Lately, whenever I have sat down to write here, it has been as much from force of habit as anything else. I am often scrounging for things to say, because my griping about all the things I need to do is boring even me. But the second I decide to stop writing for a few days, I suddenly have so much to say that I can�t possibly step away from the keyboard.

Oh, the irony.

So instead I dump my crises, by way of long and whiny emails, on my well-meaning friends who are kind enough to ask how things are going. And by the way, said well-meaning friend is running the New York City marathon on Sunday, her first marathon ever. Go wish her good luck. Go ahead! I�ll wait.

Despite the 70-plus degree weather, fall has arrived in the Back of Beyond. We know this because breakfast here at the Harriet household has become a parade of wildlife (so far mostly an outdoor parade, but the field mice will, no doubt, be wandering into the house at the next frost, thus assuring our resident feline Mrs. Stein of some much-needed exercise). Yesterday morning a fox wandered across our deck, down the lawn and into AJ�s secret house (a cave in the trees overlooking the stream where we�ve set up some old logs to sit on). He stood with his front paws up on the log bench and sniffed the air, his long and luxurious tail twitching. This morning an enormous buck paraded through the back yard, stopping to scrape his antlers on the trunk of the pussy willow tree, peeling off some bark for a quick snack. We see the does and fawns often, but the bucks are much rarer. They only seem to venture into the yard when the leaves are off the trees.

But I, unfortunately, have little time for natural observations, even though what I would most like to do right now is go for a long walk in the woods. I must finish my conference paper today and email it to several people for commentary. I must finish a chapter by Monday and send it to my committee for commentary, along with requests for letters of recommendation. And I must get going on my cover letters, as the first deadline is a week from Tuesday. Playing Thoreau will have to wait.

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