November 28
Wylies have decamped. Dust has settled. Abigail went to church with us and then had breakfast with Rebecca and me. It was a pleasant Thanksgiving week. Wylies arrived Sunday evening. Dave had to work every day except Thanksgiving and Friday. Weather was decent and the four younger girls and I went for a hike around the Bluff. Vivian helped me haul a load of trimmings to the brush site. Sophia and I played our horns together briefly. Jill spent time shopping for groceries and cooking. Kari did also, I guess The two of them were out the door in the wee hours of Friday morning looking for an Apple watch for Rebecca, though not as a gift. Rebecca saved the money for one but finding one was a problem. After standing in line at 5 o’clock in the morning, Walmart was sold out by the time they got inside. Disappointment all around but they were able to find one later at another Walmart in town so all is good.
Looks like I won’t record any moisture for November after recording less than an inch for September and October combined. None is forecast for the coming week, either. This is turning into a serious dry spell. Don’t like it.
November 21
Rebecca helped me put up Christmas lights and the Christmas tree Saturday. There had been unpleasant weather in the form of cold wind in the previous days but we were fortunate Saturday was warm and calm. With Rebecca’s help, we pretty well completed the job. Rebecca said she might like to put a few ornaments on the tree. It has lights and stuff on it already. Last year we didn’t put anything extra on it and were satisfied but I told Rebecca she could add whatever she liked if she would take it down after Christmas.
The wind this week stripped a lot of the trees of their leaves but I see that the Bradford pears on the other side of the Quadrille wall are still green. It was amusing to watch the leaves in the backyard blow across the ground, very much like a wave running up a beach.
Kari and I went to the symphony Friday evening. It was the last concert by our current music director/conductor. He has been here eight years and, though we only got in on the tail end of his tenure, I’m sorry to see him go. No doubt his replacement will be good as well. The symphony board goes through quite a process to find a new conductor and January to June 2022 concert schedule will be conducted by the three candidates they’ve narrowed the field to. They’ll take turns conducting a month’s performance and then the board, with input from the audience, will pick their man (all three are men).
November 14
Our Chinese Pistache trees are showing out this year. In previous years only the oldest one, the one we got when Abigail was going to Olsen Park Elementary and won a gift certificate donated by a nursery at some school function, was the only one that showed fall color. It turns a bright orange red dependably every year, but the other two just turn brown and drop their leaves. This year, though, they are rivaling the first pistache for color. There are lots of trees with yellow leaves and the golden rain tree in the backyard is as colorful as the pistache, though a little more on the orange side. We’ve enjoyed an Indian summer the last few weeks with mostly sunshine and warm daytime temperatures. Dry, of course. A hard freeze is predicted for this coming week but first there will be a couple of days with temperatures rising into the 80’s.
Kari has been preparing beds in the garden and planting some things, edibles of some kind, I think. She was in the garden when I strolled by yesterday and said there were lots for red (harvester) ants among the beds. There is an ant bed 30 or 40 feet away from the garden out in the pasture. When we took a closer look we could see that, yes, there was a steady stream of ants coming from it to the garden. I think ants are like bees in that they don’t bother people when the bee is foraging among the flowers. Both will become aggressive in defense of their hive or bed. Now, you can get crossways with one or the other out foraging by accident and expect to get stung for being so clumsy. I guess we won’t worry about it until next spring. We may wind up killing the bed. There are five on the place, all in the pasture. I can only remember two at the most at any one time. Too bad we don’t have any horny toads.