Stop by if you like apples.

Apparently dropping off a box of your extra apples from your tree makes me crazy. I am already fat enough, but two apple pies and an apple crisp will surely make me a little sassy too. Right? Anyone? Dammit.

Across the fields, like old men, appear. . . .

So, Fall. This is my favorite time of year. I have always hated the heat of summer, and the muddy, crappy, messy life of spring is not exciting to me. It probably doesn't help that I have an enormous dog with enormous feet to deal with when my 9 acre yard is composed of 8 acres of mud and 1 acre of buildings. Winter is great but does mean I have to watch idiots drive SUV's into the ditch and then expect me to care as I drive by unconcerned in my 14 lb Dodge Neon.

So, Fall. The death of vegetation and the increasingly cold air make me feel alive. The cold I have always liked, partly as a gentle reference to the shattering cold of January, which always makes me feel like life is actually a struggle and there is a fight to be won, (against homicidal mother nature) instead of what our advanced society generally makes me feel. It makes me feel that any idiot, no matter how incapable of rational thought or common sense, can have anything they feel they deserve. Everyone gets a college degree, everyone can have a job in the financial sector and ANYONE can be president. But smallpox? Nobody gets THAT anymore.

So, Fall. There's a great song by Charlie Maguire called "Fall is Here." It's a little a capella folk song about the signs of fall that make me think of the things I love in the world. Children, hunting, seeing the farmers in the field, and even the occasional cow. There's nothing about going up north to see the leaves change or Christmas shopping. Just the simple life in the country and how fall changes things. The ebb and flow of time seems so much more apparent as the combines come out of the shed and the tall corn starts disappearing from the land around me.

So, Fall.

Now that's an anniversary.

HOBBIES.

So, I hate working. I don't hate my job, I just hate to work. This is confusing. I'm a hard worker, I am not afraid of physical labor. (In fact I rather like it) But I hate that feeling of "I must do this now." Interestingly, many of my hobbies could be jobs. I like to work on cars. I like to turn trees into firewood (only if they had the idea 1st by dying). I like to build things, etc. One would think, "Awesome. Do one of those things for a living and you will be happy." Nope. I've tried. It just makes them un-fun. I love to read, but assignments when I was in school and things I need to read for my job now make me run screaming in the other direction. How does one solve this? I am at a complete loss. It makes every day full of things I enjoy doing into drudgery. Maybe I should stop cashing my paychecks. Or better yet, learn how to counterfeit. Oh, wait, no, that would just make it feel like work to "make money." Dammit. I'm sure everyone feels a certain amount of this, but I am often overcome by it. Maybe I can get people to pay me for things secretly. You know, ask me to volunteer, and then give my wife a bunch of money. Hello, state of minnesota? Could you "pretend" to fire me? That'd be awesome. Thanks. Fuck.