Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

As we approach our shortest day, we seem to have a lot of night. Darkness greets us in the morning and beats us to our beds. In November's nights are sounds of rustling leaves, dry and frozen, scampering as on tiny feet on my brick patio floor, rushing eagerly to some leeward corner.

In the darkness, Chloe barks frantically till her sleepy master comes to investigate and to reassure her that a gray fox on the picnic table won't harm her because it is dead. In a November night, coyote yelps carry on winds of dormancy.

Unseen in the darkness, raindrops patter gently on the manure-splattered...