It's time to harvest the habaneros. They made quite a trip, as I planted them in the last place, and dug them up and brought them here. (The foto is from the last house, when the plants were very young). Especially as that was after I thought they all died. Before they even left the last garden. I don't know what it was. Like a shock that passed over all of them, or a wash of poison. They all sickened, shed some leaves, and then suddenly bounced back. I was very surprised. Somehow I felt invested in those peppers, emotionally and personally bound to them. I dug the garden and planted them when I came out here.

They have done well. It is time to take the peppers from their branches. I've already brought in all the cayenne. And the few jalapeños I planted. But my habaneros are my prize, or at least so I imagine. We'll see how they taste. I'm betting there's room for improvement next year. But I'm still proud of them for thriving. They've been through a lot.

I almost went to pick them a little while ago. But they are now in the dirt that is more or less under a neighbor's large window. And I thought it might be a good idea not to let someone look out of their dawn window to see a human shape in the shadows doing indiscernable things in the dirt.

For a few minutes, I am standing outside in the dark, deciding whether or not to crouch down under the window and pick my peppers. Some of that time I am not deciding. I am standing and listening to the trees talking in the wind. I am looking over the hill I am on at the town just below. The sky is dark, but low clouds are visible, softly painted gold underneath by the town's streetlights. And up in the light by the wires, the trees are excitedly moving every leaf. I can see a light rain falling in the tall light on the pole. I can see the leaves moving, but the sound they make steals my attention. The whooshing whisper is all about my ears, but low...subtle harmony to the dawn.

I walk back inside, my loose worn jeans cuffed up and my Dia de Los Muertos kix half-laced. I feel grateful for my cool clothes, and my sneaks. They feel good on me, and they look good, too. Mind you, I'm not some dogma-practicing person...I don't force these thoughts on myself. I don't invent them. They rush over me as surely as the morning light does. They too, are a gift. Perhaps just an unbidden comparison to days past, or fears once felt. Either way, the thoughts and feelings come to me just as freely as fury comes to me during different moments. Like an inexorable sun. And for natural feelings of gratitude, I am, again, grateful. They make my life worth it. As we know, there's fury and despair to spare.

Oregon has some very tall trees. The land reminds me of upstate New York, but the mountains are sharper. And the trees are, overall, much taller. And pineier as a whole. (Bet you didn't know I was the president of the science alliance in my first college eh? Words like "pineier" are available to matriculated vatos).

It's getting rainy, lately. it's getting gray. But a nice part of the cloud dance that Mother Nature does here in my part of the Pacific North West is that on some days the cloud cover burns off after a few hours. Either way, come the Winter, it will be raining almost all the time. Winter in Oregon is basically like a Spring in New York. Well, I hear that even Winter in New York isn't quite what it used to be. Weather is not what it used to be in a few places, from what I read.

Even so, the cool weather has definitely arrived here. I don't mind. I always have loved autumn. I feel my inner self move with la planeta...a part of me to be left behind, a part prepares for change, and renewal.