October has been busy

🍂 Fall Chores

There is lots to do outside. I'm just taking my time. Someone put his back out and he's still looking after it.

• Tuesday I did the leaves, mulching them and the pine needles, and did some lawn. 
• Switched out the bird bath for the heated bird bath. (Thanks again, AC!) 
• Tried to put the bird feeder stand up. Crooked. Gotta try again. It started raining after I rested. Pfftt.
• I caught another little frog. Almost. No luck. I missed. Twice. Jeremiah sleeps for the winter.

The water fountain is covered, and ready for winter. The pagan lights need some help. A couple of strands are not working. Nothing lasts these days. You have to be really careful in matching the plugs. (Non-mental note!)

 I had wrapped up the bench swing, then the winds blew! I started again and secured it a little more effectively! I don't mind doing a job once.. 😏

Back to it. THIS is secure!

The sun has disappeared for a few days. No precipitation to speak of, but there is a chill in the air. The sun warms me up enough to manage outside, but it's been hiding. I played with these two images. I could not decide which I prefer.

Dark skies! I mulched the leaves again. It is terribly satisfying.

Joe has been watching football on his TV. Nutmeg likes to keep him company. It's not cold enough to put a fire on, but that day is approaching.

Just for fun, a brief power outage. All the clocks had to be reset! 

The good news is that the biting bugs are slowly going to sleep. We've ticks. Nutmeg brought Joe one, and Cinnamon shared another with me. Since they invented the anti-tick goop for cats, things have improved. This year is about the same as last year.

Problems and solutions!

Problem #1:  I've decided to put these on our window. The cardinal keeps banging on it, seeing his reflection as a competitor. The cats like it, but the noise gets irritating. 

Yes, I cut my finger with a steak knife. Not a problem, with lots of tape. I've been a wearing finger rubber on it to shower and wash my face. JB used these when we were putting meds in orah's ear.

One is supposed to stretch the tape down the window, use a little tool to scrape it flat, then pull off the tape to leave these little square dots on the window. I realised that the dots were still stuck to the tape, and I just left the tape on.

Problem #2  😼 Cinnamon loves being outdoors. I am keeping him close, what with the fisher. 

🐭 The solution is to put Cinnamon out in the garage, as well as doing walkies together. He loves to look for mice friends in there, bless his heart. There are bags of bird seed, some spilled. He sits, staring under the workbench, wagging his tail in glee! Apparently, he has time to walk across the hood of the car. After driving behind a municipal truck that was salting the roads, JB just had the car washed!

Problem #3: the top of the bird feeder flipped. I dashed out in my housecoat, in -13 C., to fix it. A mourning dove got caught in it and a tree sparrow was nestling inside.

Problem #4: I'd washed a couple of towels, then threw them in the dryer in the basement. I realized that the dryer vent was loose in the wall. I tried to reinsert it, but failed. Caitlin and Josephine said they'd help me fix it.

The vent had come out of the exhaust pipe. The trick is that the pipe needs to be attached, and then pushed back to the wall, and inserted back into the hole in the wall. I'll need to vacuum, as well. 

All my problems were solved! Jean-Luc, my SIL, slipped downstairs after they'd arrived Saturday and put it all back together. Whew! What a peach!

Yes, Family Day weekend we had a family visit. We had a great time. Josephine drove them here. Caitlin sat in the back with Isabelle!

Snuggle time, as we watched taped episodes of Jeopardy. Even Nutmeg enjoy it.

The sun shone, in between clouds, and the shadow was lovely. 

JL took this photo of Josee mushing Nutmeg in the sun.

Dinner: I explained that I'd mistakenly asked JB for a pork loin, rather than a pork loin roast. Me bad. It was for this recipe of Pulled Pork Rolls. They look just like Cinnamon Rolls, a segment on Mary Berg's new show The Good Stuff. She has morphed her Master Chef win with a talk show. It's a lot of fun watching her. 

