It’s pouring rain right now. Ten minutes ago it was drizzling. Ten minutes from now it might stop. The air is warm and thick and humid. One of those warm intermittent rain storms you get in New England in September, after the worst heat of the summer is done and before the cool air comes in for good. Not even a tropical storm or a hurricane, like the one pounding Cape Hatteras right now and headed our way tomorrow. Just a drenching rain storm, warm and humid.

We have a drum in our apartment with a goat-skin head on it. Over the weekend, the head was taut and smooth. Today, the head hangs loosely in the rim. You can see all the places where I didn’t stretch the head evenly when I was putting it on the rim.

With the rain, not many people at the farmer’s market today. The woman from Quansett Farm had winter squash this week, pretty deep-orange hybrid squash I’ve never seen before. She said she’s got Hubbards and Butternuts, too, but she didn’t bring them. It still seems too early to bring them out, it’s still too warm. We can ignore them, but the squash and these September rain storms are telling us: Autumn creeps closer every day.