it breaks your heart

Tim Lincecum & co.

from elcapitan79 on flickr

Rainy. The regular baseball season ended in dramatic fashion on Wednesday.  No world championship for my Giants this year, but they will never be able to take last year away from us.

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, and rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just as the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches, and leaf clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone...

The late Bart Giamatti

Commissioner of Baseball

storage

Rainy. woolly caterpillar crossing the road in Ferrisberg. Young boy walking to school with a backpack and an umbrella. Boats on trailers on Rte 7. This same process was taking place last spring except the boats were going to the lakes then. Now they're heading to winter storage.

shift

Jupiter & the Milky Way
from Alireza Teimory on flickr

Sunny & warm. I feel fortunate to have a hobby that allows me to actually enjoy the increasing darkness that occurs this time of year. Was out doing some star gazing with Pete the other night, Jupiter very prominent in the east. We both noticed that the summer sound of the crickets had diminished quite a bit, but not completely gone. Monday night I was out looking for the northern lights, and noticed that the milky way has changed from its summer position of running north to south in the sky to its east west position for fall. I've gotten to the point that I can conceptually understand many of the movements that take place in the heavens; the changing of the moon and the constellations. I can't wrap my head around this particular shift of the milky way. I'll have to ask Pete.

neighborhood

from Rusty one on flickr

Sunny and mild. There have been a couple of times over the last two weeks when I have gone into the new armory in Rutland Town to serve breakfast to the National Guard. They are helping to make repairs in our area caused by hurricane Irene. It has been a great experience in many ways. It has given me an insight into the military that I never had before, and there is much I admire and respect. They are grateful for what we are doing, and we are, of course, grateful for their efforts.

Preparations start about 5:00 A.M. & so it is dark when I head out. I have gotten my first glimpse of my favorite constellation Orion along with the blue white ball of fire that is Sirius below and to the left. Seeing the return of these favorites is like the return of old friends. I never thought that I'd consider the constellations to a part of my ever shifting celestial neighborhood, but there it is. The night sky is currently clear, and I'm considering a little star gazing

foliage season

There is a new employee at work who grew up in Vermont, but has spent the last several years in Florida. I passed him in the hall the other day, and mentioned how he must be looking forward to foliage season. The gleam in his eye said it all.

There is an anticipation this time of year that is almost akin to Christmas morning as the trees begin to unwrap themselves. It is impossible to know if it's going to be a good year or not until it happens. The first trees to turn are those found in swamps and wet areas. Often they are among the most colorful.

The leaves can be brilliant on a sunny day, but, believe it or not, they are almost more impressive on a cloudy or rainy one. In a good foliage year, the leaves on the trees almost seem to give off their own light.

As you can see, I was out the other day trying to capture the expanding show of color I see all around me. On the one hand, it is frustrating that it seems impossible to recapture the emanations of red, gold, and yellow. On the other hand it seems only right that one has to come and see it to truly experience it.

The recently repatriated Vermonter said that all the forecasts point to an above average foliage season; something to do with all the rain we've had. I am happy for my brother, and his family who will be visiting from Montana in a couple of weeks. I think they will be amazed.

mums

Rainy. The bridge just south of Rutland on Rte 7 has been fixed, and that means Rutland is roughly back to where it was before Irene. Not as many dump trucks on the road now. Mums and other fall flowers on display. Three deer getting ready for winter by feasting in our compost pile the other morning. Turning on the lights in the car when driving to work in the morning. Corn guy in W. Rutland gone for the year, and Woods Mkt in Brandon closed for the season as well.

dense fog

Coming home from the Zen Center last night after the start of the term student program, the sky was clear; the Pleiades shining like a jewel in the eastern sky. Woke up this morning to dense fog. Apple stand open south of Middlebury.

In dense fog
what is being shouted between
hill and boat.
Basho
Zen page a day calendar