New Computer and Back to the Novel

We bought a new computer for my new assistant Emily to use in the downstairs office, replacing the old MAC with a new Dell PC. When I finish this revision of my novel, I’ll switch back to PC. I loved MAC when I first switched to it, but after the fiasco when El Capitan erased all my document files, I’m returning to a PC. I have are too many problems with the MAC now. El Capitan also screwed up my email. I have it back now but it still is very slow.While we were in the Finger Lakes, slugs ate all my Chinese cabbage plants. But I m finally learning how to cook Swiss chard so that it tastes good. If you know any good recipes, email me @ hagolem@c4.net. I’ve found some delicious ones. I was cooking them all wrong in previous years.I’ve been potting herbs and some ornamentals to bring inside. It has remained unseasonably warm, but the weather people say that after a cool weekend, it will be warm again Monday and then cool down to what it should be this time of year. I like fall. Summer is not my favorite season. I dislike heat and humidity, although many of my friends and acquaintances love it. My brain turns off and my body complains in hot and humid weather.I am chugging ahead on the revisions of the novel. I don’t expect a New York sale any longer. I’ve aged out of that market. But I’ll show it to my agent before I start sending to small presses. I want to finish all the revisions and send it off to Robin Straus before I buy a new PC and switch from the MAC. I haven’t used a PC in at least six years and I know Windows 10 is different. I don’t want to be stumbling around in a new operating system trying to finish the revisions. But I need to switch back. I can no longer trust updates.The last order of bulbs arrived very late. We haven’t started planting them yet. Somehow this order arriving a full month after the other orders leaves us without enthusiasm for planting bulbs. We’re on to cleaning up the gardens, harvesting the hardy veggies that remain, bringing in what still needs to be potted. Fortunately, it’s by far the smallest order. But still work to be done without much enthusiasm.Normally I always write poetry no matter what else I’m writing, but pushing so hard on the revision of the novel has greatly slowed my poem writing. I have been contacting the few poets who were preaccepted last year after I had filled my juried intensive poetry workshop to see if they are still interested. Still waiting on a couple of them. December first, I’ll open up the workshop for next June.We were late hanging our birdfeeders since there still has been no frost, but this week, we did put up two of them. By yesterday, many birds have found them. Mice are coming into the house from the woods, so Willow and Xena have been catching them at night. Schwartzie seems interested, but so far, inept compared to the girls. Willow, who is such a soft bodied cashmere cat and rather timid with strangers, turns out to be a fierce hunter, just as accomplished as Xena. We appreciate their hard work.Ticks have returned and are all over the place this fall, not an effect of the heat that I appreciate. We are always picking them off us or digging them out with tweeers. I’m glad the cats are indoor cats now or they’d be crawling with the tiny vampires.Well now, back to the novel.