The cold is coming. It hasn’t reached us yet, but the rain ahead of it knocked the maple leaves to the ground en masse last night. I don’t mind the chill so much as the moving away from this week’s sweet foggy mornings. The gauzy curtains of mist were comforting and protective, setting up a make-believe border of quiet and stillness around the farm, letting me wander from one lazy farm chore to the other without compulsion, as if time were suspended.

It is all about the landscape now, this slow march to winter. I can’t take my eyes off the shifting shapes and colors and textures that nature randomly yet gracefully offers up on a daily, hourly, almost minute-by-minute basis.

My good camera is still broken, but that hasn’t stopped me from exploiting the phone camera. Fuzzy images or not, they must be taken. I have to grab some of these moments. Especially the ones where a little girl (who’s not so little any more) wanders into the frame.

A good farm chore to do together: Removing tomato clips from the trellis while listening to music on the iPhone. First song up, of all things, Gabriel’s Oboe (the beautiful theme from the movie The Mission). Don’t worry, lest you think this is a bit morose for a 12-year-old, Taylor Swift was up next on the playlist. And a little basketball practice. (Next sport for Libby this winter.) More fun tossing those little clips into the bucket from a distance, don’t you know.

Watching Libby grow up is like observing nature. There are so many subtle shifts that you don’t notice if you’re not paying close attention. And then one day a season has passed and a whole new one is right there, undeniably. It is stunning and heart-achy at the same time. Why can’t time stand still? I never used to think that—I was always projecting into the future, looking for something to come. Now, not so much. What is right here, right now is the best.