Fall has ushered moisture back into the landscape. Last week I approached the creek bed on our land and heard water happily murmuring to itself. Silt had turned the steady flow grayish-blue, as if the water retained a vague memory of the recent storm’s origin in the Caribbean. Ripples crowned the surface. All the leaves and other organic matter in the bed had led to clumps of foam which emitted trails of bubbles.

My walks take place in a damp world of soggy paths and darkened tree trunks. Often when temperatures fall in the evening and the air loses capacity for holding moisture, a cool mist coalesces among the trees. It pores in wide bands over sections of my ride home. In the morning vast clouds fill the valley with great wisps of mist rising towards the sky.