Halloween count

When we go outside, Daisy will often go near the door, and it's difficult to come back in. I was dreading tonight, with all the kids coming by trick-or-treating, afraid she might try to run out. Well, she practically slept through the whole thing. I fed them as much as they wanted for supper, and she also had a vaccine today - whatever the reason, she was quiet and kept to herself. Even when she awoke, she had little interest. Whew!  Annie, on the other hand, growled at certain ones - we think it was the masks she didn't like; she seemed to like the princesses. There were many of those, with flowing hair in an assortment of colors - that seemed the main theme this year.

It was a very nice night to be out, mild with only a short spell of light raindrops. We bought plenty of candy, anticipating more kids than last time, since it seems to go up each year - except 2020 - but we had 139. About fifty less than last Halloween. 

Good News!!

 Dianne's husband just called me - the cat came back last night! He must have been hiding since the attack, but it's been quite cold and he probably hadn't eaten - anyway, Bill says he's got part of his tail gone, and some external injuries, but otherwise his appetite is good and he doesn't cry when they pick him up. She'll bring him to a vet tomorrow. 

I'm so relieved! And amazed.

warm colors and autumn things

 

Many of the leaves have fallen already, a lot from the heavy rains we had early in the week. Frosts threaten us every night now, but so far our pepper and tomato plants are fine, and so are the zinnias and marigolds. In fact, there are so many flowers, I had an idea today. 

I put out two medium sized pumpkins on the front step, next to a small table that's always out there, with a container on it. There's potting soil in there, but I don't always know what to do with it. It's only half-full, and I was thinking the marigolds would look very pretty there next to the pumpkins. Meanwhile, I was cleaning a shelf in the basement which holds some extra mason jars, and that's where I got the idea.

I cut lots of marigolds and put them in five pint jars, with water. They fit in the container perfectly. 

Can you see the jars in there? My thought was that canning jars can take being frozen, so if the water freezes, the jars will be fine, and if the flowers die, well they're going to die if I leave them in the garden, too. So they may as well be seen on the front step!  I thought I'd try anyway. 

They look nice, don't they? You don't see the jars above the rim of the container. I have no idea how long they'll last there.

Meanwhile, I bought myself this book of poetry

Who could resist such a cover, not to mention a poem a day through autumn? 

in the blink of an eye

 Shortly after I got home from work yesterday, an older neighbor came by to ask if we had a fluffy black cat. I said no, but Dianne does. Well, there's a large, energetic dog on the next street and I guess he grabbed this cat and swung it around; the cat got away, ran around our forsythia hedge beside the house, but this dog got him again. He escaped a second time, but then our neighbor lost sight of him. He was yelling at the dog to let it go, and so was its owner, who felt pretty bad about the whole business. I ran over to Dianne's and told her husband - she was in the shower. I quickly fed our kitties and went out; Bill and Dianne appeared shortly after. This was an hour before dark.

We wandered around the back yard for at least thirty minutes, Dianne calling him. There are so many fallen leaves under every bush, making a search more difficult; we tried to figure out where he would have headed - this is impossible. We didn't see a body anywhere, we heard no cries. How could he have survived such an attack? It must be that he didn't, poor creature. 

Dianne is pretty philosophical about her cats, we've noticed. When my brother found Yogi had been hit by a car, and brought the body to Dianne's, she didn't cry. She has so many animals, she's seen it before so often. But if only we could find him, at least they could bury him.

I was thinking of how little I know my neighbors, and that it was good for us all to be looking for this cat together, trying to help, even though the circumstances were so unfortunate.

always learning something new

 I was sure that Daisy was going to become an engineer when she grows up

but now it looks like she'll be a washerwoman.

the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord

I am already finished with the reading challenge I was following! I didn't expect it. It's the third year they've issued one, and I didn't finish the first. The second, I barely made it, but it felt like work. And then when they offered this year's, Angelina said that the books she wanted to read just seemed to fit into the reading challenge. This seemed incredible to me, but I thought I'd try it. And that's just how it was! So, it's October and I'm done. Not done reading, though. 

 

I heard a loud thud coming from the living room, and was almost afraid to look. But Daisy had knocked over the scratching post, and was wrestling with it. She's done this more than once - I guess she wants to teach it a thing or two. So cute. 

I feel inclined to re-read Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft. He is a motorcycle mechanic, among other things and he sees a problem in our distance from understanding how things work, things which are among us as everyday objects. He says: "A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our relationship to our own stuff: more passive and more dependent." I think of sewing; I need to make time for my projects, rather than hope I can fit them in. It's been a real problem lately. 

My brother just called to me - Daisy ate a piece of tomato. I tried to tell him she'd done this before - hadn't she? But no, it was Annie. (Having a blog can be very useful at times.) So, it seems we have tomato-eating cats. Not sure it's a good thing.

