The Foggiest Notion

 This morning Mom woke me at about 6:50 a.m. though I was already lying in bed awake. We were to meet Bob at Miss Molly's Bakery & Cafe at 8 a.m. so we'd have time for him to come back to the house and help me clean leaves out of the rain gutters.
 The fiberglass ladder I bought some years back, because it is long enough to reach, is also heavy enough that I can't move it. Bob can. The two of us always work together, carrying it to the house, getting it vertical and then walking it around the house as I clean out the gutters.
 This year we are late but I've had a good reason for waiting: the leaves are late in falling from the trees.

 Anyway, that said to explain why I was up early, I walked to the window at the head of my bed and looked across the dark field. All was black. But looking south, toward the nearest neighbors, I saw that a heavy fog had moved in overnight. It was an icy fog, in fact, and it stuck to the weeds in the 27° air.
 Before we left for breakfast, and after I had finished a few chores outside (taking out the daily trash, dumping the compost refuse in the garden), I took a few minutes to take a couple of pictures. It was a surreal morning, still dark at 7:30 a.m. and so cold that it clawed its way into my buttoned coat. Still, I cannot pass up the chance for a few pictures.

 In the early morning light, Pinehaven looks as though it's ready for Halloween two days early. The light on the right is Mom's living room light, beside her chair; the security light on the left is on the garage, triggered as I walked by. Pinehaven is enshrouded in fog, still asleep it would seem. It sits below grasping catalpa limbs, now winter-bare. I would expect ghosts there and, in fact, we have our own "The Milkman" who threads our steps at night. The setting is fitting and proper for such as he.

 Looking south, our next door neighbor's security lights blaze and to the left of Clayton Road, a farm is lit by three lights. We opted to not have always-on security lights. I like better the dark and appreciate a black night sky for my astronomical viewing.
 As Mom and I left soon thereafter to meet Bob, we found the fog wholly absent from the village. A mile west of here was all we had to travel and the sky suddenly cleared. That "patchy dense fog" that the weather service predicted seemed to pick us out.
 I was happy that I was up early enough to see it.