Pick Up Sticks and Back to Blogging

I know it's fall (I've been in a deliberate denial) because the leaves are starting to really pile up. Oddly they have seem to have decided to just wither and fall off this year rather than turning pretty colors first. Perhaps they are not happy with the early cold either.

Accompanying the leaves are a mass of sticks that need to be piled for pickup. While living in the heart of Brooklyn I gave sticks very little thought. Now like a city kid learning that steak comes from a cow (or rather cattle) I am realizing trees make sticks. Trees and blustery days. It seems pretty elementary, but when you pick up a stick to play with as a kid you think of it as a discreet object rather than a former branch.

I would not be giving sticks so much thought if I were in my city apartment or just had one or two trees in the yard, but the small patch of woods that edge the house are a stick factory. So as I lug the sticks, I think "chop wood, carry water" and try to be zen. I also think it's sad that my stick piles don't look like the art of Peter "Beetle" Collins. How lovely what artistic intent can make of even a pile of sticks. Now back to blogging regularly.