Thunderstorms and freezing rain. Now that's an attractive combination. Inti danced around for a few hours before the rain let up enough for us to venture outside, and then made tracks for every mud puddle and deep trough on the way. Some of the neighbors' drainage ditches make for good pools, says she. My new hiking boots rubbed against the back of my left ankle but otherwise kept my feet toasty and dry. The boots stayed dry, too, after the liberal application of Camp Dry.

The maple out front is vibrating with color and dropping leaves with alacrity. I can't even describe it - the colors are lurking somewhere among orange, red, fuchsia, bronze. The sugar maple in the back is bright yellow. The burning bush is red. This is the very last of the color we'll have for some time - the witch hazels won't bloom until February, probably, and it will be a long time before we can consider that a display, as young as they are.

Though it's disconcerting for darkness to come so soon in the day, there's something really comforting about the darkness of autumn in general: the heavy skies, leaf-littered forest paths. As the light diminishes the shade-makers let more of it through to us. There always comes a day in autumn when I'm walking out front and I double-take the feeling of sky above the four elms that line the south of the driveway. When did that happen, I ask every year. The deep shade is gone. There's light on the driveway. The disintegration of the garage door is much more evident. Sticks and leaves litter the valleys of the roof. And we can actually see it now, after the cottonwood which hangs heavy and low over the roof let go of the last of its leaves in October.

And yes, I'm reading The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry. Makes me want to stay outside all the time, forever.