We have marigolds still thriving outside, and I know calendula is in lots of homemade salves, good for soothing the skin. But I think ours are tagetes, not calendula, so I will not be making anything with them. 

funny tomato

 I was cutting up tomatoes (yes, we still have some!) at suppertime and grabbed this one. The shape reminded me of the so-called ugly tomatoes at the supermarket, which are usually some heirloom variety. They tend to have a pumpkin-y appearance. But the top of it made me hesitate - this is a pepper. How weird! Not that it's red, because the green peppers do turn eventually, but the shape. 

Funny, isn't it?

Hail October, by Hal Boyle

 If the Lord whispered in your secret heart that you had but one month to live, and let you pick that month, which would you choose?

 I'd say October. 

The birds love it, the beasts love it, and man himself then stands upon the summit of the year. 

October is all the other seasons wrapped into a thirty-one day grab bag package tied with a rainbow ribbon. 

  It is the period when Mother Nature, the great dramatist, brings her traveling roadshow to a climax.

 This is the month that, like a cider press, squeezes out the best juices of all the other months; 

 the promise of spring, the sultry days of summer, the afterglow of autumn, the premonitory chill of winter. 

Everything that walks the earth feels an amber thrill, a tremendous, bubbling vitality that sings in the pulse. 

Now is the glory of the universe manifest. And in the mighty pageant of the hills, each patch of woods elects its own tree beauty queen. You like the dogwood? We don't quarrel. I'll take the maple, that yellow torch. 

It's as if everyone suddenly had been given magic color glasses. 

The stars bend nearer, and that big blob of moon - a child feels it is so close he could reach out with a knife and spread it on his bread like butter.

from Pixabay

The stag stamps in the hilltop and lifts an amorous bugle to the night. 

The squirrel, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, becomes an annual miser. 

The bear invests his excess profits in fat, planning to live off the stored capital until he emerges from his hibernation next spring, cross and bankrupt. 

The wind at night now has become a violin, playing a love song for the young, a last tune of youth to the old. Do you stay awake to hear it? You'd better. He only plays a little while, this wandering fiddler in the dark.

October wears a crown, and makes every man a king. It bears the harvest superiority of the rounded apple over the petalled flower, the advantage fruition and achievement have over pale promises.

 April is the fledgling politician of the year saying, "Stick with me, we'll go places". October, the mature statesman, holding up the golden reward. 

There's no tax on it, so spend it while you have it. No October lasts forever, and there is no guarantee it will ever come again.

*again, about Hal Boyle

life with Daisy

 

If I go outside, Daisy is often on the other side of the door when I'm trying to come back in; I live in fear she'll run outside. Well, I'm not living in fear, exactly - but we don't want her getting out, but she is just curious about everything and very active, and she was living outdoors for a while before Sue took her in....

Anyway, I  often resort to grabbing the broom which rests outside of the back door, and sort of sweeping her inside while I slip in. Then, of course, the broom is in the house, with bugs possibly living inside it, according to my brother. So then we have to look for the first opportunity to get it outside again. 

My next project will be finding a new spot for the kitchen wastebasket, since she is making a habit of dumpster diving throughout the day, and sometimes tipping the thing over. 

autumn mist

 

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

- Robert Frost

the struggle is real

 A local radio station here owns the rights to a dramatic reading of an obscure poem called "Hail, October" by a fellow named Hal Boyle. He was a journalist, and won a Pulitzer for his reporting during WWII. The recording itself, which is read by a well-known radio announcer from the period, maybe was made in the sixties, but could be older. There are different musical instruments waxing and waning in the background, making the whole thing very compelling, and the station's regular listeners look forward to it every year. Because they only play it in October and you never know what time of day you may get to hear it, so you have to listen all day - it's a real thing, for it's fans.

Last year I tried to find the words online, anywhere, but it doesn't seem to be written up any place, although I did discover a very poor quality recording of it on youtube, with Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez as the background - very unsuitable for this piece, in my opinion. So I decided to try and transcribe it; I did manage to hear it on several occasions and I'd grab a notebook to try and write down a few lines each time. And so that's how I got it.

It's as complete as possible and I'm working on printing it here, but it's really nothing great to just read. This dramatic reading with all the music is the thing that people love to hear, and also that it was a local man reading it. So I have to figure out how to add some drama on the page, so to speak. 

To be continued. Wish me luck.

peak color

The color in our neighborhood seems to be at peak color. It was warmer today and humid, overcast and occasionally rainy. But apparently later it's going to rain more, be very windy and stormy in places. Even so, I have noticed in past years that on gloomy days the swamp maple can still glow.

