I feel it in my bones...
Winter is nigh.

It was about 60 F degrees in the house when I woke this morning, but I didn't have to feel the cold to know. The chill has been in my bones, mostly in the late afternoon, for several days now.

While walking Ansel, I've noticed the leaves have begun their ritual of submission to the inevitable change that is to come.

Even the burrs show signs of giving up their life-cycle.

Day by day, a small, almost imperceptible, part of daylight is lost and a slug of darkness oozes in to take its place. The weather alternates, quickly, between clear crisp high pressure systems with picture book clouds:

And days of cold drizzle with a dampness that penetrates to the bone:This time of year is sobbering for me. It touches something hard-wired in my brain (or is it my soul?). It is the closing of the circle for this year as the cycles of life go on. And, oddly enough, two lines from two poems keep going through my mind.

1. "I must go down to the sea again..."

2. "Go not gently into that dark night...."

Paddle safe...

DS