little origami boxes for seeds. i think they look like chameleon eyes.

mallow seed pods (malva, malvaceae)

gunflint lodge, minnesota

for me, russet and gray defines november:  russet oak leaves against a gray sky, russet-colored pine needles lining the edges of a gray gravel walking path,  russet cattail leaves frozen into the steely gray ice of our lake.  it all says november. and only november. by december it will all be white.

grey beach rocks from lake superior, and russet-colored white cedar leaves from my yard

when the temperatures first turn cold and there is still a lot of moisture in the air, our mornings look like like someone sprinkled powdered sugar on the entire city while we slept.  i am finding that i really like these edges of seasons.  the in-between times when twice as much is happening.

november morning frost

my backyard, saint paul, minnesota

every morning since july, our six girls have been laying six eggs a day.  in the summer, i leave the front door propped open so the dog can wander in and out.  one of our more spirited hens, glimmer, found her way in one morning. she strode down the hall to my son’s bedroom, where she promptly made a nest in the down comforter on his bed, and laid her morning egg.  she announced her success with a short laying song, and then marched back outside to join her sisters. since then, the down comforter has been the spot she feels entitled to have access to each morning. now that the temperature is too cold to leave the door open, she pecks at the glass to ask to come in.  if we don’t answer, she goes around the back of the house to see if she can get our attention by pecking at the rear sliding door (which involves climbing two flights of steps). on the few mornings we have been gone and unable to accomodate her, we find her egg wherever she has given up waiting for us–sometimes on a patio chair, sometimes on one of the steps, sometimes on the front stoop. this is a long way of admitting that, yes, in our somewhat unconventional household, our chicken, glimmer, lays an egg on joseph’s bed every morning. he is often still in his room when she does, so he gets to the egg within seconds of its being laid, when it is still warm (105 degrees) and often still has a drip of bloom. the bloom is a mucus that coats and seals the porous egg shell as it is laid.  it dries very quickly after the egg is exposed to air. i had to really scramble just to get this shot before it dried.

glimmer’s impertinent adventures are also chronicled on instagram here.

chicken egg with still wet bloom or cuticle

joseph’s bedroom, saint paul, minnesota

the large maple tree beside our deck held onto its leaves for an unusually long time this fall. and then one day this week, POOF, they all dropped in a single day. we’ve been in this house eight years, and i’ve never seen that before.

maple leaves in november

my back yard, saint paul, minnesota