September and October are my favorite months. Yes, there’s November looming with its scramble to batten down the hatches, but September and October are those months where summer work is mostly done, and I can sit down and simply enjoy Earth. Sure, there’s a bit of cleanup and tidying yet to do, but, all in all, it’s time to wallow in the relative quiet of kids gone back to school, tourists gone home — a time to embrace the Gravy Days, as my mother used to call them.
Our October this year didn’t start in gravy. There was a cold foreboding to the weather that promised a very cold, hard winter. Everybody felt it. Then, midway through, things changed. And we got, not Indian Summer, but Gravy Days, all the same. Last fall clean-ups in pleasant progress and, yes, finally, the roofing crew, promised in Spring, here two days before the rains come.
My biggest project prior to November is … raking the drive and the pathways in preparation for snow removal this winter, manual clean-up necessary to get the bits of branches and fallen leaves cleared so they don’t get sucked into the snow blower with our inevitable wet snow and bind up the big machine, which, if and when that happens, makes me turn the air, not just blue, but purple with my cussing.
The Roofing Job, Done Late (Very), But Done
Hand-Raking the Drive
Gravy Days Pictures
Turning my head from primarily working my graphic arts biz (see zentao.com if curious, though that’s not the half of it, not even) to writing as my focus makes me even more aware of how much work I was doing helping others with their projects while ignoring mine. It’s a real eye-opener. To suddenly focus on me is all but a completely new experience. In fact, it is a completely new experience. There’s a sense of utter joy, deeply felt to almost overwhelming, but there’s also this odd sense of guilt–a sense that I’m neglecting something that’s crucial. So I’m going to compromise just a little. I won’t say no to everyone who asks for assistance, just the most presumptive.