Not five days ago, the dribbles and drabs of fall: the gradual gilding of the walnut trees on my parkway, the sudden appearance of marauding magpies and squirrels as the few walnuts hit the ground. I was scrambling to get the perennials cut back and the garden harvested of the last of the tomatoes, zucchini and broccoli. And scrambling to eat all those fresh veggies. Such a bittersweet challenge.

The weatherman warned of cold and wet and maybe, even snow. Time to dig carrots. All summer I had barely looked at the row of carrots, except to thin them the first time. I never did get around to thinning them again, as I wanted, so I never did look too close at the row out of guilt of my neglect. Besides, we had all we could do to keep up with all the bounty of vegetables we had: broccoli, chard, lettuce, radishes, green onions, spinach, cabbage, tomatoes and zucchini.

My husband ended up doing the digging in the rain. After washing and sorting them, he left them on the lawn until I returned from taking my mother shopping. I was so surprised at the simple beauty of that pile of near perfect tangerine-colored carrots. We’ve planted carrots every year for decades and never have we had such straight, perfect carrots.

For years and years, we’ve gathered the rocks up from the soil hoping to eliminate all the crocked, deformed carrots. We’ve fought ants and bad germination and just not growing. (last year).

I could write an ode to the carrots. They are that beautiful but all I can think of is carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I’ve been so busy the last couple of weeks working on my writing, half the time I feel out of breath. I’m doing another great workshop with Melanie Faith called Following the Golden Thread: A Tapestry of Poetry and it is marvelous. Deliciously inspiring and the book we’re using for our text just like my carrots. Simply perfection. Each chapter is a gem. The Try This sections giving me so many ideas I’ll never get to the all.

Poetry always kicks up my energy and my productivity in my writing. I need to remember that and always have a poem going.

The workshop opportunity didn’t come at the best of times, but I wanted to do it and my husband said something so smart. “You get feedback here, where you don’t get a lot of feedback from the novels and even when you do, it is so delayed that it almost doesn’t count. You need this to feed the rest.” Smart man.

Still, because I’m determined to finish, Ellie and the Tie-down Man and get it out there in the world, (It’s a principle or goal or…One more thing I promised I’d accomplish, if I got better. It near broke my heart when I packed all the research, drafts, notes and copies away. I wasn’t sure whether I would ever finish and the novel was right there at the spot of needing just a bit of tender care to finish.) I’m working on the novel, too. It means working on the novel in the mornings and the poetry in the afternoons and still doing my other jobs. (Those jobs don’t pay either—you know, chief cook and bottlewasher, caregiver, go-to person.)

And above all, don’t stress. Do I look stressed?

I feel—spun. Good, but dizzy. And that is seed of my poem for this week.