My neighbor was sitting outdoors in our lane, sorting through the end-of-season green bean plants they'd pulled up in their fields: the good green beans were going into a basket for dinner, while the shriveled, dried out ones were going to the rabbits, plants and all. She looked up, and gazed at the hillside across the valley, where the trees seemed to have turned to fall colors overnight. "Winter is coming early this year," she said.
She does this often: she'll look at the sky, and at the color, shape and direction of the clouds, at the woods and at her fields, and predict the weather. And she's usually right.
We helped her with her work. Rebecca was eager to do some sorting, and followed her instructions. We live far from our own families, and to me the comfortable, playful manner that my children have when they're with our elderly neighbors is heartwarming. And these people have a lot to teach them: they've been paying very close attention to the weather, to nature, and to people, for a lifetime.
We had green beans for dinner. "We" is Tom and I, as Rebecca could not be persuaded that the objects she'd been sorting that morning were edible, and the boys - oh, poor boys, I almost felt sorry for them - couldn't believe their eyes: just when they thought that the deer had taken care of the whole season's worth of their least favorite vegetable, a brimming bowl of them appeared on the table. They were allowed to skip the green beans.
