All the time it’s been snowing, I’ve been thinking that I never posted the pictures of the leaves turning colour.
The orange tree (above, left and in the middle below) is a maple, and, after they had fallen, the leaves that covered the ground smelled just like maple syrup without the sweetness. I looked forward to walking past it.
This pile of wooden paneling has been there for a year now. The man who left it is going to use it on his house, whenever he gets around to it. The house is fifty yards up the road. So why did he leave it by the field? This is the kind of thing we think about in the country.
I took all these pictures one day when I went for a walk with Topsy.
It was Saturday the ninth of October, according to my computer: John Lennon’s 70th birthday and Uganda’s Independence Day.
But I think of it as one of the last days the goats grazed in the pasture above the house, one of the last days before they realised that the cattle grid had been covered over for the winter
and they could now trot down the hill and munch their way through the neighbour’s garden if they felt like it*,
one of the last days, in short, before we confined them to our garden.
Well, nobody likes winter.
*So far the goats haven’t figured out the Yorkshire sheep trick that dearieme told us about.
A Bad Guide 
So why did he leave it by the field? This is the kind of thing we think about in the country.
Well, it is a material question.
If you find an answer, I’d like to know, since I have a pile like that going into its second winter in a corner of my garden.
Marvelous colors!!!
They are marvelous colours, even though the dog’s out of focus. There is no answer, Trond.
Oh, dear. All I can think of now is the piles of junk behind our garage and whether they are annoying the neighbors.
I can’t imagine they’d be a serious annoyance, Empty. Don’t forget they’ll soon be covered by snow. (That’s the piles of junk.)
Our dog was never completely in focus.
I don’t know if my pile is annoying the neighbours, but I know for certain that it’s annoying my wife. If I’m not careful this may end up with me doing some actual carpentry with it.
I think you’ll be pretty safe talking about maybe doing some carpentry when there’s snow falling and a prediction of 20 minus degrees next week.
I want snow. And not because it will cover my sins. Just because.
I am also feeling a terrible temptation to begin putting up some Christmas lights.
“Our dog was never completely in focus.”
If it was a dachshund, it was probably a depth of field problem.
It’s traditional to wait until after Thanksgiving. You could put up Thanksgiving lights; with the turkey, it’ll be almost like Christmas.
Our shops are full of chocolate reindeer bearing a suspicious resemblance to chocolate Easter bunnies, but with antlers sketched badly on the wrapping.
This late fall post reminded me that I forgot to read my favorite fall poem this year, Richard Wilbur’s “In the Elegy Season.” I sent it to our host last year.
Yes! Chocolate reindeer! I’ve just returned from Aachen, which is full of them: http://www.lindt.com/de/swf/ger/produkte/weihnachten/schokoladenfiguren/gold-rentier/ Obviously Lindt invented them so they could continue to use the bunny mould in winter.
Artur,
Beautiful russets and golds and greens, a reminder the earth exists. No concrete.
Nobody likes winter, especially here, now; but everybody has reason to love A Bad Guide.
I will trade a thousand gallons of rainwater for one ton of snow to drape over the outlying junk. Shipping costs to be negotiated.
More alarming still is the category Zum Selbstverwoehnen, clearly targeting people who will be spending this Christmas, like every Christmas, alone. Which ties in neatly with these autumn images, via Rilke: ‘Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben’.
Tsk. Rilke.
Not really the same shape, I’m sorry to report.
Principal, you cut off the good part:
Few of the translations at your link gets wachen right (it doesn’t mean “wake up”). Sez I:
at your link get
I like. You could almost say ‘toss and turn’ or something. What are we preserving, the metre but not the rhyme?
Those now alone will long remain alone,
Wakefully, reading, [‘writing long letters’ stumps me]
And up and down the avenues will pace
Restlessly, while the leaves are swirling.
This is better, without the ‘wakefully-restlessly’ jingle:
Those who are homeless now will build no home.
Those now alone will long remain alone,
Staying awake, writing long letters, reading,
And pacing up and down the avenues
Without respite, while leaves are swirling.
I’m going to put all this poetry in a new post, if you hang on for a few minutes…
And yes, who is Guntram Deichsel?