Run With Mu

Fall in North Texas may not be like your Fall, but it can be a pretty sweet deal. Since last Friday, it’s been clear skies and mid-seventies temps, with that slight burnished steeliness to the air that points, however hesitantly, toward the brief Winter to come. For this week through the weekend, apparently more of the same in store. We’ve traded Indian Summer for Indian Spring.

Witnessed on the run these past few days: a turtle artlessly tumbling into a scum-scudded pond; an aging horse gazing over a fence with contented, rheumy eyes; a single line of migrating ducks skimming the lake’s surface; an explosion of mushrooms pushing their way out of a damp ravine; the deep, satisfied croaking of cormorants, targeting their winter refugee camp in the ruined trees at the lake’s south end. Soon the acrid aroma of half-digested fish will transform the trail in that area into the accurately, if rather unpoetically-named, “Birdshit Corner.”

Birdshit, turtles and mushrooms, old horses, clear sky, cool breezes prickling the hair on the arms and legs. It’s all good and as it should be. Enjoy your running and sitting this Fall.