I found a mouse in my toilet. When I called the pest company, I asked, how can that be? She mentioned vents or doors or pipes as access. But this is the far end of the house. There are no doors to the outside, no pipes, or vents to invite creatures in… (?)

It must be fall. Every creature is looking for warmth. I haven’t heard the loons calling on the lake – hopefully they’ve flown to the coast by now. Peaches’ appetite is up – she gets hungrier in the cold weather.

I had snow tires put on my car. It’s early, I know. But then I saw flakes of snow drifing across my path on my. walk early the next day. That day, Corey, the plumber dropped by to turn off the water to the garden spigots and outdoor shower.

Two days later, Casey Hixon came with his tree crew to take down 3 huge dead trees and then also clear branches along the electric lines between the road and my house. Casey had meant to come sooner, but we’ve had some strong wind storms and he’s been called to help the highway department.

That day when I was out hiking with Peaches we came upon a a giant spruce that had fallen across the path, probably in one of those storms. Peaches and I made our way.- a little this way, a little that – through the cracked branches and piles of needles. I mentioned the downed tree to a fellow hiker, Winston’s owner – Winston is a bernadoodle, 1 and 1/5 years old and a good foot taller than Peaches – and she said she would tell Sandy in the Parks and Rec Center about the fallen tree. I wondered out loud – Parks and Rec. Center? She said she was from Center Harbor, but if she told someone in her town, that person would know the person in the right town who knew who to call to take care of the tree across the trail. I wondered: In the fall?

But today – there was the van from Squam Lakes Association, parked at the trailhead.

So that’s Holderness life in early November.

Inside, I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Moore. She was my mother’s best friend but she had grown up in Alabama and had this gentleness about her mannerisms, the opposite of my mother’s more staccato way.

Mrs. Moore’s husband, Bedford, died a number of years before she did. I remember wondering about her afterwards because she lived all alone in the country. The following summer, I dropped by and asked her about feeling lonely and sad. She pointed to her meadow. If you looked out the window, you could see a chair sitting high on the hill in the middle of the tall grass. Mrs. Moore said, “That’s was Bedford’s favorite view so I put his chair there. Do you feel how happy he is?”

Just today, I visited the tree we all planted at the ceremony for Trum. It’s stance – so tall, and looking out over from the edge of my garden onto the lake,is just the way Trum would stand as he assessed what needed to be done. He had wanted those dead trees to be cleared. I sensed his satisfaction.

I’ve been thinking of Trum recently – it’s fall, time when I might be moving. But outside my thinking I feel his presence. When I’m just going about my day – on a walk or doing Tai Chi, he’s there: a deeply content Trum flavor in the atmosphere.

And Peaches.

She loved Trum.

But rIght now, it’s that delicious stream water that matters most.

celebrating those fall colors …

before… what’s this???