Now this is seasonal. But, didn't we just do this? Was it really a year ago that we were raking up leaves and hauling them out to the curb for pickup?
The dogs don't like it one bit. All their drop zones have disappeared, and they don't seem to like even walking through the growing cover of damp leaves - can't say that I blame them on that score. So for these several weeks they have been leaving little packages in unexpected places, often and predictably discovered by attracting an unsuspecting sole. Thus the evening scrape-and-scrub routine reaches its peak pretty much in sync with the height of the leaves' migration earthward.
If I were John Updike, I would write a poem about this microseasonal phenomenon. But, alas, you can guess the rest. So we lean into the mundane, comfortable annual rites of autumn, trudging - carefully - into longer nights and toward the promise of new leaves next spring.
