My sense of time has been tumbled during the past two weeks, as I worked 14-15 hours a day seven days a week. Can two weeks really have passed in smear of experience? Apparently so. After 14 days on fire duty, the rules say you must take two days off. So I did.

The first thing to do is to fall into bed and sleep. Plan on resting for the first whole day. When awake, marvel at the fact that you don’t have to go anywhere, do anything. Home is a refuge–as much as a burrow, a deep pool, a tree top, the open sky (depending on what kind of animal you are). Home in September brings out the squirrel in me, so there has been a flurry of activity around the nest. I canned some pears. There are also pears to eat fresh. For a yummy dessert, slice up a ripe room-temperature Bartlett into a bowl and add mango sorbet. Contrast the tart with the sweet, firm with soft, warm with cold. Savor it, after the laundry is done and bills paid.

There is also house painting happening. Will my cottage be butter yellow before the snow flies? I don’t know, but progress is being made.

Somewhere not too far away, firefighters are still grubbing in dirt and ashes. Smoke still filters into the lowlands. There is no rain in the forecast. I may be called back–I don’t know. In the meantime, my sense of the days passing has returned to sort of normal. I missed the autumnal equinox. The world is tipping toward winter, in spite of the dry dusty smoky fall.