Autumn is slowly, but surely stealing in. The days are still reaching into the low 80's, but the nights are cooling down do the mid 40's and the early mornings have a bracing, crisp freshness to them. Still not a sign of any rainstorms, but surely they will be rolling in by next month. Please.
The weekend was a strange one -- both relaxing and busy. I woke up early and scored the last 18 of my students' Writer's Notebooks. This always takes hours -- I simply can't read them quickly. Then I went on to grading other student homework. I didn't get a chance to do much around the place as I had to drive down to the Valley both days. On Saturday afternoon I attended a memorial reception for the father of one of my long-time coworkers. I'd never met him, so there was no personal sadness of my own to deal with. I ended up sitting on the porch step of an old house set in an almond orchard talking and eating with a bunch of friends from school. It was a warm, lazy sort of afternoon and the almond leaves drifted down as we sat. After an hour or so I went back home.
Bruce was down in the depression that used to hold our pond, dredging out dried mud with the tractor. The opportunity to remove this buildup is, as far as I can see, the only silver lining to several years of drought. Bruce was happy moving piles of dirt so I left him to his fun. I did some watering and then went back to school work; this time reading up on pendulums for a science investigation we'll be doing with the 4th and 5th graders tomorrow.
Today I did more reading for school; this time to learn more about how to run our classroom book clubs that are called Literature Circles. That came together well -- it feels good to figure things out. Then Bruce and I drove over to Oakdale to watch one of my students ride in a gymkhana. He's only been riding for about a month, but his horse is kind and the two of them looked good cantering around the arena. I must admit that I don't often take time to go watch my students in activities outside of school hours. But I'm glad that I went to this and was touched by how much it meant to my student and his mother that we came.
After that, we went down to Modesto for sushi, grocery shopping and then home again. By then it was almost dark and we did a little watering, collected eggs, herded the geese into the barn and fed Corny. Then I came in and wrote up lesson plans for next week and answered emails. Now I'm blogging. As soon as I'm done with this, I'll be going to bed. And thus endeth another weekend. I was busy, busy, busy and yet it somehow feels like I didn't rush around like I usually do. I'm not exactly rested, but I am content. It's an odd sort of feeling. And so to bed.
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