Funny story: she had Jamie Oliver on her show. He was in the UK, and they were both cooking the same meal at the same time to demonstrate it. I don't think Oliver knew that she is a Master Chef, with award-winning cookbooks. He kept praising her skills as she followed his directions. 

🥕 Saturday's dinner was a group effort. Having conferred, Caitlin sent me a link for a possible recipe, and I marinated the meat overnight. JL did the cooking, bless his heart! He enjoys it. Caitlin made us a yummy red cabbage salad. I did some Pillsbury rolls that JB can eat. 

They left Sunday morning. Josephine did the sidewalk for me. Since it was windy and snowy, Papa drove them home. 

I had a parcel delivery. He told me the driving was awful. Can you see what I ordered??!! It is discouraging, though, as these products don't seem to last very long. They are made of thin, cheap material, and simply wear out.

 

It's been snowy! 

snow day from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Anyway, the driveway is done. Snowblower put away. I had to get the garbage out and I didn't see any way around it. Another 20 cm of snowfall. I have a coffee and I'm under a blanket. The sidewalk I'll do later, after breakfast.

Paint Party Friday!

I finally did one!

I was in clean-up mode, too. I Marie Kondo'd three shelves in the foyer closet. Approximations of the behaviour. I had a helper.



OK, it's far less the diva recommends, which scarf I wear depends upon the season, the weather, and what else I am wearing. That's the thing, I have the space. Bungalow life is interesting. We downsized quite a bit. Our Ottawa home was a split level, sort of two stories.
JB already did the cold storage room!

Next, we are going to work on the car. I'm thinking we should wait until it is a bit warmer...

grailcam & reports

Now, my trailcam SD cards are my holy grail. I mistakenly typed grail, but thought it serendipitous.
We've had a few issues around here. Our wifi died. We replaced it. It's been pouring rain (48 mm –1.5") and Internet speed is horrid.
Hubby's computer died, we took it in. His browser, Chrome, was corrupted. Safari isn't much better. I'm not sure how to fix it.

Joe's also been cleaning out the cold storage room. We've had mice in there. Droppings are everywhere. He has been tireless in taking things out. The shredding: old papers, are gone. Everything has been put into new boxes. We'll have a dump run, at some point.

I was looking at the cement and insulation in the cold storage. I saw that newspapers had been used for some purpose. I wondered if I could see a date.

Can you read it? It's the anniversary of my birthday, Dec. 26, 1985. I guess now we know about when the house was built! My youngest was born in 1985!

The basement ceiling still needs repairs. 

Yes, cataracts are driving me nuts. Now I'm fighting a cold. Ah well. I know many are a lot worse off. I continue to blog every morning. It is my ritual. My routine. I like reflecting back on my days. It makes them much more exciting to reflect. As always, I really appreciate reader support and interaction. My days are always less traumatic when I reflect and I try to find self-deprecating humour in it. When I visit my client twice a week, three hours each, I embellish my stories to take her mind off her ills and her sick adult children. A daughter and husband are both in hospital. It's been awfully stressful.

Forest walkies

The dew on the fallen leaves was pretty. This is just my video camera, which doesn't do it justice. I hope you get the picture, though.



Hooper came with me on this day. I was so happy to have him there. I don't know what was in the foliage, as he sat on the end of the dock. There is about 4" of water on the pond now. It couldn't be mice friends! He stayed there quite awhile, then came back up to the house and sat in his little house for hours.

I've been trying to get him to go out in the day. He helped me garden the other day. It's safer, I think, what with our fisher, coyotes, et al. He doesn't bother with the birds in the day time.



The nice clean birdbath is getting visitors. We have had a small flock of grackles. It's hunting season, you can hear that in the video. Ducks now, and deer this week, I think.



Now, when I move the trailcams, which I like to do, I tend to either lose them or forget my routines. Here is evidence...

 

I know I've shown 'Butch' before, but this one actually wags its tail! I'm not sure what it was looking at. Likely another raccoon. Then, it starts to rain.