Highlight: When a friend is called home unexpectedly, you are given cause to think. In these Autumn days your thoughts cannot resist the influence of the wind and chill that surround you.

Those of us who hail from from the Great Lakes region know the cold wind off the lakes as “the Hawk”. The term is most closely associated with the Windy City, Chicago. My time at the nearby Naval Training Center Great Lakes gave me many days out in the open on the “grinder” (drill field). That was where I met the Hawk close up and personal. That is where the chill of the wind and my thoughts of life and death began to merge.

Today was a cold, blustery day. It was a day I would spend time out in the wind with my hat off of my balding head. Standing at my friend’s graveside, I recalled those cold days back in the 60’s. I was not overly saddened. How could I be? Even though unexpected, I knew that times like these must come. Was it not true, my friend was called home as some day I hope to be?

It was appropriate that today a local critter friend, our lone hawk, would return to Serendipity Farmhouse to take up his Winter residence. I spotted him sitting on the clothes line post, enjoying the brisk morning breeze atop his majestic vantage point. He and I have something in common. Even on a cold, blustery day, Serendipity Farmhouse is but a temporary home.

As evening brings an end to this day, I take time to pray, “May my dear friend, who has answered the call, have eternal rest and everlasting peace in his true home.”

Weather:  Temperatures all over the place. Wednesday the 28th was blustery. (For details of Sperryville, VA weather in November 2018 – click here.)

2018-11-25: High/Low – 61º/34º

2018-11-26: High/Low – 59º/43º

2018-11-27: High/Low – 41º/32º

2018-11-28: High/Low – 36º/30º

Plantings: Reporting suspended until the first planting of 2019.

Harvest: Reporting suspended until the first harvest of 2019.