We have been enjoying the beautiful early fall days. While installing new tin siding on the back of the shed I have been listening to a book by one of my favorite authors, Wallace Stegner.  He must have understood my joy at being outdoors these days when he wrote this appropriate line:

“It is such a morning as all the old remember and only the young belong in.”

Turkeys are reaching peak turkeyness, inflated and quivering and proud of their pendulous snoods and wattles.  The steers are beginning to grow out their thicker winter coats.  Shaggy mane mushrooms are emerging in the wood chips.  Everywhere there are wonderful displays of ash, basswood, cherry, sumac, and some of the maple trees changing colors while the hickory and oak leaves remain green.  A glorious October.

Just one more quote I read this week, not apropos of anything, but an irresistible line to share.  It comes from Ivan Turgenev, but I got it by way of Stegner:  “A system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.”