It takes a lot of walking in autumn leaves, planting bulbs, and puttering in the garden to get some peace these days amid the slogans and shouting. Nature, at least, is ready for change: leaves turn bright and fall away, juvie eagles are gone to fish in open water somewhere else. We’ve had a rainy October and the colors were late in coming, but here they are, lighting up trees before drifting down to mulch the winter ground, the end of one growing season and preparation for another.

Yard and garden give us concrete things to do to bring success, and I am grateful to them for that clarity: observe their needs, nurture them, and be rewarded with fruit and flowers, usefulness and beauty, which seem otherwise to be in short supply.

I have planted a hundred more bulbs in front of the house, and a few shrubs in the edges of the woods; I have a few more still to plant. I want glory to come bursting out of the dirt come April, making neighborhood dog-walkers stop and look up from the echo chambers of their smartphones, at least for a moment. I won’t collect their data and sell it to advertizers while they’re looking at my daffodils.