2:30 in the afternoon, November 1, in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun in far to the south, but I’m wearing a t-shirt, and sitting in a secluded nook of the garden that I fenced with lilacs and dogwood. There’s a small Japanese maple in a big pot, and a dwarf pine in a slightly smaller one. There was a bamboo that blocked the view from the alley, but it didn’t survive the Fimbul-winter we had a few years back. I’ve cut back the roses that tangle under the lilacs, but there are still a few red blooms. I’m watching for a hawk I’ve seen gyring for a couple of weeks, probably a redtail. It doesn’t show up. I’ve been happy to see it; where there’s one there are probably two, and they keep down the tree-rats and mice. Our dog has discouraged rabbits – he’s fast. They meet in the alley to discuss him, I think. But he can’t handle squirrels, who can jump. He can’t. They enrage him.

It’s very green. Often the trees are bare by November 1, and the weather will soon turn toward winter.