November Sunday

Cripes, you guys. Snowflakes are sputtering in the lead-grey sky, so jittery it's hard to tell if they'll ever reach the ground. The willow is still leafy in a kind of Packers green and gold color. A few leaves cling to the tops of the hackberries, curled, dry, brown. The ground is cloaked in the orange, rust, yellow, and blood-red that recently dressed the maple. Bald trees across the November river give distant bluffs the visual texture of steel wool. A towboat slowly grinds upstream, headlong into the raw wind, as a tight flock of diving ducks speeds through the afternoon sky unnoticed by the roughneck deckhands.

It's good to be outside this time of year. It's not as easy as summer but there is a new and greater sense of purpose. Before long it will be cold. Real cold. There is wood to cut, haul, split, and stack. Warmth earned through hard work provides a satisfying comfort in a hard winter here along the Upper Mississippi.

Fall chores are a race with the sun, hurrying along behind the clouds a lot faster than usual these days. It's best to get an early start. Rushing the work takes the fun out of it. The lawn mower is stored in the basement. The snow blower is in the garage, ready. There's a lot left to do. But not today.

The delicious smell of burning wood makes the cold weather seem like an old friend. And spring is just around the corner.