Another cool and beautiful morning, and we are idling a little before heaving ourselves into action: e.g., hauling Paul's furniture upstairs from the basement, shoving it into the back of the truck, flinging ourselves into our respective days. I am relieved not to be the person driving a load of furniture to Brooklyn today, but Tom seems pretty calm about it.

Things are peaceable here, on this first Saturday in September. Somewhere a pair of crows is squabbling, and I hear a nuthatch peeping. For the past few days black walnuts have been raining from my neighbor's huge tree, clonking cars and shed roofs, and thrilling an army of squirrels. But the tree is quiet now, and various squirrels are sitting up on their haunches gnawing big green nuts for breakfast, or busily burying them in my garden, or chasing each other round and round trees in pursuit of a better nut than the one they are currently clutching.

I have a few errands to run, and a few chores to do, and then, at some point this afternoon, I'll head north. This will be my first long lone drive since before the pandemic, and it will be good practice for me: some unstressful highway driving, on a nice day, to remind me that I know what I'm doing behind the wheel.

I'll bring along the Iliad, a bunch of ingredients to make spaghetti carbonara, and some ripe tomatoes. And then I'll just relax into the pleasure of being in the woods with some of my favorite people on earth.