An Addendum

Because I am unsure of the time/date differences between EST and the blog server, I am publishing this as an additional comment that can be considered either a post script to my blog of last night or a prescript of my blog for this evening.

When we got up this morning the sky was brighter than it has been for many, many days. There was a riffle of excited chatter amongst the birds in our yard with special comments being interjected by one of our bluejays. When I looked out the back window one bluejay had the funniest expression on his (gender undetermined) face! He looked happy and relieved and a lot less damp than any of the birds or critters have been looking. I think, if the sunlight had suddenly burst out from behind a cloud, that bird would have swooned and passed out so intense was his emotional state. He was also looking very decidedly more blue, rather than the greyish, cloud-coordinated vestments he had been clothed in all week. There is now sunlight and warmth, contentment and peaceful gratitude emanating from the whole of our home and yard. I am only thankful the nesting and fledgling seasons are well over or the squirrels and chipmunks might take it upon themselves to call a feast of birdlings in celebration (yuck!).

The construction noises from our neighbors property seem to have slowed down, somehow, as if the weather determines the rapidity of the work being accomplished. I really think it is merely that I fancy this is so, although it is delightful to move a little more slowly when you're not going to freeze or drop your blood pressure due to inclement weather.

As I glance out into the jungle that is our backyard, that provides cover for so many of the small creatures living in the area, I see the slightest movements of the very top branches of our tallest trees and know the breeze is light and gentle; the sunshine almost decadent after so much rain and drizzle. Mark Twain has been quoted as commenting upon the vast number of types of weather one might experience on any given New England day but this is an injustice to the best of New England's offerings in that field. Besides, with no disrespect intended toward Mr. Twain, we have produced writers and poets like no others in the world on these same, often sodden, soils and that has been perhaps due more to the vagaries of climate here than anything else. It is not every cohesive geological area that can claim Lowells and Frosts; Plaths and Sextons. (I think all of those mentioned are from, or near, this area at any rate!)

There is no treasure to compare with the mound of leaves from our backyard arboretum, although shelter more than science is the reason for their being there, that glisten with a priceless gold and begin to glow with all of the gems of Autumn that are beginning to infiltrate the pirate hoard unbidden, while the people too busy congratulating themselves upon having such a stash tend to forget the depredations of Winter soon to follow. Trading Winter diamonds for Autumn gold, however, does not seem like such a mean deal.