November 1

It’s a new month, a full moon and a new time zone all at once – as well as being Sunday night, the beginning of a new week and the opening of deer season at daybreak. That’s a lot of beginnings! November is not my favorite month, in spite of all the good family time around Thanksgiving that will have all six of us here, plus Justin and Merlin. It is usually not cold enough to stiffen the ground, nor warm enough to eat outside. Ticks are still here, and abundant in their second profusion, even if the mosquitoes are gone. You can’t really enjoy the woods, for fear of the errant hunter, and the Bay is not only chilly but often whipped by the wind as it turns its course northwesterly.

It should be a good time to set back and write more, though, especially as winter preparations are well advanced: the wood is well stacked and high, the gardens well spread with manure and turned; the garlic is in and bedded down; the garage space is clear and clean for Régine’s car – ready for December, and yet November is there, present and gray, to be endured. Maybe I am too harsh – there will be days of surprising sunshine, and unexpected cold. And that long stretch when Mandoline joins us from Paris.

So this November, rather than enduring, I plan to take advantage of being as well prepared as I am (and this is really unusual!) to use the month’s lack of defining character as a good space in which to explore without distraction what might emerge in January as a new direction. And to advance Mainestreams, not more (after the first month’s experience five days a week would be a more fruitful and realistic pace than daily) but better…And of course to play with Merlin…