A fine fall day

The sun is shining, the air is brisk, the leaves are beginning to change, and the day is about as perfect as is possible. Light through the trees onto the back deck is tinged the gentler, lighter green of the slowly dying leaves and makes everything glow.

I absolutely love it.

It's easy to see fall as the harbinger of the bleak winter to come, but I never view it that way. Living in North Carolina, I instead think of it as a welcome respite from the heat of summer.

In the middle of the afternoon today, we took the dogs for a walk. Their thick coats, sources of easy overheating in the summer, are now just about right. The smelloverse available to them keeps them constantly interested. They stick close to us and occasionally take a sniff and then glance at us as if to say, "Did you catch that? Wasn't it great?" Of course, we didn't, because our noses are so greatly inferior to theirs, but they don't know that, so I always try to act as if I did.

These days won't last long here, but while we have them, I intend to take as many dog walks as I can.

Tomorrow, I hope to report on another grand treat and fall tradition: the North Carolina State Fair.