In case you missed me, I’ve been preoccupied by various concerns with which I won’t bore you.  Suffice it to say, I’m back in one piece for now, and stuff got done.

For one thing, we chopped most of a redbud tree down.  It was threatening to split in half and fall on our house in the next big storm, so we got a tree chainsaw and managed to drop most of it not on our roof.  Some roof repair was involved, but a worse disaster was averted.  Now it’s mostly piles of logs and branches.  I’m thinking about building a log cabin!

I got a lot of fall garden maintenance and preps done.  I planted trees, native wildflower seeds, and fall/winter veggies.  I repotted and brought in non-hardy plants.  I harvested and dried some herbs.  I cleaned up and weeded beds, and amended soil with compost.  E. created and worked on a sun rock garden site for next year.  And much, much more.

One night around Halloween, coyotes were right outside our front door howling!  It was very spooky.  In unrelated news, Misu must have gotten into something toxic outside, and got sick last night.  We will now upgrade her into a full-time indoor cat.  She thinks it’s a downgrade, but there are too many risk factors outside, mostly of the stupid human variety.

Also, last week Misu managed to remove a heat register and crawl down the ductwork under the house, and somehow found her way outside!  Then E had to get down under the house and crawl through a tiny space full of tangled wires and pipes to try to find the exit hole (which was impossible) and to fill any access gaps.  We were not amused.  Now all the registers are screwed down.  Cats.  They’re like evil two-year-olds, only with fewer f—s to give.

It’s finally getting fall colorful outside and in.  Here’s a sampling, while awaiting rain.