Fall reminds me of change.

We ready ourselves to transition from the warmth and color of summer to the stodgy gray of winter. You think of winter as white? You've never lived in the snow belt. After the snowfall, everything turns to slush.

But there's always the beauty of nature in it. I watch this one squirrel who daily takes a black walnut from my stoop, rushes to the back deck and jumps into the tree. Lazy little bastard. But he's fattening for winter.

As the leaves drop, and where I live, they rain down, I can get a better glimpse of Lake Lemon where I have been lucky enough to live these last five months. At the same time, you get to see the real shape of the trees.

Today was 55 degrees -- my favorite temperature as a warm-blooded son of the Wisconsin Nort'woods and the offspring of a Canadian immigrant. I remember complaining to my naturalized mother about it being cold in Chippewa Falls. She'd say, "Oh stop it. You don't know cold." In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she grew up, school was never cancelled even when it was 60 below with winds howling off the prairie. The teachers and kids wore their coats in the classroom and the teacher would read from a book because there was frost on the chalkboards. I'd like Neil Young to write a song called "Frost on the Chalkboards." Then I want k.d. lang to cover it.

I like to wake up buried under blankets with a cold nose. Should someone adopt me as a puppy? A really big, old puppy?

So change is coming, certainly a new place to live and maybe an actual newspaper job.

Change is good because inevitably there comes the rebirth of spring and then the warming sun of summer.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Peace and change unto you my brothers and sisters.