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| The end of October. |
November arrived in a style befitting the month. It snowed on the morning of the first – just light flurries and it didn’t stick. It turned to rain by afternoon and the rain stayed with us until the weekend. Snow in November is normal for Potter County. I’m sure we’ll see more of it before the month is out. I like snow in winter. We can have snow from Thanksgiving to Valentines Day and that’s fine with me – in reasonable amounts, that is. The garden and the fruit trees love a blanket of snow. It insulates them and protects them from the more extreme cold temperatures we often get. Snow has its place in this world. Of course, I say that now, but I know that by March I’ll be cursing the snow.
Tuesday was Halloween. We don’t do much for Halloween at our house. Our traditions are few and modest. We live too far out in the boondocks to get trick-or-treaters and we don’t really mind that. We had some inedible pumpkins that we turned into jack o’lanterns on Monday night for Family Home Evening. We watched E.T. while we carved – a Halloween tradition for us. Then on Halloween night we watched a “scary” movie. This year we chose the 1978 movie Halloween in an edited format. It was an awful movie filmed in that terrible 1970's movie style. The acting in it was atrocious. We laughed through most of it. So much for Halloween 2017.
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| Carving jack o'lanterns. |
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| Finished. |
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| On the porch. |
I noticed something strange in the yard yesterday. There are flowers on the forsythia bushes. There are only one or two, but their bright yellow color caught my eye. I don’t know why they are blooming now. They usually bloom in March. I wish I could take it as a sign that we’ll have a mild winter, but that’s not what the forecasters are telling us. It made me happy to see those tiny yellow flowers.
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| November forsythia. |
I decided, here at the very end of the garden year, to order a load of mushroom soil to spread on the flowerbeds. Mushroom soil is a byproduct of mushroom farming down state. It consists of rotten straw and manure left over after the mushrooms have been harvested. I ordered nine cubic yards of it and it was delivered on Wednesday. I spent some time on Thursday and Friday trying to distribute it myself, but didn’t get very far. The rain kept interfering and it was hard working alone. On Saturday I had help – a lot of help. The Thayns are here for the weekend and with their help, we made short work of the pile. Tabor and Hannah filled buckets and loaded them in the wagon. Rachel hauled the wagon with the mower to where I was waiting to unload the buckets into the flowerbeds at our house and at Shillig’s. I’m glad to have that job done. I think, at last, I can say that I’m done with the garden until spring (although I’ve said that several times now).
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| Tabor and his helpers shovelling mushroom soil. |
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| Mushroom soil in the flower beds. |
As I said, the Thayns came up for the weekend. They arrived Friday night. They brought up a trailer full of furniture and other items from the Fosters and things belonging to Miriam that were still at the Foster’s house. Sarah and Tosh are moving and they gave a lot of their things to us that won’t fit in their new house – a pull-out couch, some shelving units, and some other items. We unloaded the trailer on Saturday. The pull-out couch went to the big room upstairs where Hazel and June claimed it as the official Granddaughter Bed.
The main reason for the Thayns’ visit was to take advantage of our local scenery to take family photos for their Christmas card. So on Saturday afternoon we drove up to a Christmas tree farm on Greenman Hill and took pictures. The scenery was beautiful and the family was adorable.
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| Christmas tree farm on Greenman Hill. |
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| Interesting lichens on a rail fence on the farm. |
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| Milkweeds at the tree farm. |
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| The Thayn family. |
And of course while the Thayns are here we’re playing games all sorts. It is so great that they live close now and can visit often. They’ll be leaving to go back home tomorrow morning. I wish all my children lived close by.
After a day’s reprieve from the rain yesterday, it is back today. The sky is gloomy and it is chilly and wet. In contrast to that, inside the house it is warm and happy. Preparations for lunch are underway. There’s lots of chatter and laughter. I will get a fire going in the wood stove in just a minute and then a warm afternoon and evening of enjoying each others’ company stretches ahead of us.
