November dawns

It is the month of NaNoWriMo, of Thanksgiving and the earth in final preparation for its winter's rest.

This is a beautiful late fall day: cold and windy, dry, sunny. Most of the varied color on the trees has gone, but an amazing variety of shades of brown and a bit of yellow -- and yes, still some green -- remain. I love the stands of birches. They have dropped all but the topmost leaves and stand like phalanxes of upturned paintbrushes, dipped in shades of yellow and ocre against the sky.

There is still much to do, of course. I do not know if I will get all the mowings raked, but those that lie where they were cut will fertilize that ground, in time. And it does all need it. I do need to re-stack the compost, complete the insulation of my craft room floor and the pressure tank under the trailer. Those things will have to wait until tomorrow, as sunset is coming and we only just returned from our monthly "big shopping" trip to town. Did not even complete all the errands as K was feeling poorly to start and went from bad to worse. He will need to go in on Tues for an eye exam, so I will ride along then and pick up the additional window-framing lumber, more stain and a mailbox flag.

However I do have a lot of food and sundries to put away, including 10 pounds of ground beef to patty up and freeze and stuff brought in from the garage to find places for as well. I am glad that I finally found the ends for my oversize drawing compass. Using a string, pencil and a nail is decided the hard way to inscribe the designs on the larger exterior hex blanks, which was what I was doing yesterday. I knew I had packed it... but apparently it was one of the last things and it went into a box that was pretty much random.

But, as a result of that -- and a bit of judicious rearranging to get the lawn tractor into the "storage" side of the garage... TA DA! The Subaru is in the garage!! Yes, it is nose up against the sawhorses and the box they are holding which contains my Christmas present from Kevin... yes I know about it, we picked it out together yesterday... it is the largest of the 3 sizes of open metal mesh garden carts, with a handle that works for human pulling as well as to be towed by the lawn machine.

It will be good to have the car enclosed, as most of these mornings now there is frost on the windshield.

On another thread...

Several of my friends are doing NaNoWriMo. I tried it last year but November is NOT a good month in general for me to try to do anything else big and organized. Instead, I am trying to complete the illustrations for my moose book for the Grands and the editing of my "365 Days of Wisdom" book based on the past year of Words of Wisdom. And the Museum projects of course...

Well the laundry (yes, I am hanging out wash in the late afternoon in late fall) is ready to go out, another load to be washed and maybe the rugs as well. Tomorrow should be a sunny day as well, and breesy, brisk and dry... so they will dry, just not today.