I don't remember Autumn being like this when I was younger. Back then, it was a crisp, cold season, and by the time September rolled around I was donning my pressed white shirts and jumping on maple leaves to make them crack under my shiny new back-to-school shoes.
Now it's different. Or maybe it's the fact that I don't walk down that particularly street anymore, maybe it's the fact that my contacts with nature have shifted from a handful of trees in a sidewalk to a property that shifts from yellow to green as soon as the rains start. I wear sleeveless tops and rainboots. The air is thick, humid, the mosquitoes form faint little clouds a few meters above the grass, and everything smells both a little dead and very much alive. A year ago I wouldn't have been able to identify the smell, but you can teach your nose a few tricks with a handful of macerating bones.
(and now that I'm thinking about it, decomposition smells the way it does EXACTLY because something a little dead is being devoured by thousands of very much alive... other somethings)
I guess, like everybody else on the internet, I really love Autumn. It's just that summer feels so... lifeless to me. So bland. Autumn revives everything back for a few weeks before we plunge straight into Winter. It's reassuring.
It's also the season for us to relax in dog-related matters - Bo's flybite wounds start to heal as soon as the temperatures drop. It was our second summer together and we tried everything to keep the flies away from his ears, to no avail. The vet sympathised and recommended a few more tricks, but it was the same old mess as last year. Good thing Bo is a complete doll and won't mind us cleaning his ears and applying all sorts of strange-smelling ointments on him.
And if it looks like I post too many pictures of Bo, that's because Crude's shots usually end up looking like this:
I try, guys. I try.
xx
