leaf map, rising dough, starlings

The scars and erosions of time and predation have stories to tell.

I have been baking bread about once a week for the last fifteen years. Yet it always with slight trepidation that I lift the cloth over the fermenting dough to see if it is rising as it should; and, though I can't remember a time when it is has not risen, it is with a sense of satisfaction that I see that it has.

At this time of year, the starlings that I have heard twittering and fluting but not been able to see, become visible in the branches of trees, where the leaves have fallen, and where they sit like large and mysterious fruit.