Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

Dear October,

My letter for you is quite tardy and you are 15 days already gone. When I used my diary to jog my memory, I found you a month of seemingly contradictory qualities and phases. In your paradoxical days you had darkness but even in your darkness there was light, both with starlight and two full moons. So there was less darkness than light.

Rain was recorded. Some of your drops increased our water level and restored parched soil. Others fell on the meadow and came in with mud on the feet of our cows. Some of your rain drummed a sad song on our umbrellas as we clustered around an open...