Spooky Season Review

Hello, everyone!  Guest author Chad is here at the keyboard today.  It's been a busy fall season, and we're finally getting settled in for the winter.  Let's rewind the clock to mid-October and see what it looked like!

Julie did as much work as time and weather permitted on the garden.  The berry hills are built, so the blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry plants can go in right away next year.  The fall rains had come and made everything so muddy that all this had to be shoveled up by hand, instead of creating the hills by plowing the trenches to the side.  It was a ton of work, but the harvest will be sweeter for it!

Walking around the yard, we found some vivid toadstools growing on the embankment by the old shed.

 

Speaking of the old shed, our new one arrived!  The delivery man had a neat trailer.  It had an integrated lift/cart underneath,, so he could swing the whole trailer side-to-side by remote control, instead of having to perfectly back it around.

We had agreed to let the previous owners take the shed that was on the site, figuring we would "simply" replace it.  That was an unexpected adventure.  We went to a town meeting to get a zoning variance due to the distance from the road, and it needed approval by the Highway Dept.  Only then we were cleared for getting a building permit.

 

For Halloween, we ended up being too busy to have the traditional pumpkin party with family, so we had our own mini-party.  Julie made some buffalo wing dip (wing sauce and chicken) for blue corn tortilla chips.  She also made mummy hot dogs, wrapped in dough, with mustard eyes! 

Of course, we carved pumpkins at our party.  Julie did her traditional fearsome creature, and I stretched my carving abilities by designing a house. 

 

November brought in the cold.  We were ready for it, though.  The chimney sweep and the furnace worker were both here in October, getting us set up for the season.  We put some fires in the wood stove.  Watching the fire is actually better than watching TV, because there are no ads.

 

It was time to start thinking about Christmas decor.  The store didn't have any lighted Christmas tree designs that we liked.  Instead, we searched the internet and found plans to make one.  We built a wooden frame and wrapped it with lights.  On one of the warmer days, with the mercury above 50, we went outside and decorated the front porch.  We put our round-ball lights along the railing and ceiling, put our new tree on the porch, and got some giant walkway lights to put in front of the gardens.

Finally, I think I'm required to sign off with the traditional pictures of kitties!  Velvet is checking out the new packaging, and, well, Dorian is being a cat.

 

Like most brothers, they may like each other, but they really get along best when separated.

Until next time!