A Saturday at home! I am so glad to be going nowhere. Tom was up and out of the house at 5, off to take pictures at first light, but I lazed in bed a bit longer, then rolled downstairs to make coffee, and now here I am, doing nothing other than listening to the crickets and the birds and to Ruckus and his best friend Jack, who are slinking across the front yard and quietly yowling at each other. (Recently, the cats have taken to having these long companionable yowly conversations while they pace around together. It's very silly.)

I've got yard and garden work to get done today, and a few errands to run, but I'm not feeling pressed. There's time to laze around for a while, and I plan to. Tomorrow night we've got friends coming for dinner, but today is spacious. Yard things, kitchen things, desk things . . . baseball on the radio . . . a book in the hammock . . . summer-sweetness, and a slow amble through the hours.

Autumn looms, with all of its obligations. The days wane, a chill will set it, and I will light the wood stove again and be happy in a different way. I will have a strong roof and trimmed maples and new brakes and a pile of firewood and lots of work to do and someone to cuddle with under a blanket, but still there will be elegy: for open windows and crickets, for the overflowing garden, for color, for skin kissing air.