First rain of the season

For the past three weekends my cousin and I have been doing deep yardwork, dragging downed branches to the side of the road for the Marin county fire department to grind up, beginning today. It’s been backbreaking labor. We dragged most of the wood down to the road in time just before the rains came, but we had to leave a half a pile, no one has been able to burn branches since 2017. We are utterly exhausted. It is backbreaking work, at night I dream of raking and dragging wood down to the road. Here we are, raking the forest just like Trump wanted. How ironic.

Oct. 17. Second rain, the crickets were in full song, stridulating for all their worth, as if to bring back summer—no matter that it was probably less than 50°. I think I’m going to have to give up sleeping in the summer teahouse when I visit my cousin. It was a long and soggy night. But the rain was over by 9 PM. Enough to wet the earth, and my sleeping bag, but not to dampen the soil. Petrichor was the flavor of the night.