This is what we woke up to this morning.  In the southeast.  It’s not even winter yet.  Insane.

These weather patterns are not normal, and are setting major historical records for extremes this time of year, all over the country. Right now here it’s in the 60s, but heading down to a low in the teens tomorrow, with 1-3″ of snow?!!  In the southeast in early November!?  It’s not right.

Yet here we are, mowing the lawn (one last time before the ice age) and photographing pretty leaves and flowers.  It’s enough to confuse anyone.

I still can’t get over smartphone cam technology.  I mean, look at some of the details and color!  Here is E mowing the acreage, fall colors, and the arctic front descending.

Finally, I can capture sunsets and moonrises.  Here are some of my attempts from yesterday evening.  (If you click on them, they’re more impressive.)

All that was missing was a hearth.  Avdi and his friend J, visiting from SL, joined us for a day of sharing the erev meal, working online from the office and kitchen table, and drinks.  It was freezing out, but cozy inside with familial warmth.  It sounds ordinary, but it happens so rarely these days, that it was a special event for me.  Also fun and educational!  Now they’re off to their next out-of-state projects, so I’ll take whatever I can get.

Some of these photos represent experimenting with my new phone camera settings, with lots of help from Avdi.  I’m clueless using my own devices, let alone trying to comprehend the esoteric, rarified tech heights of what he and J do for a living.  I’d be lost without tech support.  I’m glad they’re infinitely patient with me.

Misu was happy to have her boy and new friend here.  So many laps to occupy.  She’s been adjusting amazingly well to indoor life.  Her protests and mischief are becoming lamer, just going through the motions of voicing her protest.  Just as well, it’s so cold out, there’s ice on all her drinking water.  With climate change, we now have just two settings, broil and freeze.

These are–wait for it–lichen logs!  C’mon, you know it’s funny.  Also, E’s newer, better batch of challah, and a drink I call a “Silver Jamaican”.  (Instead of a White Russian, get it?)

It turned freezing, about 20 degrees below the average for here and now.  Not a fan.  Today was the first day of Misu’s indoor incarceration, and she’s taking it amazingly well.  Aside from every escape attempt in her playbook.  Resistance is futile.  

In case you missed me, I’ve been preoccupied by various concerns with which I won’t bore you.  Suffice it to say, I’m back in one piece for now, and stuff got done.

For one thing, we chopped most of a redbud tree down.  It was threatening to split in half and fall on our house in the next big storm, so we got a tree chainsaw and managed to drop most of it not on our roof.  Some roof repair was involved, but a worse disaster was averted.  Now it’s mostly piles of logs and branches.  I’m thinking about building a log cabin!

I got a lot of fall garden maintenance and preps done.  I planted trees, native wildflower seeds, and fall/winter veggies.  I repotted and brought in non-hardy plants.  I harvested and dried some herbs.  I cleaned up and weeded beds, and amended soil with compost.  E. created and worked on a sun rock garden site for next year.  And much, much more.

One night around Halloween, coyotes were right outside our front door howling!  It was very spooky.  In unrelated news, Misu must have gotten into something toxic outside, and got sick last night.  We will now upgrade her into a full-time indoor cat.  She thinks it’s a downgrade, but there are too many risk factors outside, mostly of the stupid human variety.

Also, last week Misu managed to remove a heat register and crawl down the ductwork under the house, and somehow found her way outside!  Then E had to get down under the house and crawl through a tiny space full of tangled wires and pipes to try to find the exit hole (which was impossible) and to fill any access gaps.  We were not amused.  Now all the registers are screwed down.  Cats.  They’re like evil two-year-olds, only with fewer f—s to give.

It’s finally getting fall colorful outside and in.  Here’s a sampling, while awaiting rain.