Notes on the day

Fall weather arrived in earnest today, with a constant coldish wind. Everything felt different!

The first thing I heard as I sat down next to the open window with my journal this morning was a man singing "O Holy Night" in an operatic voice.  I have no idea whether he was in another apartment or on the street, because I didn't hear him for long.  Shortly afterwards, a fire truck with an intermittent siren passed by (they don't blare continuously at seven a.m.), and I didn't hear him after that.  I actually needed the chenille blanket over my feet.

This is the corner where I sit and journal each morning.

More lights were on in the windows of the other buildings, even though it was getting light, because many people are now getting up while it's still dark.  Whenever I get up earlier than usual, say 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., I'm surprised to see lights on that I never see on at any other time.  I figure these people just have really unusual work schedules.  The apartment in the building behind us is one of these, and one of its windows has been broken for a month.  I wonder why the landlord added a penthouse apartment to this building last year, but won't fix the window. And what does this person do that requires them to get up so early and stay out all day and night so that the curtains are never open?  It bothers me.

Once Bob left for work, C.Z. and I ran in the park, and she kicked up her heels so much that she almost beat her own personal record.  The dogs in the park all looked extremely happy, too.  

Birds were making an unusual lot of noise while we ran.  Perhaps it was the hawk we heard overhead as we entered park, but I think it's more likely they were coming in with the fall wind.  At an overlook I heard a high call from a rush of small birds.  I hoped very much that they were kinglets (we usually get Golden-crowned Kinglets for a couple of days in October).  On another pass by the overlook, I saw a small bird that I didn't recognize (I actually stopped running for a few seconds and stared after it, which could partly explain why my running times are so slow lately).  I lost it before I got a good look, and decided to that we should definitely go out later in the day.  We had seen newly-arrived White-throated Sparrows on Tuesday.  Those are winter residents, those the birds that sing, "Oh, say, Canada, Canada!"

We did schoolwork and our other tasks for the day and went out again for birds as soon as we could. By now, low gray clouds were blowing across the sun, but they were moving so fast that they came and went.  The tops of the trees tossed in the wind.  We saw one genuinely fallish-looking branch with yellow and orange leaves, but everything else was still deep summer green. I figured this was going to be either a good day for birds, or a bust, but nothing like the past few weeks.  

And it was a good day!  Right away, at the Drip, we saw three Blue Jays chasing each other out of the pool, a Flicker come to drink, a Phoebe wagging its tail on the fence, and a Redstart (or a Yellowstart as we call them) fanning its tail in the bush.  Later on, up in the woods, we saw the White-throats again, a Wood Thrush, a Swainson's Thrush, Titmice, and when we looked back on the trail, a lovely Black-throated Blue Warbler.  We distinctly heard a Chickadee.  And on the way home, I spotted the bird I had so wanted to see ever since last October--a tiny kinglet!  This one was a Ruby-crowned, not a Golden-crowned, but we stopped to watch it gleaning insects with its tiny beak from the branches of a bush and then tree for a long time, all by itself.  I do think kinglets may be my very favorite birds.  And those thrushes somehow remind me of fall in the same way that winter squashes do.  They're sturdy and plain, but satisfying to see.  And they sing well, too.  (There the analogy falls apart.)

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (image from Wikipedia Commons)

When we got home, we were cold from being outside for the first time since last May.  I took a cue from Susan's blog and made myself a first cup of Raspberry tea for the season.  C.Z. made hot chocolate, and we poured them both in her tea cups from Boston.  We sat down to do our last bit of schoolwork, a Latin translation from Wheelock's.  "Hot chocolate and Latin," she mused. "I feel like French royalty!  Or maybe more like the Pauper in The Prince and the Pauper."  I never would have guessed, back when I was having to drag her through Latina Christiana last spring, that she would think translation was fun.  But when she finished her short paragraph, she looked up and asked, "Are there any more of these?"  I think Wheelock's is a much more grown up book, and I wish that I hadn't been too intimidated to try it last year.  But who knows?  Sometimes fit and timing in learning are a bit of a mystery.

C.Z. was so inspired by the weather that she picked up her fiddle and spontaneously produced a very warm, smoky rendition of "Beech Spring."  What's fallish about this?  I don't know, but it reminds me of log cabins and Pa's fiddle, so perhaps she thought so, too.  Now she's playing Vaughn Williams and whistling to it in harmony.  

And finally, we got another dramatic cloud and sun effect with our view again.  I like this one even better, and it accurately reflects the blue-gray, watercolor raggedness of the clouds today. 

Whether it's fall yet or not where you are, I hope you had a pleasant day of it. Time to go cook dinner!