First Frost Of Autumn And Fog

7:25

7:40

7:42

A Hungry, Early Morning Cardinal, People Watching

It's 8:00, the sun is attempting to break through the heavy fog though Long Point is still fog bound. When I went out to get the paper, the windshields of all three, yes three of our cars, were frozen.  It was 32ª when I checked at 6:30, will warm up into the mid 50's later in the day.  It looks like a fine day.

Bishop's Garden At The Chautauqua Institution

Sunday was the way we like it, easy, nothing we had to do and a something we wanted and were able to do, take a walk in the Chautauqua Institution.  After a morning on our computers, reading the various papers, browsing through Facebook, checking emails, we marshaled enough energy to change, get out our walking shoes, and drive over to the CI.  It was a crisp morning, hats and gloves not necessary but recommended, as we did our usual loop.  The colors of fall have disappeared for the most part, only a few red burning bushes, brown leaves of birch and oak, the yellow green of willows.  The perennials have all been cut back or ignored, the streets empty and quiet, except for an occasional leaf blower, the modern noisy rake.

Fallen Crimson Leaves

We noticed that the creek which wends its way through the northern end has numerous dams of large rocks added, to stop the flow of effluent into the lake.  The CI is very concerned about the health of the lake and is putting in lots of rock gardens and buffers to stay the storm waters and rainfall.  Our walk takes little over an hour, covers close to three miles.  Both of us cannot wait for the first snow, to walk it in its white frosting.

Rock Dams

We were home around 12:30, just in time for our breakfast of organic eggs, bacon, and toast.  And we watched CBS Sunday morning, always our favorite Sunday show.  After breakfast, I put together a vegetable/bean stew for my lunches this week.  It's an interesting mix of garbanzo beans, fennel, onions, carrots, garlic, rosemary, chicken stock and orzo, added the last ten minutes.  Now we have a pot of Evie's vegetable soup and my stew on our back porch, our winter refrigerator.

Sunday Breakfast

The rest of the afternoon was typical, reading, watching TV, taking a nap, thinking about kayaking but the lake was choppy and both of us were tired from another hard week of retirement.  For dinner, Evie made Lex's chicken, from the Zingerman Cookbook, the famous deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She sauteed onions, celery, garlic, thyme, hot pepper flakes and lemon, mounded that mixture on thick slices of sourdough bread, placed the chicken thighs on top, sprinkled with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice, then roasted it.  It tastes like a lemon flavored chicken with stuffing, the bread soaked in the juices of the chicken.  We had that for dinner along with Brussel sprouts and a salad, as we binge watched three or four episodes from last year of one of our favorite shows, Getting On, set in a geriatric ward of a hospital, a bizarre combination of the sadness of aging, a sprinkling of empathy, with the black humor of hospital and institutional craziness, kind of a Catch 22 in a geriatric wing.  The new season started last night at 10:00, so we saved it.  And we ended our night with the latest episode of Homeland, still disappointing as its slow in development.  I couldn't wait to get back to my book, The Prodigal Son.