Five Random Things

Sorry for being offline for a few days. Not only has work been especially busy, I've been sicker than a dog. I've got this nasal thing with drainage, coughing, and general all around crapiness. I don't recommend it.

As you've seen with some photos of my house, I live among the trees. It's like sleeping in a treehouse. The robins sing you awake in the morning, and the soft ruffling of the leaves in the wind lullaby you to sleep. Or the bluejays' screaming startles you out of a sound sleep at sunrise and the ruckus chirping of the spring peepers prevents you from drifting off to sleep. The soft moonlight sifts through the foliage dappling the ground. The keep the house cool in summer, and act as a windbreak in the winter. But then there's times like today when you have go up on the roof and sweep off the leaves, and rake an olympic swimming pool full of them off the lawn. Then there's also the lichen growing on the roof, not to mention a death defying dance on the roof with a chain-saw on a pole, trimming off the branches that are overhanging the house. Fun times. So we're going to have a tree service take down some of the trees.

There's snow in the forecast. Yes, I know some of you have already had snow, we have too, but this is the actual change of season, no more Indian Summers snow. As we were raking the temperature was dropping like crazy. We did put the rain barrel away, and the garden hose. A rain barrel sound like good idea, until you actually use one. I guess if you had a big garden and not a lot of rain it would be good. However, when you have the 50gal rain barrel at the base of the gutters that drain the whole back half of the house in an area that gets a lot of rain, not so much. With a good rain we can fill that barrel up in less than half an hour. Which means I need to keep my eye on it when it rains. And I usually get to go out into the pouring rain to close the diverter, so the side of the house doesn't flood.

This holiday season should be chock full of good deals, you now if any of us has any money left. So far this year there's been some preliminary panic sales. Look for full-blown world ending sales to start happening just before Thanksgiving, when the retailers fully grasp the significance of a shortened holiday shopping season (4 weeks) coupled with a slowing economy, and resurgent unemployment.

I picked up Isis' ashes yesterday. She's always hated car rides, so I tried to calm her on the way home. Doesn't that sound strange? So right now they're in the tin container (paw prints, natch'). We'll try and find some more appropriate vessel to put her in. I still look for her, on the bed or in her usual haunts. I've also had the thoughts of, "I need to clean this up before she gets into it," or "I wonder where she's at?" In other cat news, while our Isis was a somewhat wild kitty, there's a mostly wild kitty who has now taken to our back yard. Well, to be fair she's been showing up since August, and Bette has been feeding her. She won't let me get close, although today after eating she was cleaning herself pretty close to the house as I was dragging tarps full of leaves past her and she didn't budge.