This last weekend in September is a parting gift from summer with a few more days to wear shorts and watch sunsets. As I write, a breeze ruffles the big ash tree at the corner of the house and sends down a thousand leaves twirling by my windows. Makes me think of a favorite Annie Dillard quote:

Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital.

Here are a few more pieces and parts from CommonGround.

Many great moments this Commonground weekend. Shape note singing was one. I hope the climate change activists are working shape note singing into their tool set as millions of them march around the world today. And let's write some new lyrics. We were glad to see more young people among the singers. This was the first year that Melissa was not working as a volunteer at the fair from dawn to dusk, so we got to see it together, taking the train on Saturday, and driving on Sunday, picking up Cheryl B along the road. Ice cream and Robin on the way out. House guests and commonground family evening gatherings. Beauregard sweet potatoes. Jim's little house. Shaking the hand of Maine's next governor. Lynn's booth doing well. Hiking boots and layering. Maple doughnuts, whole wheat pesto cheese croissants, Hannah's hot dogs. Looking for Pete Curra's blue ribbons in the great hall. Sweet resigned animal faces. Jamie H's group doing an impromtu a capella song about trades and gear. Amish on the move on bikes and buggies. Many occasions to stop and talk with friends.

Roux in her office. She is in charge of rudbeckia patrol and clearly I am interrupting important work. Counting down to CommonGround and Bahoosh has made his best little house ever. Folks will be swooning over this one at the fair. In the meantime, it's a hundred small initiatives occupying my mind. The broken bridge, the town newsletter idea, branding, the candidates forum, making Vertical Response work for UBR, redesigns for two websites. Then there are those jobs that I actually get paid to do.

I am almost finished with Rifkin's The Zero Marginal Cost Society. The first question it made me ask was what came before capitalism. I had a hard time grasping the networked commons idea until he gave examples of things I'm familiar with: Linux, GNU Licensing, conservation easements, ride sharing services, open source software, craigslist, file sharing, smart energy grids, crowd funding. These things have slowly become part of our world and taken together look like the beginnings of a new sort of economy. Here are some quotes.

A new communication/energy matrix is emerging, and with it a new "smart" public infrastructure. The Internet of Things (IoT) will connect everyone and everything in a new economic paradigm that is far more complex than the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, but one whose architecture is distributed rather than centralized. Even more important, the new economy will optimize the general welfare by way of laterally integrated networks on the Collaborative Commons, rather than vertically integrated businesses in the capitalist market.

Capitalism is a unique and peculiar form of enterprise in which the workforce is stripped of its ownership of the tools it uses to create the products, and the investors who own the enterprises are stripped of their power to control and manage their businesses.

Every energy revolution in history has been accompanied by its own unique communications revolution.

The most often heard phrase in Unity in September: "after Commonground." The fair is next weekend and everyone has things to do for it and before it. In my case it is a lot of housecleaning before we fill up with house guests. Yesterday I hauled my kayak over to the Sebasticook River in Pittsfield and did the paddle part of SRLT's Farm and Habitat Tour. We saw eagles, ducks, kingfishers, herons, cormorants and a loon who was kind enough to let me get this photo. Two young women did the tour on paddle boards, while occasionally using cell phones. Awesome balance. Paddle boards have kind of a fixed curved rudder thingy underneath and when we went into a low water grassy part of the river, one of them got stuck. Group rescue time. A kayaker attached a tow rope to the board and paddled hard while the boarder got herself untangled. My kayak definitely needs to leave the pond more often. There is a lot to see out there.

In a new GQ article about the North Pond Hermit there is a quote that the neuroscience folks seeking to define the self as a social construct must love: "Solitude did increase my perception. But here's the tricky thing--when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. With no audience, no one to perform for, I was just there. There was no need to define myself; I became irrelevant. The moon was the minute hand, the seasons the hour hand. I didn't even have a name. I never felt lonely. To put it romantically: I was completely free."

For me and many others the hermit story is about winter and how he could survive it outside for so many years. I am pleased that he was not treated harshly by the authorities once captured. They seemed to see what a strange and harmless man he is and put him in a special court program for people with mental health issues.

The long survey about the Comp Plan goals and strategies is doing its job and getting people to talk about it. I've been in some heated discussions, but so far quite civil. Better we do this now than at town meeting.

Speaking of ongoing discussions, there is this one about whose desk chair it is.