Hooray for first frost. It came last night. The grass was dusted with bits of ice this morning. It didn’t last long. The sun saw it’s duty and did it. It’s good to feel a little cold in the morning, however.

I’d love to wake up in the morning, go outside, and see frost on the ground. I need some fall weather. A sweater. A jacket. Something that says the days of high heat are gone.

I watched the comet last night. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. It was in the western sky, just after sunset. It will be there for at least another ten days.

It feels nice when the air of the day you greet is sweet and cool as it is this morning. It gives you hope that softer weather is on the way.

I took down most of the old swallow nests yesterday. Washed the wall. Swept away the debris. Today I’ll do the back porch. I’m done with swallows. Next season they’ll need to find a new home.

As I’ve started studying the geology of the lands I hike, I’ve really come to love the size and the scope of the story I see.

When the waters come, mountains bow down before it. When the waters come, shorelines turn their back and recede.

I like it that I can step into my back lots, look up, and see the stars. Maybe not as many as I might see at Big Bend Bend or the Guadalupe Mountains, but still stars in the night sky with the Milky Way clearly visible.

I usually refer to my Barbados Cherry in the singular. But it is time to admit there is now more than one. In fact, I find it hard to really put a number on the number of plants that now comprise what I should rightly call my Barbados Cherry grove.

I remember when my daughter first went to visit Maine with her new husband. It was summer and Maine was beautiful, and she opined that they could live there. And her husband said, no, because of winter.

It used to be that only the wealthy could flee the seasons, and mostly it was summer. Houses in the Hamptons. Hotels in The Catskills. Mansions in Newport. Then came the car and a burgeoning middle class. And people started fleeing all the seasons.

It stormed at my house yesterday. Twice. The second time harder than the first. The rain was horizontal, flying along on the wind. There was a veritable river running down the dog run.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. It is oddly invigorating to dig, trim, and work with trees and plants. I did it again yesterday and I’ll do it again today.

I weeded in the garden yesterday. It was satisfying. I’ll do more today. The rains came. The dirt is soft. The air is cool as well, and that’s good, too. I’m in the mood. The mood. The garden mood.

We have red ants, the big ones. I’m sort of partial to them. They mostly mind their own business. They trundle around picking up seeds, carrying them back to the nest.

It’s funny how life goes. How friendships ebb and flow. How jobs come and go. How time hurtles on and how time just creeps, ever so slow.

Our forecast high today is 106 degrees Fahrenheit. That is entirely too hot for this neck of the woods. That’s Phoenix weather.

The swallows are in training for their flight home. They disappear during the day for long stretches, stretching their wings, building strength, getting the little ones ready.

It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood. We have clouds, which means the morning sun can give us a show, and it did so. I spooked a small herd of deer when I walked out my gate to get a better look.