Nueces

It felt like we were in a movie.

Almost a perfect fall day as we started out - leaves were gently falling, floating in the breeze and the clouds kept the sunlight from warming things up. The pecans have started falling in earnest and nearly covered the ground beneath the trees along our path.

One yard half-way to the park was full of blooming Esperanza shrubs. The blooms, bright yellow, were visited by butter-colored butterflies. I wonder if this was some protective instinct - a camouflage - visit plants where you blend in. The Esperanzas also had started bearing long thin "green bean" seedpods, spiderlike beneath the blooms.

Mowers were at work, trying to beat the cold front we are expecting.

Two children came out of their backyard with bicycles followed by their father. He bore fishing poles and a small ice chest. They were soon off, coasting down the hill, boys steering and father hitching his ride with one of the boys.

In the park a half dozen people were walking slowly through the grass under the pecan trees. Every now and again someone would bend over and retrieve a nut or two. They and we know these pecans - nueces - are the taste of fall. Folks have hybridized pecans, making the nuts bigger and the shells thinner. But native pecans, small and hard, have the best flavor.

There were still a few wildflowers blooming along the dirt road - verbena and cone flowers. Grasshoppers were jumping about - and katydids. All kinds of insects flew, floated, and fluttered by - wasps, butterflies, dragonflies and creatures I have never seen before (and may not see soon again). It was as if they all knew today was their last chance in the meadows before the wild weather hits. Black woolly worms wiggled their way down the road as if on some important task.

The sun came out of the clouds and we ran out of water. It was time to head back through the park and up the hill.

Neighbors in their yards, on their porches and driving by spoke or waved greetings. It was Mayberry or Mayfield or Pleasantville.

We were home. Movie over. It was time for chores.