It took us a while to get settled and caught up after our trip to the Finger Lakes last week.  I was able to freeze one more bag of peppers to stuff, the last.  We’ve been eating lots of apples, at least one a day for each of us, since we returned form the Cornell store with three bags of great super fresh apples.  The store is in the middle of their orchards and they are bringing in the apples and making cider in the rear of the store while you shop.

The cats have been very happy this week.  Xena is glued to me.  Wherever I am in the house, she’s there keeping an eye on me so I don’t disappear again. I have written three poems this week and put away the last of my summer clothes.  I brought out all my sweaters and warmer dresses, pants and skirts, but I haven’t brought out winter coats yet.  I hope to do it today. Also gloves and scarves, but we are just beginning to need tthem. It was mild this week and rained every day.  Friday the sun finally came out and the rain stopped.  We had high winds but no damage here.  I don’t worry about the sugar maples – they had lost most of their leaves. When it’s stormy, I worry about the weeping beech, heavy with leaves.  One of the poems from this week is about my trees. It is suddenly much cooler and drier – low to mid fifties during the days this coming week and forties and even thirties at night.

Woody is trying to learn to operate recording equipment on his own so he won’t be bound to the Provincetown studio for interviews.  Some people don’t want to travel to Ptown especially in the summer when it is overcrowded and parking is hard to find and expensive. He bought what he needs (Zoom H6, mics, etc.) but learning to use it well is a much bigger problem. 

Falls seems to have turned a corner and now it is cooler.  We may have a frost this week, as a couple of the nights are going into the low thirties. It’s okay with us.  We’ve brought in the tender herbs and other useful plants we’re trying to save.  I’ve dug the summer bulbs and I’ve dried some and am drying calla lilies and dahlia bulbs. The peppers gave their all this week. I managed to freeze one more bag for stuffing and tonight I’m cooking chops with peppers and arugula, in a Madeira sauce.  The Breeders Cup big races are today and I mean to watch as many as I can.  I did catch a couple of the juvenile races. What’s left in the garden: salad greens, radishes, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts and leeks.  Plenty to eat still.  But not for much longer.  Then we’ll be dependent on what I was able to freeze.

Midnight Bisou, my favorite horse, lost.  I blame it on the jockey Mike Smith, who hung back too long and let her get stuck inside.

I hate when we go off daylight savings time and it’s dark even now @ 4:30 or earlier on cloudy days. It greatly shortens the time we can work outside and I love light. Light and color move me more than they do Woody, far more.  We’re each such individuals, as are the cats.  No two cats I’ve ever had have the same personalities and quirks.  I truly have much fonder memories of my cats than I do of my two earlier husbands.Going to judge me for that?  They were kinder to me.  They tried harder.

Woody saw a healthy fox this week and my friend Janet who takes care of the cats when we travel has been watching and photographing a healthy vixen with her kits.  I’m hopeful the fox population will return, to keep a check on rabbits, wood rats and mice.  We also smelled skunk for the first time in about four years.  We always used to have skunks and possums, but not recently. I know the many butterflies will never return in my lifetime, perhaps never again.  There used to be so many they would sometimes weigh down the flowers.