The autumnal equinox past, the leaves are turning, there are acorns falling on the back porch, and pumpkins have appeared at market, along with bright red apples and carbon tomatoes—a dark heirloom that looks and tastes as if it has stored up the secrets of summer.

As the rain poured down Monday night, I felt a shade of deep, inky Blue and closed my eyes listening to Joni Mitchell… and eating local peaches and muskmelon the next morning (the latter my accessory fruit of choice), I remembered fragments of my dream, in which I was a damsel with a dulcimer—an Appalachian [...]