Miss November

As if for a calendar layout, Bessie Anne decorated herself with fall foliage from the forsythia and posed as Miss November.  It doesn't take her long to pick up on a routine.  When I take a book and say, "I'm going outside now," she beats me to the door and leads the way to the bench on the deck.  I'm working on my winter tan, sitting in the morning sun and reading.  "Just a chapter or two" expands into 300-400 pages.  I tell myself every time that I'll put the book down when the sun gets too hot and we go back into the house.  Yeah, and how's that working?

Mr. November strolled through the yard with a couple of ladies in the morning.  I spotted the 3-point buck (that would be a 6-point in Texas, but that's not an accusation that Texans exaggerate) and two does while I was switching out girls in the milking room.  Hunting season ended a couple of days ago and the rut is about to begin, so it wasn't a surprise to see a buck roaming around.

Like the goats and chickens, come sundown and I'm ready to go to bed.  The long evening stretches out, seemingly forever.  It's been chilly, but not so cold after dark that I want to burn up precious firewood, so it's the recliner and lap robe, supplemented with a warm cat or two.  Changing the clocks has an effect; they slow down to a crawl.  Bedtime?  No, it's only 7:30.  Bedtime yet?  Grownups can't go to bed at 8:00.  How about now?  It's 8:30 and I close my eyes for just a minute.  We all wake up from our nap about 11 and go to bed.  Four-thirty a.m. and we're all wide awake.  I do much better with gradual, natural change.