Sometime last week, my son was sitting at the dining room table mid afternoon and saw young hawk land on the swingset. Eventually it flew away and returned with its catch.
On Saturday I had to drive him to work and when we went out, there was a very black squirrel collecting acorns in the driveway. Its companion was a very light gray squirrel. They zoomed to the trees as we went past.
When I returned they were again in the driveway after acorns. I didn’t have my camera, of course.
As predicted on Friday morning the temps were in the 20’s. This liar, not yet replaced, says 26F. I’ve not yet found a good thermometer for the front porch. So I must rely on this one for now.
I pulled up some of the shades as the sun came up and went out to get frost photos.
It was only 59F in the house but to be sunny, so I didn’t light a stove. Even with the sunshine, it never got above 63F inside, far too cold for me.
My helper friend arrived at 8AM. We set about getting all the house plants watered.
My friend’s hanging plants
I had remembered to bring in my friend’s outside plant the night before, even if I almost forgot the fairy.
Once the plants were done, I sent him on errands and got a shower and ready for the day. I was cold because I hadn’t lit a fire and just had no interest in getting on with the day. I had managed to get my post up.
We got the squash out of the office and down to the root cellar in the wire boxes to protect them from mice.
I went to rest and he got the floors cleaned up before he had to go.
I had another new doctor visit and wasn’t impressed. So I requested another doctor in the practice. That didn’t do anything to improve my mood.
When I got home, I laid the first fire of the season but didn’t light it until the sun started to go down. It took a long time to warm the house up. But I was finally warm by the time I went to bed.
On Saturday I toyed with the idea of starting prepping the Big garden for planting garlic when I realized it was going to rain for the next 3 days and I couldn’t mow on Sunday as usual.
It was about this time I remembered that Friday had been an “anniversary”, when my husband went into hospital and didn’t come back. The start of the trauma of it all…
So I made a cup of tea and finally got outside. I had to pick up the dozens of branches the white oak had dropped in 2 weeks before I could mow. I got the mowers and started with the push mower as usual.
It’s taken to not starting once it is warmed up. With all the leaves I had to shut it off to dump the catcher and it wouldn’t start. So I mowed with the rider. Once I was done with that the push mower had cooled off and started and I was able to finish. It had taken 2½ hours.
Big amaryllis opening, 4th blooming this year
I was able to come into a warm house and I’d kept the stove going. But the addition was cold and with 2 or 3 days of rain coming, I decided to light the masonry heater.
My brother came home and had moved the splitter to the barn. But he wasn’t able to get it in the barn, mostly because he was going in the wrong door. He’d arranged with my son to help him get it in on Sunday but I reminded him it was to rain all day.
So we went up to cover it and I realized he had it at the wrong door. So we pushed it around to where it belonged and got it inside and covered. Then we got the AC out of the office window. It’s not downstairs in the cellar as he didn’t think his knee was stabile enough to do that. We hope my son will help with that on Sunday.
On Sunday I have to start washing the storm windows in case I need them on Wednesday afternoon when the window helper comes. I hope to work on saving more old posts. I’ve made some progress on that. Mostly it will be a day of keeping stoves going and resting some.