The last Pamela egg of the season. The hens have slowed down laying in the coming cold. With homegrown potatoes and happy bacon, fresh basil from the pot in the sunroom.

The first day of December. Gardening in flip-flops, barely vested, more for pockets than for warmth. Sixty degrees in the sun. Feels like spring but looks like winter; subdued landscape of grays and browns, feels like early fall but lacks the brilliant colors.

Just a short snow, a couple of inches, to purify the brown ground. The white of rebirth, this is the day I’ve been waiting for all week. Time to stand and hear the nuthatch duet with the chickadee from the tips of two separate trees.

Inordinately fond of my goldfish, I spend too much time at the pond. Tiny fry burrow their mud-colored snouts into sediment on the sides, feeding on microbites.

The third flower finally opened on last year’s orchid, perfectly lit on the kitchen counter for only a few minutes just at sunrise.

The more ease I feel among the people around me, the more I see conflicts averted and resolved in generous ways that took work to get to for everyone involved, just being nice. The Dalai Lama was right: being nice to others is as selfish a thing as you can do because you just feel better; things go better for you if you are. This played out in a recent potential conflict with  missteps by all parties and inadvertent exacerbations; all among us kept our heads and played our roles and stayed out of others’ roles until, lo and behold, we all walked away smiling on this beautiful, fall-warm winter day.

Traffic jam on the downhill to town.

My favorite kind. Of traffic jam. Slowly plodding sheep, fast efficient dogs, Basque shepherds.