November

The yellow leaves are down from the Cottonwoods now. Shades of tan Brome, rust-colored Rumex, copper sumac, pale yellow dogbane cover the Greenbelt. Ink black buckthorn leaves lie at the bottom of the brook.

Raccoons have almost finished harvesting the apples in my backyard, which drives Ben and Maggie nuts. All the apples make these raccons grow to the weight of a coyote in my neighborhood. I have seen raccoon tracks side by side with fox tracks after a fresh snow. The raccon tracks were a third larger than the fox prints.

Ben and Maggie know the scents of all the critters on the Greenbelt, which is beyond me except by watching them check out each new one. They also understand my names for the different landmarks. I can say ' lets go to the frogpond' and they take a hard left turn off the trail, towards the pond that is hidden by the knee high grass from two wet years.

Maggie wades into the deeper parts of the pond even in the icy waters of November, as if she is taking her regular baptism in the waters of this place she has known since she was six weeks old. Her thick hair lifts up and seems to keep her afloat.
Ben holds back. His love of water stops when it becomes frigid, maybe because he doesnt have the thick undercoat that Maggie has.

I love fall, walking over dry and decaying leaves, through the scent of cool fresh air, when morning frost applies a silver coating across the meadow.

November is my birth month. Is that why I am so comfortable with the lonliness and scarcity of winter fields?