Autumn

Yesterday we once more set out on a motorcycle ride.  Cliff needed to get some stuff at Scott's Bargain Barn in Excelsior Springs.  I've mentioned it in this blog before; that place definitely isn't a lady's idea of fun shopping, so I took my Nook along, and while Cliff meandered through the junk aisles, I read.  Presently I'm reading an excellent book that I checked out of the library's e-book selections.  Stargazer, a school teacher in the state of Washington, has reviews of books she's read on the right-hand side of her blog.  She highly recommended "Cutting For Stone".  Somehow I'm having trouble finding time to sit down and read it, but the two hundred pages I've read so far keep me on the edge of my seat, and I spend lots of time when I'm occupied around the house wondering what's going to happen next.  Between motorcycle rides and other interruptions like laundry and cooking, I'm just going to have to make the time.  One problem I have is that I can't read in the evening; even the best of books put me to sleep after 7 PM.  And of course this perfect autumn weather lures me outside often.  There's an idea!  I should take the Nook outside.  
After Cliff was done shopping it was lunch time, and the GPS directed us toward a Subway.  Unfortunately, there was a Chinese place in the same strip mall, so you can guess what happened to our healthy, low-calorie lunch:  it went down the tubes.  
After sinning eating, we went to Cameron to visit with my cousin and his wife.  

The leaves are changing color quickly.  We can see a difference every day.  

The autumn color is supposed to peak in this area around October 15.  

Mother Cat and her brood of two are staying in the barn most of the time, but sometimes Mom likes to try out my lawn chair.  We saw her carrying a mouse or mole to the barn the other day, and the biggest of her kittens practically fought her for it.  It's good to know they are doing the job for which they were intended.  When I go out to milk the cow, they lead me to the barn as if I might lose my way, and meow constantly until I feed them some cat food.  Then they get a drink of warm milk when I'm done milking.  

Perfect autumn days

Yesterday was one of those days when I kept looking for excuses to be outside, a crisp and sunny day.  I hung some clothes on the line to dry, harvested lettuce from the garden for our supper, and just strolled about in general.
Now, if you're one of my Facebook friends who only reads this nonsense on Facebook, you're going to miss the pictures.  This entry is all about the pictures.  
Click on any picture to make it larger.
When Cliff and I were eating dinner, I asked him what he planned to do next.  He responded that he had one more little chore to do at the shop, and then he was going to go cut some "ole snags" and clear the trail at the back of the place.
An "ole snag" can refer to a dead or broken tree, or one that's just ugly in general.  Cliff points them out to me often when we're on our daily walk.  And as for the path, it's almost at the lowest point of our property, and is wide enough for a tractor of any size to drive from one side of our forty-two acres to the other.  A dead tree fell across it this summer, blocking it.
"Let me know when you're going," I told him.  "I'll go along."
I had two reasons for wanting to go:  first of all, it was simply a day to be outside for whatever reason.  Second, I worry when Cliff is wielding the chain saw back there.  He's quite skilled in cutting trees so they'll fall in the right direction, but accidents can happen.
First, we went to clear the trail.

    What a mess, huh?  All that pile has to be moved.  At least there's no danger involved in this particular task.

We're so close to the back of our land that you can see the railroad tracks in the background.

It looks like an impossible task, does it not?

However, once Cliff had the tree cut into more manageable pieces, it wasn't so hard to push them to the side.

I'll bet the whole operation took less than a half-hour.

Just up the hill, Cliff noticed an ole snag, dead and broken.

Down it went.
Then we went back up the hill to the point, as we call it, the grassy, cleared area where you can stand and look across the Missouri River.  Cliff had another ole snag in mind, one we walk past every day.

Now, this one made me nervous.  It's on a brush-covered, steep hillside.
"Which direction do you think it'll fall," I asked.
Cliff figured it would fall straight downhill.
I put my camera in video mode and waited (saying little prayers for Cliff's safety all the while) for the tree to show signs of falling.  I did get a video.  Unfortunately, I had the camera turned to include the whole, tall tree.  This makes the video sideways, so you'll have to turn your head way to the side to view it.  It's only ten seconds long.  I could crop it and make it viewable the proper way, but it cuts off the top and bottom of the video.  And let's face it, the top is what's important.
OK, lean your head way over onto your left shoulder and watch what happened:



Yep, that's as far as the tree fell... not downhill as Cliff thought, but sideways.  Hopefully with the next strong wind-storm it will end up on the ground.  

Cliff was near me, loading the chain saw onto the tractor, when I saw a young doe come into view, looking this way and that.  He's hard of hearing, and I was whispering, "Cliff, Cliff... LOOK!"  
I edged toward him, hoping she wouldn't notice the movement and flee before he got to see her.  I finally got his attention when my lips were about an inch away from his ear.  Now that I think of it, I was so excited that I was whispering into his deaf ear.  No wonder he couldn't hear me.  
The deer finally did glance our way, pondered for a second, signaled an alarm with her tail, and left.  

Just icing on the cake of a perfect day.  

Autumn garden

Remember last spring when I so proudly showed pictures of my flowers and my garden? Things aren’t so pretty now.

Flowers are faded; I didn’t “deadhead” the coneflowers because I’ve read that finches will eat the seeds; in fact, I’ve seen them doing it. They’re still away raising their families, but I’ve been assured they will be back to spend the winter. I still have the occasional hummingbird at the feeders, but not often; mostly in the mornings.

The oh-so-prolific butternut squash vines are dying amid the ever-present crabgrass, and a few of the squashes have rotted. Don’t worry, I still have plenty for our consumption.

The tomato vines are riddled with blight, although I can still go to the garden and find a few tomatoes for a salad.

The sweet peppers are outdoing themselves, producing more now than they have all summer.

