Wednesday - 201st

There is such a thing as too much reading. Oh, you can blame it on the weather (cold, with bursts of rain). You can blame it on the readily available material online. Or you can just blame yourself. Learn from mistakes! Limit it next time. And go out and enjoy the season. Any season, any weather. Just take it all in and be glad that you have some contact with the rest of the world. Distractions can be a very lovely thing indeed.






On this last day of September, both Ed and I woke up cranky. I suppose I egged him on by telling him about the UN Summit on Biodiversity that's taking place today, with the participation of all major countries of this planet, minus one. (You guessed it.) Ed is a committed environmentalist and as such, he belongs to the group of pessimists who see everything as coming too little too late. Hopelessness does not sit well with me, especially at the breakfast table. I chose to take this photo when he was somewhere else.





When I dug into my oatmeal, I was saying things like "you don't get it, that's not the point," and he was saying things like "you know what I think about all this, you brought it up."

But by the meal's end, we were aligned once again (oatmeal with fruit, kefir and honey is a great mood stabilizer; perhaps it should be required food prior the next debate). But then came the reading, the reviewing, the review of others' reviewing, and the reading of comments on such reviewing. Too much!

And so I was happy as anything to pack up my things and head out this afternoon for my distanced, masked, outdoor meeting with Snowdrop.






I have to find a spot where the wind would not blow us away.






And it is, as always, lovely if incomplete. But, lovely. Most important to remember: lovely.






Eventually, the temps dipped sufficiently enough for her to want to crawl into a present from Gogs -- a sleeping bag, rated as good enough for temps down to freezing! It's the only way I could think of that would allow us to keep on reading together outside, given that this is Wisconsin and we are heading into the dangerously cold part of Autumn.






We were cut short by sprinkles, but we did log in some 90 minutes of reading, interspersed with just being. Someone said a few days ago that for a grandparent, reading to a grandchild is his idea of heaven. I'll agree, though just being in each others company is also right up there.





Afterwards, I drove to do a curbside pickup (wine! you're thinking -- what, did I run out last night? ha ha. maybe) and this had me pass by Owen Woods, a nature conservancy right smack in the middle of Madison.

I was curious if fall colors were making a significant appearance. The answer -- just a little bit. Here and there.






Ed's out biking this evening. He'll have colors for sure on his route -- of golden corn fields and bronze soy beans. It is the season of color.

But, biking has its perils. He comes back late, shin bruised by a massive dog bite. A farm dog, identified by a neighbor as an Australian shepherd.  I've biked by an angry dog before. You can't get away fast enough. You hope for luck. This one pounced on Ed. So, there was the need to call the police, to get a report and hopefully sue the pants off the owner. Not for the small claim, but to put a muzzle on this guy, so that his dog doesn't bite again and do perhaps even more damage.

As we all sit around reading too much and worrying even more, we would do well to remember that October is, for us northerners, perhaps the most colorful month of them all. I hope you have a chance to go out, take it in, and feel its gentle climax as we shed another year of growth and get ready to bury in and hunker down for the cold months ahead.