It was a busy October for all of us. It will be a busy November too. The sun came out a few times during the past couple of weeks, although it was mostly rainy. Noah, Maxim, and Catherine are playing school in the backyard in this photograph. But the kids have begun shifting their play inside. We have removed most of the summer stuff from the back yard and put it into storage. Once the leaves fall from the saplings in the yard, I will cover them with plastic for the winter. We have stopped cutting the grass, and are about half done removing the dead growth from this past season. Our sunflower stalks still stand in front, as does one of our tomato plants. The big excitement came last Sunday when we inherited
a new piano from Vic Lalli! We dead-lifted it into a small pickup truck and drove it over. It needs some aesthetic work but it sounds great. Noah likes to walk his fingers up the notes. He calls the low notes the "the scary part." "Don't play the scary part," he says when I play bass notes. Maxim is trying to pick out "Twinkle, Twinkle." I'm pretty excited, too. It meant shifting around the living room a little bit. The piano goes where the couch used to be, the couch goes under the north window, the stereo goes to the place where the bookshelf was, and the bookshelf was moved out into the hallway. Everything rotated 45 degrees. But, inexplicably, it has made the room feel bigger and more welcoming.
For Halloween, downtown Maynard closes the main street and all the shops participate in a trick-or-treat bonanza. Maxim dressed as Tinkerbell, but would not wear the sweater under the costume. Noah was a clown. Marcela and I wished we had had more time to get dressed up ourselves. Hundreds of people filled the downtown. It was great fun. But because of the holiday, there has been far too much candy in our house the past two weeks. Far too many tummy aches, and far too much crying about wanting
more candy. It was easier last year when we spent Halloween in Buenos Aires. Instead of candy, we had cake for Nacha's birthday. (It is spring there, so you can imagine a seasonal holiday like Halloween wouldn't make sense.)
A week ago last Friday, as if to remind us that summer was really and truly behind us, it snowed. Not a lot and nothing really stuck, but down it came in great sloppy flakes that crashed to the ground in icy kerplunks. It shaded our grass a little bit white for a few hours. Maxim wanted us to put some in a bowl with maple syrup. "I love snow," she said. "I love to eat it with maple syrup. Can you get me some, Daddy?" "It's not light enough to eat," I told her to her deep disappointment.
The trees on summer hill are finally turning too. They are mostly oaks, so they come along later in the season. The fall is rolling through with its last display of colors. No killing frost yet, but we are pretty sure it will be upon us before the next full moon. Our rhythms change, we close windows and replace screens, and put on more clothes, and scramble around to make the most of the shortened days and impediments to movement.
It was a busy October for all of us. It will be a busy November too. The sun came out a few times during the past couple of weeks, although it was mostly rainy. Noah, Maxim, and Catherine are playing school in the backyard in this photograph. But the kids have begun shifting their play inside. We have removed most of the summer stuff from the back yard and put it into storage. Once the leaves fall from the saplings in the yard, I will cover them with plastic for the winter. We have stopped cutting the grass, and are about half done removing the dead growth from this past season. Our sunflower stalks still stand in front, as does one of our tomato plants. The big excitement came last Sunday when we inherited
a new piano from Vic Lalli! We dead-lifted it into a small pickup truck and drove it over. It needs some aesthetic work but it sounds great. Noah likes to walk his fingers up the notes. He calls the low notes the "the scary part." "Don't play the scary part," he says when I play bass notes. Maxim is trying to pick out "Twinkle, Twinkle." I'm pretty excited, too. It meant shifting around the living room a little bit. The piano goes where the couch used to be, the couch goes under the north window, the stereo goes to the place where the bookshelf was, and the bookshelf was moved out into the hallway. Everything rotated 45 degrees. But, inexplicably, it has made the room feel bigger and more welcoming.
For Halloween, downtown Maynard closes the main street and all the shops participate in a trick-or-treat bonanza. Maxim dressed as Tinkerbell, but would not wear the sweater under the costume. Noah was a clown. Marcela and I wished we had had more time to get dressed up ourselves. Hundreds of people filled the downtown. It was great fun. But because of the holiday, there has been far too much candy in our house the past two weeks. Far too many tummy aches, and far too much crying about wanting more candy. It was easier last year when we spent Halloween in Buenos Aires. Instead of candy, we had cake for Nacha's birthday. (It is spring there, so you can imagine a seasonal holiday like Halloween wouldn't make sense.)
A week ago last Friday, as if to remind us that summer was really and truly behind us, it snowed. Not a lot and nothing really stuck, but down it came in great sloppy flakes that crashed to the ground in icy kerplunks. It shaded our grass a little bit white for a few hours. Maxim wanted us to put some in a bowl with maple syrup. "I love snow," she said. "I love to eat it with maple syrup. Can you get me some, Daddy?" "It's not light enough to eat," I told her to her deep disappointment.
The trees on summer hill are finally turning too. They are mostly oaks, so they come along later in the season. The fall is rolling through with its last display of colors. No killing frost yet, but we are pretty sure it will be upon us before the next full moon. Our rhythms change, we close windows and replace screens, and put on more clothes, and scramble around to make the most of the shortened days and impediments to movement.
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