As the season travels forward, I'm looking forward to enjoying autumns color as long as it holds on. We Wisconsinites know that the weather can change on a dime here. Whatever happens, the beauty will be there, one way or another. And you can find it, at The Park Next Door.🍁

Dear Autumn,

Please don't go. Stay, a little longer. Charm me, once more, with your bold and warm wardrobe of falling leaves. Your reds, and oranges, and golds. With the musky scent of you. With the sound of your voice blowing in the cool night breeze, and crisply rising from beneath my walking feet. With the distant call of migrating birds passing overhead beneath dark skies.

Keep me company while the days grow shorter. Temper the melancholy as I find a sunny spot to watch you fall, while I sip something warm. Put your branches around me as I mourn the fading of the flowers in my garden. Show me, kindly, how time marches on, beauty by its side. Teach me to find comfort in the brevity of your days, even though I want to hold on.

Sweet Autumn, I am grateful for our time together. I savor the moments of beauty spent walking the woodland trails, and your companionship creek side, as the waters flow, artfully clothed in your fallen bits and baubles.

I don't want you to go. I need more time. There's so much more about you I want to know. I want to see. I want to breathe. I want to feel. But I know it's not for us to say. Time marches on. And so do you.  But I will be here waiting for you, come next September.  And the next...🍁

In my experience, cats are either cuddle buddies, or wanderers. We had cats as family pets, growing up. But I haven't had a cat as a pet in a long time. Definitely not while I have had pet birds. Unless they start out together, it's not the best combination. 

We have had experience with feral cats visiting our backyard habitat.  In the summer of 2021, there was a mother cat and six of her kittens that liked to hang out in our garden, sunning on the stone wall, napping in  the quiet afternoon.  I know the damage feral cats can do to the population of songbirds, and other bird life.  As a bird watcher, I understand that well.  And yet...we couldn't get near them to attempt any kind of rescue.

​I was surprised at how emotional I was feeling. We humans, we like to read into things. It was my birthday. I was missing my mom, the anniversary of her death just a few weeks ago. She was a cat person. I told my husband maybe my mom sent her to me as a birthday gift. Maybe it was her way of walking the trail with us, of spending the day with us. Like I said, we like to read into things.
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​It's true that on the way back home I shed a tear, worrying about Binx. Would she be okay. Would she have food to eat and a warm place to sleep. But the truth of the matter is, she more than likely had a home in one of those households, and was simply an outdoors cat who went on an adventure with two kind strangers. I'm still thinking about her. And I'm still tempted to return to see if she is ok. And I'm still conflicted. But one thing I do know for sure, is that her presence, her companionship, on our hike that day was a gift. And one I will always treasure. ​