Gloomy

Goodbye, 60 degrees. I’ll see you again in March or April. It’s been nice to have you around but you’ve kind of overstayed your holiday. I really don’t expect to see you for day upon day in November, especially not at the end of November.

For a very brief moment at sunrise today, the sun made an appearance. This was immediately followed by rain and a steadily dropping temperature ever since. It’s not cold enough to make snow on the mountain yet, but I’m thinking it will be in another week.

The rain this morning was enough to keep the hunters away from Roundtop. I didn’t hear any shooting or see any vehicles inching their way up the mountain. The deer, assuming they weren’t shot, are in hiding and were not in evidence anywhere this morning either. And so the dogs got their normal early morning walk by the light of my dimming headlamp. It was only a week or so ago that the morning walks still had some beginnings of the morning’s light. Now, it’s as dark as midnight again. The darkest days of the year have arrived.

These are the days when it’s nearly dark when I leave the cabin in the mornings and quite dark when I return home. The birdseed disappears daily, but I won’t get to see the birds until the weekend. I hate that. I always imagine the rarest of the rare arriving at my feeders when I can’t see them. Logically, I know this is unlikely, particularly in November, but logic isn’t the point, is it? Sometimes November can be a hard month, even when it is 60 degrees.