November first

Time went backward this morning, changing from daylight savings to God's Own Time.  Of course I jest, since God didn't invent time and doesn't worry about it, as far as I know.  I have wished for the simplicity of other times, when nobody felt they had to mess around with the clocks.  In the sixties and seventies D.S.T. was kind of nice, because after people worked all day, they liked having time in the evening to mow a yard or just sit outside with a tall glass of iced tea, enjoying the cool of the evening.  These days people sit inside their houses watching mindless drivel on television while surfing the 'Net on their phones to combat the boredom of what they're watching.  If they want a tan, they pay somebody to let them get in a coffin-like container and burn for awhile.  I can't see any need for a time change now.

Here in Missouri it's windy, but cloudless and not terribly cold for November.  I always take an early weather check as soon as I'm up, since Gabe has to go out immediately.  I've learned to snap a leash on his collar when it's dark, because a mostly-black dog becomes invisible, and when Gabe starts following his nose, he refuses to answer my calls.  Like a two-year-old child or a husband, he becomes temperarily deaf. So I lead him through a pasture gate and stop; he tugs on the leash, wanting to search for a better place to answer nature's call, but I'm old, and there are mole-hills the size of Ozark hills around here.  Sometimes I wish I could just get rid of them all, but I suppose only a farmer with some sort of sprayer on his tractor could stop the damage with the poisons they use to protect their crops.  Why don't I remember moles being this abundant when I was a child?  Perhaps I wasn't worried about the earth giving way when I stepped on a mole-run as I was skipping barefoot around a yard in Iowa.  I recall Daddy buying poison peanuts to put down mole-holes, so I do know we had them even then.  

Mama Kitty brings us a mole she's killed from time to time, but not enough to put a dent in the population.  Perhaps Blue will eventually help her in the quest for varmints.  It would be nice if he would find some other occupation besides climbing on our screens and ruining them.  Oh, I knew it would happen:  I let him in the house when he was younger just enough to make him think he has the right to enter any time he wants.  Formerly I was glad he was such a smart kitten, but now I realize "smart" equals "ornery and bratty".  And the trouble is, I'm very fond of him.  Let's face it, some Ladies Love Outlaws:

 

Last week I mentioned HERE that I got a rooster for my two hens.  That experiment has been a success!  I noticed his first night here that he was smart enough to sleep on the roost, while the hens insisted in squatting on the floor for the night, no doubt because I raised them in a great big cow-and-horse waterer  in the house, where they had to squat on the floor of the thing.  The second night the rooster was here, I waited till dark, picked the hens up one at a time, and carried them to the roost, putting one on each side of the rooster.  Now they use the roost every time.  Oh, and the rooster wasn't crowing the first few days, but yesterday he found his ability to crow and was heard many times.  

I dreaded this month for many years because November was when my seasonal depression hit with a bang and made this day seem like the beginning of winter.  It's a month that tends toward cloudy (gloomy) weather, and looking ahead, things get no better until March or April.  Although truthfully, at my age winter goes by swiftly, even if I'm just sitting in the house with aching knees, reading.

I'm reading a Harlan Coben book, Six Years, that's keeping me on the edge of my seat.  I'll probably finish it today; I see it was made into a movie for Netflix, so I'll probably try watching it later.  Waiting on my shelf in the Libby app is "A Time for Mercy" by John Grisham.  I don't enjoy all his books, but this one has a character I liked in previous Grisham books.  We finished watching "Greenleaf" on Netflix recently and are now watching "Poldark", a PBS series that is free to watch on both Netflix and Amazon Video.  We're enjoying it, and I really like looking at the leading character, Ross Poldark.

Have a lovely Sunday, won't you?