one last hurrah

We end the Great November Warmup today. And I finish planting. That is what I call a very happy confluence of events. Of course, one is never totally done with garden work, even now, in what is already the second half of November. I am constantly filling in holes in the flower beds, excavated by the hens who scratch like crazy, especially in spring and fall, when the summer lazies have left them and the winter freeze hasn't yet hardened the soil. And I am trimming spent flowers, not finding the contours of the winter garden to be perfectly set in place just yet. That stuff continues. But I can't call it pressing garden work. More like puttering around here and there.

Morning walk? A little nippy at the outset, but only at the outset. And very pretty!

Breakfast -- well, I decided not to really like the apple cake (too sweet, and just a tad too dry on the outside and gummy on the inside), so I pushed that aside in favor of, ho hum, oatmeal.

I took a walk, but not a long one. Another one of those nuisance appointments got in the way.

And I picked up the kids for a more normal afternoon at the farmhouse.

And wait, not done yet! I had a dinner with former colleagues.

So yes, a packed day, but at what point does it feel special? I mean, we're not likely to see weather like this again until April. How do we honor it? Well, as is so often the case, the beauty comes out in little spurts throughout. I feel it in the drive to pick up the kids, loving the hazy yet warm sun hitting my left shoulder both going there and heading back. I see it in a glance out the kitchen window while cutting up fruits for the kids and for breakfast, because the crab still looks so good before the birds rip out all those lovely red apples. And in that final dig into the soil to get one last Tahiti Daffodil bulb in, with a simple unzipped sweatshirt keeping me perfectly warm. Fleeting pleasures to be sure, and yet there are so many of them!  

Tonight we'll crank up the furnace and get ready for the big cooldown. By Thanksgiving, reaching 32F ()C) will feel like a gift.