Light In Early Morning

6:34

7:00

It's just 7:00 and already the sky has lightened, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.  It means I might be able to get out for a paddle earlier because of the light but wine time will be in the dark, so it's both a good and bad thing.  We have been under a winter snow advisory but it looks like it passed us by, just some light rain and 35º.  I am listening to a Splendid Table podcast because Francis Lamb is interviewing the Two Hot Tamales, the hosts of the first cooking show we watched back in the 1980s. It's 8:00 and I just returned from a forty-minute paddle, on a calm lake, but also in sleet, as the light rain turned to white pellets.  It was fun too, believe it or not, to be out there, the only boat on the lake, listening to the sounds of gunshots, the moos of cows, and perhaps a loon.

Kayak Morning

Yesterday was a fall cleanup day, the day where we get serious about getting ready for winter.  It began as usual with gathering the trash and a trip to the Transfer Station.  When I returned, we both got busy in the yard.  I worked on cleaning the garage gutters and raking the leaves that gather behind the garage in a ditch, always a pain because there is little room between the garage and the lawn.  I filled two garbage pails with the wet leaves, took them up the hill, then came back and filled two more with faded plants that Evie had cut around the porch and fence and I raked more leaves around some of the beds, filling two more pails which I took up the hill.  By 12:30, we were done with the leaves, with putting away furniture into the garage and attic so I had lunch, the leftover pasta and watched my show, read some, tried to nap but I kept thinking of other things we had to do so I couldn't sleep. 

Ready For Winter

Around 2:00, we pulled our canvas porch cover out from under a bed and took it outside and hung it, enclosing our back porch for the winter,  It makes a nice mudroom for the winter.  Once that was done, Evie lost her mojo and started watching a film, Flight 93, about the plane that went down during 9/11 in Shanksville, PA.  It's a hard film to watch and we were both riveted to the screen, waiting for Todd Beamer to scream, 'Let's Roll.'

Hosta In Autumn

Around 4:00, we both went outside, fired up the lawnmowers and mulched more leaves, perhaps the last time this fall unless it warms up and dries up in the next week or two.  Our yard looked amazing by the time we were done, nice and green, with all the dead flowers cut back, the beds ready for winter.  We were both excited about dinner, the pork and sauerkraut which Evie had made on Friday, leaving it in the refrigerator overnight, which always seems to make it better.  We had a glass or two of wine while dinner was heating up in the oven.  Dinner was just what we expected, amazingly tasty,  pork and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes, a perfect dinner for a cold night on the lake.  We watched the usual for a Saturday Night.  First, we watched a Colbert, then Real Time With Bill Maher, and we finished the night with another Succession, Season Two.  By the time we had watched all three, it was time to get back to my book.