I’ve always loved November because it has my birthday in it. It’s my personal new year, the end of one thing that begins another. This is a time of year that could reasonably produce melancholy, but for me it’s a time for opening presents and eating cake. Actually, I prefer pie, but same idea – festive. Joyous. It was mild enough this fall that our pear tree still boasts some color, but the bones of the tree are already showing through.

Frost has fractured the zinnias and cosmos, but the big white hydrangea heads have dried on their stalks into sturdy puffs, ready to be cut and brought inside to decorate the Thanksgiving table. There’s still time to plant tulip bulbs in the fenced garden and daffodil bulbs out where the deer go, plain, brown, lumpy bulbs that will burst out in twirly skirts come spring.

The milkweed pods are bursting out right now, into their world of angel wings, fluffy seeds setting sail. Underground their rhizones are spreading too, so that next year there will be more food for butterflies. Spring is the time of new starts, but fall is the time of setting up for them.

The herb garden will be the last to go. Lavender, thyme, and mint intertwine as though they’re keeping each other warm, and there will be plenty of sage for the Thanksgiving turkey platter. But that’s for later – after the birthday celebration. First I get the cake, and the candle, and I get to make a wish. They say to be careful what we wish for, but with the state the world is in, perhaps all well-wishers need to throw caution to the wind.