Kickass waits for next summer

Kickass, the doorstop dog, like the keeper, needs time to adjust to the sudden stark view of the natural world, bare and boney, even skeletal as its leaf cover was dropped like a stripper’s kimono.  The village–Mazomanie, hidden all summer behind the green chlorophyll curtain, has emerged with its call of community, the message perhaps being: “Well, hello neighbor.  Hope you had a nice summer, but now winter is coming and we had best be aware of each other in case somebody needs help getting through to April.”

Over at the foot of the bluffs, the big river has done its morning temperature contrast displays, stringing a fat white pillow over the black-water meanders and then disappearing in the warmth of autumn mornings.

As always seems to be the case, the summer sped past as if it had some place to go, and it whispered that you were just damn lucky if you rode along because there would never be another summer just like this past one.  Kickass and the keeper will take that, savoring the memories and holding tight to optimistic anticipation for that next summer now in cold storage for just a few months.