The red cider press is bolted to the deck and ready to go. Leaves spin down, our road already covered. Our apple trees are loaded with hanging fruit which are also beginning to drop. It is cider season. Tomorrow we will spend the morning of the holiday as we do most years, at the Labor Day parade a town over. We’ll park on the street where we always park, pull folding chairs from the back of the truck and find a spot in the shade to set up for viewing and candy-catching. After the parade there are all kinds of events going on in the center of town but we will be headed home to collect apples for the afternoon pressing. We’ll take every container we have, from thin-wood apple baskets to buckets to plastic milk crates. There is no finesse in apple gathering: it is a fire drill of as much as you can, as fast as you can. When we have all we can take in one load, we’ll pull the wagon back down the dirt road behind our ATV, two people and a small dog creating an apple parade.
Yesterday we celebrated Paul and his birthday. We began the festivities by stopping at the large outdoor flea market. It is every person for themselves at the market, we head off in separate directions hoping to bump into each other somewhere in the middle to show off our purchases. When Paul finds me my arms are full; a small light up snowman for my mother, a pile of books and cast iron pan. We compare purchases and fortify ourselves at the snack bar.
When the clock strikes 1:30 we head out to spend the rest of the afternoon hiking in the shadow of Mount Mansfield, the fields around us lit, as if on fire, by goldenrod. We see the thick-grasses wave coming toward us until Muir pops out at our feet and bolts off in the other direction. The mountainside looks uncertain, a lot of deep greens but new colors slash between them, waiting their turn to take over. The air is warm but clearer without as much humidity: fall arrives as does September.
On our way home I have planned dinner for us at a snack bar that we have been unable to get to this summer. Built in 1950 still running, you stand at the window to order. I surprise Paul by bringing him two of the restaurant’s much touted Michigan dogs and a paper container of fries. He laughs as he unwraps the dogs and we sit on a picnic table in the late afternoon sunshine.
We make sure we get home early enough to prepare for an evening campfire. While I frost the chocolate cake that I made that morning before leaving, I hear Paul rotating our Chiminea out of the garage. We’ve had a few of these impromptu fires and drop slips of paper to neighbors informing them of the time. We ask them to bring chairs but we will provide snacks. As people trickle in we begin to create a circle around the Chiminea. Paul splits wood into kindling and saves the larger bits. Without the sun or humidity the evenings are cooler and everybody hunches into their chairs with long sleeve shirts or sweaters tucked around them. Dogs are welcome and so it becomes a party for them as well. For a while they romp and sniff but soon are lulled by the flames into stretching out on their sides exposing their bellies to the warmth. I step over a few as I head into the house to get Paul’s cake. I come out with the chocolate cake and one candle pushed into the thick icing. Everyone launches into song as Paul smiles.
Early on our neighbors Pete and Donna arrive. Pete drives the car as close as he can and helps Donna to her chair. She struggles with Parkinson’s disease so it is difficult for her to get out of the house often. However, every time we have a fire she comes. She enjoys the company of her neighbors and tonight she sits talking and enjoying her cake. Their dog, Cooper, sits directly between them on the small flat rug they have brought for him. He looks back and forth as if he is their child before settling down.
Under the still full canopy of leaves there is quiet chatter punctuated by occasional loud laughter. We talk about the difficult things in the world but words are spoken with hope. I glance around in the shadows at the familiar faces of friends we have sat with here for almost twenty years. I think about how many important decisions are made in a circle, where everyone’s opinions and thoughts are valued and equal. How the warmth of a fire draws in sleepy dogs and neighbors who welcome companionship.
That morning as I was typing up the slips of paper announcing the Chiminea, I hesitated. There is work in baking cake, setting up chairs and dragging out the Chiminea and it seemed easier to come home from hiking and just watch a movie. But now I glance around and my eye catches Donna laughing with one of the kids from down the road whose face is smeared with chocolate and understand the very real importance of this circle.