Morning Scenes

A flotilla of waterfowl.

The nosy geese are always the first to come investigate.

No food, no interest.  Back to the 

morning paddling around.

I love the way our driveway looks this time of year.

 Soon it will be looking bare.

But snow will come and make it lovely again.

Miscellaneous Chatter

I guess I need a good night's sleep for more than my beauty.  (Snort.)  Last night I tossed and turned, was up and out of bed for a couple of hours, then wasn't even feeling sleepy when I finally got back into bed.  Of course, I've paid for it all day today.  My body doesn't want to do what it should be doing, but would rather collapse on the couch and slip into oblivion.  I had a lot to do today and did manage to stumble through most of it, but I certainly wasn't operating on all cylinders.  But we all have days like that, right?  I do plan on getting into bed early tonight.  The way I continue to feel, I should have no trouble sleeping this night.

We had our first frost this past Monday morning.  Our thermometer in the sheltered area on the north side of the house by the back door registered 32°, but there was a solid layer of ice on poultry waterers.  Strange thing in the garden though.  The only area that seemed touched, despite a white coating on roofs and vehicles sitting out, were the pumpkin vines.  Neither the cherry tomatoes nor pepper plants had any damage.  Last year our first no-doubt-about-it killing frost was on the 17th of the month.

My fall planted shell peas, the edible podded peas and cauliflower plants don't look as though they'll produce much.  The pods on the shell peas are only about 1/3 plumped up (and have been that way for about a week now with no further growth), the edible podded peas developed very few blossoms (no pods at all yet), and although the cauliflower plants look healthy, there's nary a trace of any heads forming.  Oh well, it was worth a try.

Our fall colors have peaked although there are still lots of golds and yellows to be seen.  I think I like all the leaves on the ground as much as anything.  Our driveway is lovely with its covering of leaves.

Our Virginia Creeper is looking a little wilty, but is still very colorful.

Rain is called for starting tonight and continuing through tomorrow, but Thursday is supposed to be sunny again.  Our day time temps are well into the 50s which, to me, is beautiful fall weather.

We've gotten all the slabwood off the flatbed trailer, cut and stacked under cover in our smaller wood shed.  Funny thing, when all is said and done, it doesn't look like as much wood as we had expected.  That's okay as we have plenty more maple logs still waiting to be worked up in our back wood working area.

Stuffed Green Peppers for dinner tonight.  What's on the menu at your house?

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Because this past week was my grandpa's birthday (October 6th), I've been thinking about him.  No, he's no longer with us, and hasn't been for a long time.  He was born way back in 1884 and died in 1963.

He was my maternal grandfather (the only one I ever knew), and I was close to both him and my grandma.

I wrote a post about Grandpa when I first started blogging and thought I'd share it again today.  Here it is.

Grandpa Stops By

First of all, let me state that I do not believe in the super-natural, the occult, apparitions or ghosts.  But I saw my grandpa as clear as day a year after he died.

My first real job in the working world was as what used to be known as a secretary.  I was employed by a large company that supplied natural gas to the whole northern half of the state of Illinois.  No computers then.  I even took dictation with a pencil and steno pad.

One day at work I had such bad menstrual cramps I thought I would have to go home but decided to try to lie down for a while to see if that helped.  The door to the women's rest room on the floor on which I worked opened into a short hallway.  Immediately to the left inside the hallway, and before the door to the rest room proper which was straight ahead , there was a door that opened into a small room which was set up as kind of a lounge area.  It contained a couch and a few comfortable chairs.  I went into that room to stretch out on the couch.  When I entered I turned off the lights but left the door open in case someone else came in wanting to use the area for a work break.

I had been lying on the couch on my stomach for about ten minutes when I heard the outer door open and footsteps come into the hall and stop in the doorway.  Fully expecting to see some other woman wanting to use the lounge area, I raised myself up intending to tell her to turn on the lights and come in.  But the person standing there wasn't another woman.  It was my great, big, old, dear grandpa.  In his bib overalls, long-sleeved undershirt and high-top tennies.  He WAS there.  I know he was there.  He didn't say a thing, he just stood there for perhaps ten seconds as we looked at each other . . . and then he was gone.  I sat up, pinched myself a couple of times to make sure I wasn't dreaming, and tried to figure out what had just happened.  I wasn't frightened or upset because . . . well, it was just Grandpa. 