Turnips are doing well, although I won’t harvest all of them until the twenty-first of October (drunk or sober, as the saying goes).

I planted one sweet potato cutting, remember? This mess is mostly sweet potato vine from that one little plant. It’s invaded the turnips (on the left) and my single eggplant (on the right). I’ve been warned to dig up the sweet potato before frost. I’ve had half a notion to go ahead with it; as cool as it’s been, we could get frost very soon. I wonder just how much larger the sweet potatoes could possibly get in two weeks.

Oh, those tall things in the background? Okra, which we’re still enjoying.

I figured that since you saw my garden at its best, you should also see it at its worst.

You can get lots of good things from a garden, even an imperfect one that's past its prime. I suppose you could say the same for a person.

The pay-it-forward challenge, looking back

This is all the corn bread that was left after dinner yesterday; Cliff's sister, Rena, came over to eat with us. Still, I think we three ate too much, don't you? Notice that nice dark, crispy crust on the bottom of each piece. That's what a cast-iron skillet does for corn bread. This would really be good in a bowl with milk poured over it (what, you've never had corn bread and milk?). There was a decent serving of beans left, so I imagine that will be Cliff's lunch to take to work today... which means he gets one of these pieces of corn bread. The other two are my supper!

Oh yes, I froze half the beans I cooked for a quick meal on another day.


Last winter I found the pay-it-forward challenge on Sliding Through Life, and signed up to participate. A few weeks later, when I had forgotten all about it, I received a box with some nice (and useful) items. What fun! I love to get packages. So then it was time for me to think about what I'd send my three participants. I thought for a long time, obviously, because I just got around to sending them their goodies last week, almost eight months after they signed up. I'd recommend this little game to anyone, despite the high price of postage (good grief, postage cost more than the contents of the packages were worth). Robin is raving about the beef sticks from my local butcher shop that were included in her box, and I'm thinking I might have a drawing one of these days for a package or two of those, here on my blog. They don't have to be refrigerated, so it's something that can be mailed. Keep it in mind.

I anticipate each day when we're having the kind of weather we're getting now. Crisp, sunny days with the leaves slowly changing color. These are perfect days, and I thank God for every one of them.

Welcome, AOL blogging friends

I began blogging on AOL Journals. It was there, it was handy, and I'm too lazy to do anything except go with the flow. I met amazing people there, and watched some blog while they were dying. A time came when there was yet another glitch with the program, and I decided AOL wasn't going to last forever. I decided to move to Blogger.

Trouble is, many of my old AOL journal buddies wouldn't read my Blogger site; they seemed to think I was a turncoat for leaving. So I kept two blogs going, because I didn't want to lose track of my buddies; I've done this for a couple years now, randomly putting one post here, a different one on AOL.

But one morning this week, I saw the following notice at the top of my blog:

And there was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in what had come to be known as "J-Land".

AOL is working with Blogger for a way to transfer AOL journals seamlessly over here. If they get that done, I'll transfer all that to a separate blog and keep it for memory's sake; I'll keep my daily ramblings right here. Actually, this is a good thing, for me. Now I can put all my drivel in one spot. Those of you who have only been reading this blog, get ready for about twice as many entries. Or not.

Meanwhile, Meatloaf and Secret are enjoying the lovely October weather. (Hey, AOL friends: You can click on pictures here to see them larger.)

I rode Blue down to the Missouri River yesterday; looks a little low, to me.

There's an ocean of soybeans not quite ready for harvest-time. I love this time of year.

As I write this, it's 41 degrees. It's true what everyone has been telling me: Hot tubs feel best when it's nippy outside!

Autumn is in the air

After some two months of drought and desert-like temperatures, we've cooled off gloriously. Yesterday was mostly overcast, and except for the few times the sun peeped out, a flannel shirt felt pretty good.

All summer I've had to do any horseback riding at dawn; it's been too hot to ride during the day.

So it was a treat, yesterday, to be able to ride my horse after Cliff left for work at 2:30 P.M. When I went outside, the sun was out and I took off my flannel shirt. However, I did tie in onto the back of the saddle before I left. That turned out to be a wise move.

I rode south on one of our many country roads. I got Blue up on a bank out of the way when I saw a school bus headed our way on the narrow gravel road, and did the same when a huge grain truck met us; my horse does very well with traffic, but sometimes he'll get just a touch of panic if something really big gets too close, especially if there are steep banks on both sides making him feel he's trapped. Farmers are harvesting corn like crazy, which means there are lots of big grain trucks coming and going this time of year. Anyhow, we made it just fine with no incidents.

As I crossed 24 highway, I realized the clouds were getting heavier and darker, and I needed the shirt I'd brought along. A cool wind started whipping Blue's mane around and I considered what might be the best way to head home. I'd passed up one road home, wanting a longer ride than it allowed me.

Looking across a field, I could see my neighbor's house, far over to the north on the old highway. My quickest route home would be across some corn and soybean fields which, alas, have not been combined and harvested yet. Normally, I keep Blue out of the crops; I like to respect the farmers in this regard, although I doubt Blue would do that much damage walking through a soybean field.

It started sprinkling and I made my decision: Cut across the fields instead of riding another mile to a through road. If I stayed right at the edge where soybeans meet the corn, it should take me home.

That was one of the longest short-cuts I've ever taken: The soybeans grow so thick and tall, it was difficult for Blue to navigate through them. Forget about taking him through the corn; he has a bit of claustrophobia when ridden through anything taller than his head. At one point, he stepped in a huge hole that was hidden by weeds, and jolted both of us.

Believe me, when Blue came out of the fields onto a path he recognized, he quickened his pace and foxtrotted the rest of the way home!

I think from now on I'll stick to the roads, until all crops have been harvested.