Chores

Saturday dawned bright and brisk. The perfect autumn day to spend in the garden. With a chilly wind blowing but the sun warm on my back I took down all my wren houses. Time to bring them in and do some repairs and touch up painting before storing them over the winter. The wrens will be back next May and expect the houses to be clean and neat for their new families. Several larger birdhouses will be left up all winter. Birds like chickadees will be grateful to huddle inside them on cold winter nights.

The favorite and the first wren house occupied every year is the white one with the decorative cutouts. I guess birds have a sense of style too.

I decided to enlarge three flower beds so I spent a couple hours cutting out sod and re-edging. Today I'm feeling a few muscles I don't remember having. This is my favorite spade. I bought it probably 15 years ago. Perfect for edging borders, removing strips of sod, and especially moving perennials in and out of tight places. It keeps a very sharp edge all season.

Now that I've given myself a little extra space, I can get busy planting some spring bulbs.

My friend is giving me a toothy grin for the camera;)


Sunday blew in with a vengeance. I dug out the warm down vest and braved the 60-mile per hour winds to fill the bird feeders. As I watched the leaves swirling madly around me I felt the first ominous splat--a large wet snowflake on my face. The season's first snow. It didn't amount to much and lasted only about 10-minutes. Still, a reminder that good weather is to be treasured late in October.

In the afternoon, I took a scenic drive out to one of our local apple orchards. They have the best apple cider donuts served fresh and hot with glasses of fresh pressed cider. Brought back a dozen donuts and several gallons of cider to enjoy later.