by 
October 31
It looks like it will be too chilly to go trick-or-treating tonight so I guess I’ll just stay in and dole out candy to any younguns that show up. There aren’t usually any but I bought some individual M&M packages just in case. One way or the other I know they won’t got to waste. Our weather this week was split between pleasant sunshine and cold wind. The only constant was no moisture.
I got the lily pool cleaned out the other day. It will quickly fill up with leaves this time of year but at least it is starting the autumn blow clean. I’ll try to keep the leaves cleaned out so it doesn’t get too bad. Besides seven goldfish, there are minnows and they have produced a batch of little ones. I was worried these would suffer when I cleaned the pool but I think I was able to scoop most of them up and put them a bait bucket until the pool was drained and the dirty water was replaced with fresh.
I think I mentioned I collected some broadleaf milkweed seeds at the Bluff this month. Yesterday I separated the seeds from their fluff. They are like the wind-born seeds of many plants, dandy lions for instance, in that the seed is surrounded by thin white strands of material meant to catch the wind to disperse the seeds. They are so light any breeze will send them soaring. It was a tedious job but the seeds without the fuzz are much easier to handle. I’ll plant them next spring and see what happens.
Abigail was in town one day to see a dentist and had dinner with us. She seems to be prospering. According to her, she does little more than work and study. Both are going well, she reports.
October 24
Tis beginning to look at bit like autumn here. Just this week, nay, the last few days some of the trees have begun to turn bright yellow. There is a wildflower, I think it is the prairie daisy, that covers large areas of grassland in the spring if there has been some moisture and because the flowers are yellow some hold that that gave our fair city it’s name. At the very least, in some years that is reinforced as all the trees turn yellow. There may be a red here and there, but yellow is far and away the predominant color, or brown in some years. The weather continues to be very good, though very dry. Kari, Rebecca and I attend church and when we get home Rebecca scrambles eggs while I run to McDonalds for some sausage mcgriddles. Kari spurns such fare but we thoroughly enjoy it.
Jill was tinkering with her water feature one day this week. Water wasn’t circulation as it should, probably because one of the tubes got disconnected. When we cleaned the pond and got the water circulating properly the tube connections weren’t all that solid partly because they were hard to get to and partly because the tubing was old and not very pliable. While working on the problem she encountered a diamond back water snake. She sent a picture and don’t think it was a very big one but I couldn’t tell. Seems that is the largest species of water snake in North America when they get full sized. Jill thinks it was the reason she could only see two of the four goldfish they put in the pond recently. No doubt she wishes the snake would seek happiness somewhere else.
Art, Chris and I drove out to Riverland Saturday to limber up our trigger fingers. It turned out to be a nice day to terrorize plastic water bottles and oatmeal cartons. We shot a variety of hand guns, rifles and shotguns but none of us could hit the broad side of a barn. The point of the exercise was to help remain familiar with the firearms. In case of emergency we want to minimize the fumbling around. No one shot themselves in the foot so I guess it was a successful trip.
Kari went to the symphony with me Friday evening. We saw the world premier of a symphony written by a friend of the conductor. He also performed on the violin in the piece. We enjoyed his music. The latter part of the program was Brahm’s 4th symphony, which was good, but Kari and I both had a tough time staying awake by then.
October 10
Jill attended church with Kari, Rebecca and me this morning, then left from there for Lubbock. She had arranged to take Abigail to lunch and see the sites while she was there. She’ll be home this evening.
Saturday Jill, Kari and I visited the cemetery and left a couple of jars of flowers. Back home Jill helped Kari with some chores and helped me clean house. It had been several weeks since we hired someone to clean it good and I wanted to get to it before it got too bad. As it turned out, there wasn’t an appreciable build up of dust. I need to get a routine worked out so I can stay on top of it.
Last night we celebrated the birthday with pizza at 2005. One of Kari’s friends own a pizzeria named 575 something after the temperature of their oven. Apparently 575° is the ideal pizza-baking temperature. One can find cheaper pizza but maybe not better pizza in my view.
October 3
We missed being in Garland last year for Vivian’s birthday because of the pandemic, so I wanted to be sure to be in Sachse this year. The Pathfinder developed a problem that required a new part that took several days to arrive so I drove the Passat instead. It performed well and suffered no damage that I know of. I spent most of my time there visiting and loafing, but I did help Jill repair her water feature in the front yard. It suffered from the weather during the winter and wasn’t circulating water the it should. It also needed cleaning, which was our first step. I think the brought five goldfish from the old house when the moved but there was only one left when we cleaned the pond. We then cleaned up the pumps and reattached them to the proper hoses. That got everything going again and we were satisfied.