It's been a strange October around these parts.
On the one hand, I nearly killed mosquito #8743 less than 24 hours ago. Unfortunately it escaped and probably fed on someone's blood. And then, it hopefully died without descendants.
On the other hand, it's been mercilessly cold these past days– days that start hovering somewhere in the high 40s and get progressively colder and more somber.
October is strangely magical– a time of leaves raining down from the sky and mingling with the last, lovely blooms of summer plants which are suddenly ill-equipped for life. There are orange orbs staring back and what seems like an endless proliferation of large spiders and, lately, all manner of orange lights twinkling from people's porches.
And the smell of rotting manure coats the mornings, whether from actual manure having been deposited or from the tender rot the earth places forth to protect itself.
It feels wintry, but it's just the beginning of autumn. And everyone feels a little doom-saying these days as well– people pulling out their assets and cutting their losses and talking of folding. I don't think I've ever talked to as many pessimistic people in my life, and I am wondering when the shoe will drop for me; when I will finally be overtaken by extreme worry and panic and feel like my life and my future wealth, opulence, or just-getting-by-ness is directly compromised in some awful, final way.
I wonder if this is just a hibernation period, though; if like the fallen leaves that rot and protect their long-term assets, our markets will benefit from these temporary losses and come back into a spring of their own, fertilized and enlivened by the part of themselves that needed to be shed and die so we could all see the forest and the trees in the future.
In my to-do list now?
Buy manure.
(Do you need manure, too? Espoma has a really nice one. Enjoy)
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 