At distance the Barbados Cherry is unremarkable. A green shrub beneath green trees. Up close it’s another story. There’s a show. It’s covered in buds, less than 3/16th of an inch, and flowers that are about 5/8th of an inch. The flower has five petals, a single pedal at the top, one pedal on either side, reaching out like arms, and two pedals at the bottom that are close together and have the appearance of legs. There are yellow stamens in the center where the little cherry soon will be.

I have written before about fourth dimensional traps. They open inexplicably. Suck items into the fourth dimension and spit them out at some point down the road in inexplicable places. Last month I lost my reading glasses. Couldn’t find them. Searched every surface in the house, top to bottom. Bought replacements, as in plural, a box of five from the giant online retailer.

There is one weird window in my house. It’s in my bedroom, on the west wall at the south corner of the room. I have no idea why it’s there, because the house was built and laid out to avoid sun exposure. It’s a chink in our armor. I’m writing about it today, however, because I sleep facing that window and last night during my 2 a.m. wake-up, I thought someone was shining a light into my room. But it was only the moon shining through the weird window and the Venetian blind that covers it.

Freed from the shadow of the Turks Caps, the Marie Pavia rose has leafed out in all it’s glory. It still gets a dab of morning sun, but now the afternoon sun streams down the drive and across the porch to touch the rose in ways it’s not been touched in a while. And to help it take advantage, I also amended the soil at its feet with a conditioner. I can’t believe I was so inattentive to its dilemma.

One of my favorite recipes contains these simple words, a hearty dollop of sour cream. The word hearty carries a feeling of joy and is the epitome of the idea when you cook that you measure with your heart. The word dollop means a small, soft lump or blob, but when modified by hearty, you’re being given permission to go a little crazy, to live outside the box.

The coming of fall and winter brings me a personal pleasure I never would have imagined as a younger man. It comes after that moment in the night when I can longer sleep and the tossing and turning drives me from beneath the covers. I go onto the porch, jacketless. I embrace the cold air. The cold air embraces me. I stare into the night. Sometimes there’s a breeze. Mostly not. Usually, it’s just the cold and me.

My team won last night, which is an odd thing to say because the team is only mine in the sense that I went to college there and have donated money over the years. But I have no say over the program or its direction or how it plays the game. My only job is to cheer and go to the games if I can get there. I’ve been to one this year and might go to another. Over the years I’ve attended lots of games, mostly in the company of a group of close friends who also call it their team.

Another weather report. The morning low is in the 40s. That’s it, except to note that it feels good to walk outside on a cool morning. I wonder, however, if this is how it felt when the Little Ice age started in the 14^th century. One morning everyone got up, and it was cool outside and it stayed cool for six centuries. And no one much noticed. It was just the weather.

My goodness. The weather is turning. A north wind is blowing in a cold front. Over the next several days we’ll have highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, and memories of summer will be blown out the door. And that’s it for this archaic weather report. Because these days all one needs to do is roll over in the morning and look at a phone to see what’s up when it comes to the comings and goings of Mother Nature. Even TV is outdated.

In the evening, as I stand on the east end of my southern porch and look out over the dark park next door, I can see the lights in the tops of the trees of the electric co-op as they get ready for the Christmas season. It officially launches on Thanksgiving weekend, which is more than a month away, but there are a lot of trees to cover and it takes time and effort to get the lights just right. So, up go the men in the cherry-pickers and the lights will be there for Halloween.

I’m going to do something different. I’m shortening these tiny essays. In the digital world in which we live, where getting someone to watch a video for three seconds is a big deal, 300 words and three paragraphs feel like long form writing. So, I’m dropping back to two paragraphs. I liked three because it felt like a beginning, a middle, and an end. But in the beginning, it was only two, and given the current mundaneness of my life, going back seems fitting.

Slept until seven, which seems a waste of an entirely good morning. I have no idea how my alarm failed me, or why. I distinctly remember ensuring it was set. Of course, it might have gone off, and my tired body simply ignored it. Sometimes my body sends messages like that. I do know I woke up at three and felt wide awake. But I cooled myself down with a little ice pack. That may have been the trick that sent me into a deeper sleep than planned, in addition to the chamomile tea from earlier in the evening.

Well, the garden of the front porch is rid of the Turks Caps. They had a nice run, but I’m ready for new plantings. First, however, I need to amend the soil. It’s got too much clay, according to my arborist son, and needs a little something to break it up. We planted some red clover yesterday and that will help in the long run, but it needs something like rice hulls to make it a bit more friable so that oxygen can get to the roots.

I’ve started making my own coffee creamer. Half and Half blended with sweetened condensed milk. My bullet does the job. It lasts a good while. There’s probably a small cost savings, but the big saving is no chemical additives. Although, I’m fairly certain at this stage of my life there’s not much left to reduce when it comes to loss of longevity through use of chemical additives. I think it’s just fun.

They say a watched pot never boils, and sometimes I think a watched plant never blooms. Several years back I moved the schoolhouse flowers to three different beds around the yard. There were lots of bulbs, way more than enough to go around. But none of them seemed to thrive. Until this year.

I bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday. I splurged and bought a battery operated, handheld model from a maker of some repute. It cost a pretty penny, but if it lasts ten years then the cost per year will be small. From one day’s experience, I think it’s safe to say my frequency of pulling out the vacuum will increase. The new machine is easy to use. No more bulk. No more chords.

The second Turk’s Cap is well and fully dug up, and the path for sunlight for the rose is mostly open. Only one to go. In my search for new companion plants, I came upon old familiars, lavender, salvia, and catmint. Suits me. All have been in the beds before, and now it looks as though they shall return. The front porch garden will have a new look this spring.

I dug up one of the Turk’s Caps yesterday. The Marie Pavia rose in the front porch flowerbed is down one competitor. It was easier than anticipated. Sixteen years of rotting oak leaves has given me nice, loamy soil. I’d like to think the next ones will come up with equal ease, but I’ve discovered the way of the world sometimes lures you in with something easy before banging you over the head with the hard thing.

Yesterday, I asked. Is it Fall? The answer this morning is yes. It’s 62, and I need to think about shelter for the cats. We’re down to two, and one of them is new. A tom. He’s getting used to the routine. He waits at the door for breakfast, shows up for dinner, and hangs on the porch during the day. I’ll bring down crates and bedding this afternoon and set them up on the south porch. No need for the heat lamps, but a warm spot to cuddle is good. 62 is probably chilly, even for a cat.

Thank you, Polo. Your tropical moisture was most welcome. I logged close to four inches at my house. Best of all it came down at a relatively steady pace over several days. So, there were no flash floods to speak of. The Llano River puffed up but the flood control lakes controlled the flood, and the water made its way to the sea without incident. The rain made a local music festival a muddy mess, but that was the extent of the generated news.