Beneath insistent chirping of a cardinal
From autumn-bare branches, cold-fluffed morning
This dull reverberation of wood and metal,
Tearing down one half-lived house, building another.

I should soon have been bankrupt in business in 1884 if the public temper then had been like it is now—grasping, hustling, competitive…. Nobody asked for an estimate—indeed there was a fixed price for all the new work that was done. The only chance for me to make more profit would have been by lowering the quality of the output; and this the temper of the men made out of the question. But of profits I understood nothing. My great difficulty was to find out the customary price. The men didn’t know. I worked out long lists of prices from the old ledgers, as far as I could understand their technical terms.

—George Sturt, The Woodwright’s Shop (1923)

One great thing about using powdered milk paint for frames is that I can mix up only the two or three teaspoons that I need at a time and minimize waste. Another great thing is that to get 4-oz. jars for mixing such small amounts, I have to make a lot of pimiento cheese.

Hosing out the garbage dumpster this morning I thought, “M is for maggots!” and found myself composing a sort of Young Victorian’s Guide to Pestilence.

A is for ANTS, that march in formation,
Ravage our picnic and consume our collation.

B is for BEDBUGS, that nip in the night—
So shake out your mattress, and make it up tight!

C is for COCKROACH, whose nocturnal skittling
Frightens the maid, and ruins the victualling.

There being no call for this whatever, I’ll stop there.

If people go down to the end of the town, well, what can anyone do? Not much, it seems. Not much at all.

Not knowing what to choose from my fall CSA last week I got triple green tomatoes and this morning made green tomato marmalade from Putting Food By (3d edition, 1982), which may be over the years my most-consulted cookbook. Lemon makes it gel; the tomato gives an earthy undertone.

I posted a page of frequently asked questions about my carving for those who can’t come to shows in person to ask them.

Suggested listening for October: The first season of RKO’s The Shadow, starring Orson Welles. (And in case you find yourself wondering, Blue Coal really was blue).

Yesterday was the equinox and whoop-de-do for astronomy, but if you think of “day length” like any sensible person who just wants or needs to do stuff outside, you would use not sunrise and sunset but first and last light: something like civil twilight. By that standard, we won’t have equal day and night here in central North Carolina until about the 19th of October.

But if, on the other hand, you don’t do stuff outside… why do you even care?

“The Country of Marriage” (7"x12") titled after Wendell Berry’s 1973 book of poems. (The birds are modeled on sandhill cranes, so I should maybe have found a title from Aldo Leopold?) N.B. the frame is meant to evoke sunset and autumn leaves, not to go with your décor. Thanks for supporting etc.