Fall

It seems the cold hand of death still hovers over the Shaker House™ (no, it’s not really trademarked I just learned how to make the symbol this week and wanted to use it). Right when I stopped contemplating why we had to lose a loving dog who was full of joy and flatulence, while the chickens, who have nothing to offer but rage and empty ovaries (they’ve all gone through menopause, so they’re basically freeloading, eggless, tiny feathered dinosaurs) all mange to solider on, death stepped in.

I can’t tell the chickens apart so I have no idea if this is the one that died.

We lost a chicken this week. That’s right, after I spent three weeks musing about the death of someone, they died. Yes, I’m in awe of my power as well. Don’t piss me off.

We’re not really sure what happened to the chicken — she didn’t come in one night and we found her dead the next day. I’m guessing a local cat got her, but we’re not on an episode of CSI: Chickens, so we’ll probably never know.

With the exception of this chicken, pretty much everyone who I have known who has died in the last ten years has died in September. I am not a fan of September. October, however, is a month I can get behind. BEHOLD!

These photos are from walks with Dyna this week. I don’t usually take my phone on walks because I take walks to get away from things like texts and email notifications, but when I realized that by taking my phone on a few walks I could get easy blog content AND make people jealous of where I live, taking the phone was no longer a big deal. Laziness and the pain of others motivates me.

Now, I could get all self-deprecating here and write about how loving fall makes me basic, but the only thing more basic than loving fall is making jokes about how basic you are for loving fall. I will say that I am not a big fan of pumpkin spice products, (pumpkin spice lattes! pumpkin spice protein bars! pumpkin spice air freshener! pumpkin spice anal lube!) but I don’t judge anyone who is. I do like pumpkin pie, but I also think Garrison Keillor cuts right to the core of pumpkin pie: ““Pumpkin pie is the essence of mediocrity. The very best pumpkin pie you ever tasted is practically indistinguishable from the very worst pumpkin pie you ever tasted.” Pumpkin pie is the most American of desserts. USA! USA!

I wasn’t a big fall fan before moving to New Hampshire. The foliage in Virginia is nice and all, but not worth driving to see. In Texas, the leaves just turn this sort of booger-yellow color. In a New Hampshire autumn, however, you can understand why people plan vacations to see a bunch of leaves.

The best part about autumn here is that every day the leaves seem to get better. When I head out for a walk I’ll think to myself, “Today! Today is peak color!” and then the next day, “No, wait — today is better than yesterday! Today is peak color!” and then the next day, “TODAY! TODAY IS THE BEST DAY,” and then the next day I’ll go out and think, “Yesterday was definitely peak. WHY, GOD? WHY!?” because once peak color has passed we’re looking at 5 months of cold darkness here, so excuse me while I wrap myself in several quilts and weep. (If you think I’m being a wuss, just know that snow is predicted for this weekend. IN OCTOBER.)

People who are actually from New Hampshire are more stoic about it the shift from fall to winter. If one year spring never came, I’m pretty sure that true Granite Staters would just shrug, put on some more flannel, eat a few more cider doughnuts and carry on thinking about Tom Brady naked.