Reminders for the Fall

The Ostrich apologizes for the dearth of recent features. I took the whole staff to a "Clear Your Mind" retreat in Lake Shasta, back in July, and none of us has had a fully-formed thought since. As much as I'd like to stay on my papasan chair, immersed in the bliss of perfect nothingness, there are some things I ought to get done while the sun shines. And on that note, here's a helpful list of tasks you'll want to tackle before the winter:

Autumn Task List

• Check your syrup taps. It won't be long before the sap is running! Time to hike out to your secret maple grove, double-check those taps, and set your bags and filters. While you're there you can reset your bear traps for the sugar poachers. Just make sure to write down where you put them, before the leaves cover them up!
• Schedule furnace maintenance. Don't wait until the frost to get your furnace checked. Be proactive and call the number written on that faded sticker, to discover the company went out of business last year and the number rings a Jiffy Lube, so you Google heating companies and choose one further down the list, whose price isn't quite so extortive, and finally end up with a guy who can't find the cover screws on your brand of furnace, but strong-arms you into an $800 electrostatic filter.
• Go see the Smokys. I mean, what's stopping you? Why not go see the Great Smoky Mountains in the fall? You've thought about it, so why haven't you done it? Have you given up? Have the embers of your lost spontaneous self been snuffed out for good, or do you have enough light left within you to go to the Delta website right now, get your credit card right now, and buy a ticket to Knoxville? Why not just do it? Do it, chicken.
• Spin a web across my front door, apparently. Fire up those silk glands, stretch your spinnerets, and spin one more enormous-yet-somehow-invisible web, right at face level, one foot ahead of my front door. If it gets torn up, don't back down, and don't take a hint. Replace that fucker night after night after night after night.
• "Amuse" kids in a corn maze. Fill your thermos with hot mulled cider, swing by Spirit Halloween for the scariest costume you can find, and head out to the local corn maze. The fun thing about a maze is it's a maze, so you're guaranteed at least an hour making life-long memories for yourself and a bunch of naive children, before the teenage volunteers can find you and drag you out. (Word to the wise: Those teenagers spent the summer stacking hay bales, so, when they do catch you, it's best to go willingly.)
• Pretend you're going to clean the gutters. Now's the time to make some noise about your definite plans to get the extension ladder and trowel out those gutters. Let your spouse and siblings know, this year it's really happening!
• Cook to forget. I think future historians will struggle to explain the allotment of our lives we spent making complicated meals for the dual purpose of consoling ourselves with food and blocking out everything except the next instruction on the recipe.
• Do an art. But really. Get supplies for whatever kind of art strikes your fancy, or, if art is your job, than whatever kind of art isn't your job, and do an art. Put some time into it. Make it nice.