We had a bumper crop of acorns this year, plumped by abundant water and warmth. Sitting in the driveway in October, I felt bombarded by oak hail on even windless days as they pelted the roof of our Subaru – and me, hard hat required. Clever oaks, letting go of their leaves and seeding the next forest at the same time.

I’ll spend the next cold months detecting where the mice have been stashing them, not just in the wood pile, but in the car’s cabin air filter, various pockets in the engine cavity, and even the spare tire well, just like last year. The mice put the year to bed by turning my car into their larder. When I start the car, acorns rattle under the hood and across the interior dashboard when I take the first corner. I fully expect an oak sapling will sprout from the driver’s side heating duct.  

I filled a Mason jar with acorns. Now I’m forcing them to sprout in a special vase. The acorn nestles in a little cup atop and is encouraged to send roots down into the vase. Eventually a tree shoot goes upward, then leafs out and prepares for spring transplanting. This year’s acorns will be next year’s saplings. I envision a row of young oaks out front to complement the older ones I’ve been favoring among the firs to make climbing trees for my granddaughter with evenly-spaced limbs and room for perching. 

Birdsongs wane. The summer songsters are long gone – the bluebirds stayed the longest – and the owls are here, watching and awaiting. A familiar barred owl spent quite a long time sitting on an oak branch surveying open ground below one night. My game camera caught him. He preened, looked around, flew off, returned, perhaps consumed a mouse out of camera range, then spread his wings and was gone. I hear him most nights calling across the field to his hunting partners. He is selective about his camera candids.   

I’ve watched the deer since spring as their coats redden, then shed, then darken again for winter camouflage. A doe and three yearlings and an eight-point buck have been enjoying the drops from my two ancient apple trees. They bear fruit every other year. They visit most nights and my game camera catches him in action, browsing the ground, chewing, taking his time; bulking up. My French friend sees the photos and suggests I am feeding him so he’ll feed me. However, I hunt only with the camera, though I don’t begrudge someone else the shot at food. Pick-up trucks with gun racks park on the forest verge, no doubt scouting a suitable deer stand, tracking, ready for the season to open, as the days cool and shorten.   

It is pie weather. Fruitcake weather follows. The shortest day, the last day of the solar year, is still to come, but I’m thinking even farther ahead to how soon the days begin to lengthen again. The light is never static. Susan Cooper knows this tipping point:  

“All the long echoes sing the same delight, 

This shortest day, 

As promise wakens in the sleeping land”

In mid-October, I refilled the oil tank, having held out for as long as possible. The invoice confirms how much fuel I used last year, a thrifty 144 gallons. I am ready to spend it in the months ahead … but not just yet. I’d rather wear another sweater and a hat.

The annual two cords of firewood are stashed under cover where it can dry a final time; within easy reach of the wood stove. Fred came and cleaned the chimney. Between furnace, wood stove and sunshine through the front windows, we will be warm. Get out the down comforters. Add dog. Enough.

Summer and now autumn have been put to bed as we move indoors. The sun’s wick is turned down lower and lower with each dusk. All us denizens are perching, foraging, stashing, fattening, and waiting – the verbs of December – for the new year days to lengthen and awaken a new go-round. For now, we bears are preparing to sleep, to awaken when the maple trees promise us sugar.  

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