Leininger Homestead

The northern red oak tree behind our camper is a towering, thick, mossy fortress of a tree. All summer the acorns dropped, plopped, and bounced off of our roof, giving us quite the scare the first few times. First they were little empty caps; later in the summer, it dropped small green nuts too. Now fully developed brown acorns crowned with their grey-brown beret lay siege upon us night and day.

The wind is pushing in an invasion of thick, swirling, black-grey clouds. I can see them rolling over the top of a mountain. Even the mountains are grey now. The orange-red blaze of fall has burned out and left the ashes of brown crumbling leaves.

The leaves hitting our camper are like rain. Around us, the wind-chimes of the neighbor's abandoned summer home chatter nervously. An assault of acorns occasionally shakes loose from the tree and interrupts our conversation.

Inside the little camper, a warm candle flickers. The cat stretches out on the bed, watching his own little grey and black striped toes wiggle one by one, his jade eyes sleepy and his belly full of some morsel he stole out of the sink.

The cast iron pot, seasoned over the years with spices, crackles with oil and fills the room with the aroma of cumin and red pepper. There is the  sound of a keyboard clicking and clattering as Edward does some bit of homework. Towels and jeans hang on the clothesline across from the kitchen, sometimes blocking our view of one another for a few moments. The water comes to a boil in the old copper kettle that I have cherished since my first apartment, and I pour two cups of peppermint tea.