When I later told my mom of the experience, she reminded me that that was the way he always made an appearance when he was alive.  You would turn, and he would unexpectedly be there.  Several of his married children had nearly suffered coronaries on more than one occasion as they would walk into their kitchen and there would be Grandpa unloading some of his homegrown tomatoes onto the counter, or they'd go into the basement with a load of laundry and Grandpa would be stacking wood in a corner for their fireplace.

I might not believe in the super-natural, the occult, apparitions or ghosts, but I do believe in the spirit.  My grandpa had a quiet, strong, caring spirit, and I think that day at work he was just stopping by to check on me.  No other explanation for it.

Mid-Week (Already?)

Today I gave my onion crop a final inspection and cleaning, weighed them, put them in crates and stored them in the basement.

The red onions were a little disappointing this year.  I got only eleven and a half pounds of them, and they're kind of runty in size to boot.  Mother Nature didn't choose to give me a bumper crop of nice big ones as she did last year.  So it goes.  I'm grateful for what we got.

The yellow ones came in at fifty-one pounds, and most of them are large to medium in size.  A very nice crop.  (I did plant twice as many yellow onions as red.)

Starting early this summer I pulled some of both varieties as they were growing to use as scallions or, as they got bigger, for all my needs so I've really been using part of what I grew for three months already.  I'm sure the yellow onions will get us through the winter, but I have a feeling the red ones aren't going to last very long.

* * * * * * * * * *

A couple of our roof lines have been existing (not very efficiently) without gutters.  We have taken total advantage of our daughter and her man and (coerced begged bribed forced pressured tricked strong-armed persuaded) asked if they would help with the project.

We had rain most of the morning but this afternoon turned into a lovely fall day.  Just the kind of day to get the scaffolding up and in place to start the project tomorrow.   Another set of boards will go almost on the tippy-top of the scaffolding to make hanging the gutters as easy as possible.

Good thing one of us (and it isn't me or Papa Pea or our daughter) was a professional window washer in a previous life.  You just never know what a particular talent is going to get you into!

What We Did for Fun and Recreation Today

Our daughter has a friend who has a small sawmill.  Said friend had a pile of slabwood he wanted to get rid of for a nominal fee.

This sounded like a very good way for us to get some small wood for starting our fires during the wood heating season.  

We start fires by placing kindling over a few pieces of crumpled paper, then adding some pieces of small soft wood (the slabwood will fill this bill) before adding a log or two of hard wood which holds a fire for a long time.

The kindling we have . . . 

. . . and the big wood shed full of hard wood.

But we were lacking small soft wood that would catch fire easily and burn quickly to make a bed of hot coals for the hard wood.

Now we have it!

We took our truck and flatbed trailer which measures 8' wide x 14' long to the sawmill and piled it high with the available slabwood.

Now if the Magic Firewood Fairy would just come tonight, unload the slabs, cut them up and stack them neatly in our small wood shed, life would be good.

What am I saying?  Life is good.  Hubby and I took a lovely drive through the fall colors to the sawmill, spent the couple of hours it took us to load (yes, every single piece by hand) in the beautiful, fresh, cool air while at the same time chatting away and getting some really good exercise.  Not a bad way to spend a few hours on a gorgeous autumn day.

Misc. Monday

Beautiful fall day coming on.  A high of 60° forecast with sun.  Overnight we had our lowest temp so far this fall . . . 43° . . . cool enough to start bringing cold air into the root cellar.

Our good neighbor's pepper plants, for some reason, didn't produce much this year while ours have been abundant so we've been sending bags full over to them.  Don't know how long ours will keep producing.  I'm not going to cover them with a cold frame because 1) the plants are taller than any cold frame we have, and 2) I have already processed as many as we need.   I'm thinking the plants will be slowing way down now because of lack of heat during the day and the cool, cool air at night.

I had all but one last load of laundry out on the line early this morning.  Gotta admit my fingers got a little nippy, but that comes with the territory this time of year.

Papa Pea and I are meeting in the back wood working area this morning at 10 to do some chain sawing, splitting and stacking of wood.  We started on that task this past Saturday and even though one thinks one is in good shape, muscles that apparently haven't been recently used were felt.

The time just hasn't been available for me to keep up with all the blogs you good people write, and I feel badly about that.  Catching up and having the time to comment is always my intention and may well happen . . . most likely after this last month of outside work comes to an end.

Here's hoping you all have a good, good week!