Rain and Red Shoes

In the morning we have appointments. I wear red shoes for courage. The weather is a special gift: seventy one degrees mid morning in mid autumn. There are trees, gowned and ready for the October Ball, just glowing in the rain.

The morning has many moments of waiting with book in hand: "With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness as right as God gives us to see right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."  A. Lincoln

We dash through the rain into the Diner. A friendly lady at the next table shares her spinach artichoke dip with us while we wait for Yankee Pot Roast, a fitting feast for a late lunch after a long morning that needed courage. The friendly neighbor table is eating New England Boiled Dinner and a Hot Roast Beef Sandwich.

Home again through the pouring rain, the red shoes get swapped for red boots to go out to check the chickens. They have had enough sense to come in out of the rain, half in the coop and half under the coop. A little persuasion from scraps and some gentle lifting they are all in the run, raindrops rolling like crystals off red feathers. Except LunaMae. She runs around going back and forth and around again, frantic, looking like the proverbial wet hen. She finally goes in and the gate is shut behind her. There are six warm brown eggs  rain speckled in the egg basket.

Today I am grateful for books and boots,

 rain speckled eggs, 

and red shoes for  courage.