Thanksgiving Morn

 Happy Thanksgiving! This morning we walked around Riparia and I took some photos and fell down in some bell peppers and generally immersed myself into a short ramble. It felt much different without Sasha but the day was bright and there is still color to contrast with the sweet green of new grasses and died-back plants. I didn't like any of the shots better than the ones I got the last few days when the clouds and rain were on us though and so the one above is from Big Chico Creek and the one below is at One Mile. The leaning attitude of the real and reflective tree mirror one another.

 The vortexes of the shells I picked up along the Outer Banks and Gulf of Mexico still attract my eye. Five years ago we were with my brother's family in Georgia and now they are in New York celebrating the birth of their first grand-daughter, born on Halloween at the sweeping end of the great hurricane. How life circles expand and tighten. We are very small here this Thanksgiving-- just the four/five of us. 

 We frequently have something left to harvest from the garden at Thanksgiving-- to be grateful for and amazed by and to take to table in appreciation. This year though is strange.. portending the coming crisis, no doubt. Poppies greet us out by the abandoned railroad tracks by the Diamond Match land where we walk when we want to keep our feet dry.

 In the puddles we read the tea leaves. Not really, there is time left. It's definitely late for leaf fall but it's beautiful and the air embraces us in this valley. Now's not the time to question the future. It's time to prep the food and bake the pies. Michael is already hard at his football game. Rejoice. Embrace. Sense deep. Listen. Absorb. Then Laugh.