It won't get any better than this!

out of bounds

 If you've been around here a while, you may remember that at Christmas time, I put the small nativity on the lowest shelf of the corner cabinet in the kitchen. The cats always showed an interest - Dolly, Henry, Sweetie - but as long as I kept enough things in there, they understood there was no room for them. Then we got Annie, and she was not deterred by that consideration - I had to move it up a shelf to the middle section, and that did the trick. Now, Daisy is with us.

You are wondering, no doubt, why I'm thinking of this in October. I was sitting at the kitchen table yesterday and heard a sound; I looked over.

Can you believe it? What she was doing there, I don't know. Is it the challenge? "Why did you climb Mt. Everest? Because it was there!" Is that it? Anyway, this is the middle shelf. The piece of pottery got moved. 

And so did Daisy. 

The nativity is too small to be seen from the top shelf, but I did put it over the sink, on those shelves, once before, and that's what I'll have to do again. 

*Maybe that "conversation" with my brother the other day isn't so far off the mark. Maybe I really should move that "candle" on the top shelf. (but it wasn't on, so I don't think she was thinking of the candle - and I really don't want to move it! ) 

gradual and silent encroachments

 "There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

                                            -  James Madison

fall colors

 Today my photos are uploading; we're back to normal.

These trees across the brook are turning to reds and oranges. Tonight we are expecting a frost. It seems cooler than past Octobers, although the past two days were more like it - in the seventies, and bright. Today was beautiful and bright, but not even sixty. But the colors are appearing, gloom or sun. 

Here is somebody who may look colorless, but she is anything but -

I thought I had caught the "cat smile" on her, but I don't see it here. She did have it, even while sleeping. She has a sweet temperament.

hard times

 Well, I have a photo of a book I read, and a sewing project I hope to make, but blogger won't load the photo. Maybe another day.

I finished reading Hard Times, and loved it, but it did have to grow on me. I almost gave up on it when I was sick, since it is a very serious book, rather heavy, you might say. I felt in my state I couldn't read something so weighty and thought I could just continue with the podcast discussion. So, I picked up The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder; I have been going through that series every now in a great while. Well! It was just as heavy in its own way, with the never-ending blizzards - I read half and went back to Hard Times. 

Meanwhile, I have a good sized piece of a pretty floral cotton and a same-sized piece of an ivory, so I am hoping to make a baby sized quilt, a style which I've made before. As long as I can get to it. I have no baby in mind, but then in our church bulletin was mentioned a collection for baby things for those in hard times, which they do periodically, so it would be something I could do with it. 

Here it is. 

no more hard times for this one, hopefully

behind the scenes

 It's been rather gloomy lately, and dark in the afternoon kitchen, so I got out - I think it's the last - one of those battery candles to brighten things up. And it does! It goes on just before six, and is lit for six hours, which is pretty when the other lights are out.

Later, a conversation: 

My brother: Don't you think you should move that light in the corner cabinet? The cats could get at it.

Me: Really??  (it is on the top shelf......)

Bro: They have all day to plot and plan.

Me: (speechless)

Well, I probably shouldn't call that a conversation. 

little miss Daisy

 My new camera is a trial; I keep taking (what I think are) good photos of Daisy, and they turn out to be mp4's. All I want is a camera that takes pictures. Then I remembered that I still have the old one, so...

The cord is from the vacuum; she is not afraid of it!! She is fearless about everything, in fact, and I think that helped to wear down Annie's defenses. I toned down the saturation in this photo, but she is a tabby,  light gray and tan. And very sweet. Annie suddenly looks like a horse.

Anyway, they are doing well together, running around and seemingly having fun. With cats, you can't always be sure., but I think so. Annie rarely growls now. 

My boss brought her over one month to the day after our Dolly passed away. Funny how these things happen.

The heat went on this morning for the first time, and I was glad - I had a multitude of coverlets over me, and still shivered. And it was cooler than I expected, so I didn't wash any windows. The clouds had drifted over from Hurricane Ian, I think. It seems cooler than normal but I wonder if I'm just sensitive right now because I've been sick.  

My brother had grown carrots this year in a rectangular container, and he pulled up some. I cooked them today, our own carrots!  They have a yellow tinge which is different from the supermarket ones. I just steamed them, with butter. Very exciting. We're still getting tomatoes, by the way. Those smaller ones, like the camparis at the grocery store.

I saw three large birds circling above earlier in the day, and ran out, supposing they must be hawks. I thought I could chase them off. Of course, they have to eat, but I just don't like to see them. (the hypocrisy of a meat-eater) Anyway, these were all black, and not so hawk-ish looking, but too large for crows. The bird books said vultures would have a six foot wingspan, and ravens a five and a half. So, I'm thinking ravens. I have a liking for crows and other blackbirds, so I just watched them, and they went off. But I'm not sure what they really were.