no distractions. There is a chair for me to sit in. A comfortable chair and that's it. Ed works on a crankshaft. I think about my classes. I play my small stack of CDs – stuff that helps me stay on task.
Are we playing the same CD over and over?
No, I’m just in a mellow female jazz vocalist mode.
Oh.
Outside, the drizzle continues. But really, it’s not that bad. No, it’s not that bad. November, all of it. There’s beauty in gray and mangy horses, and imperfect situations and November months that turn into warm moments in spite of the drizzle.
