Happy Halloween

 Halloween is not my favorite holiday.  I went out with the family while Gideon trick-or-treated tonight.  Zed and Keziah went to the movies in the middle and Gideon and I finished around walking the neighborhood and then home.  Sorcerer Gideon had a blast waving his wand and getting treats.

Applying the make-up

Rawr!

The family.

Back home.

Other happy things for today:

• It was a beautiful, after-the-rain, fall day.  

• Every week, TF and I have a phone call where we plan out our week ahead and discuss what we got done the week previous.  It is our goal accountability time.  This week we talked a long time about things like life, strategies, and neurodivergence.  
• The sunset was lovely tonight while we wandered streets filled with monsters, fairies, dogs, and firemen.

🎃☮🎃

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Roses in the Rain

 As I paced the floor tonight to reach my 10,000 steps a day goal I thought to myself, "Not today.  Today will not be the day that this streak ends."  It has been about fourteen and a half months and I don't want to lose the streak because of laziness or forgetfulness.  So the goal has been reached.  Other things I am happy for today:

• Last November I set a goal to write for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month) and I wrote over 10,000 words.  To "win" a person should aim at 50,000.  That is a lot of words.  This year my goal is to beat last year, so I am aiming at 11,000.  
• Keziah is making a gardecorp (medieval clothing) for a friend who will be getting an award at an event next week.  I got to be the mannequin for a few minutes today.  It cast a cool shadow that had us trying to quote from the movie Princess Bride about being the Dread Pirate Roberts.

It didn't photograph well.

• There are still too many boxes that I need to go through.  I tried today and instead wanted to save it all.  The box is of old newspapers and clippings, mostly from the 1970's.  There was a series of articles in the Manchester Union Leader, "Hometown History," that my mom clipped and saved.  They seem to have been written by George Woodbury.  Some of them are filed in envelopes alphabetically by town.  Others didn't get that far.  This box brought back happy memories of my mom.  I also kind of want to read all the articles.  
• It has been raining all day.  The roses are beautiful.

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Oh, My!

Rhizomes, pips, seeds, and bulbs were planted today; the tubers were yesterday.*  I forgot to call to see about having mulch and soil delivered. Hopefully I will remember and it can get here before the next frost. I’m so happy that I got so much planted. I still have some more to plant on another day. Other happy things for today:

• 

  Flying turkey.

  
  
• Nanni, the brown tabby, woke me this morning. It may have been so I could hear Aesop, the dog, whining and wanting to go out. For this first short walk we saw some turkeys. Aesop scared them and they flew away. At least one ended up in a tree.

He is still trying to get up.

He's safe up in a tree!

• There are some flowers that I only seem to see blooming when I walk Aesop in the morning. According to Lens they are either white campion or night-flowering catchfly. My initial research says that both of these bloom at night. Maybe I will find the time to get more information before winter.

• Frost covered the ground this morning.

• Sunset set the trees aglow.

It was a good day.

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

*Rhizomes---iris

pips---lily-of-the-valley

bulbs---tulips, crocus, paperwhite (narcissus)

tubers---daylily 

seeds---cereal rye (winter cover crop in the garden)

Dirt

 Next week when my paycheck is here, I will regret that I said yes when they offered to let people go home.  For now, I had a productive day and that is good.  Here are some things that I accomplished and I am happy for today:

• The triangle area of the driveway is now mostly weeded.  I spent most of the day out there with a pitch fork loosening the soil and then sitting or kneeling and pulling everything I could out.  

• There was a small section of daylilies that I pulled out, broke down into smaller parts, and then replanted in different places on the triangle.
• There is a hole, most likely from an animal, in the triangle that I am hesitating on demolishing.  It was kind of cool to find it, but I don't want an animal living there.  I feel like if something is living there, it won't want to now because there is no longer any protection from the elements or predators.

It seems a bit larger than the chipmunk
holes I have seen, but that might be something that I did.

Here it is more open and cleared out.
I tried to leave the outside smooth that I might see
footprints in the morning if it is in use.

• Zed and I measured the triangle.  It is about 27 feet wide at the base by the sidewalk and about 25 feet long on each side to the apex.  That makes the area just over 284 square feet.  I will need these measurements when I buy mulch.
• It is cold tonight.  The temperatures should go down around 32 degrees.  I brought the potted plants onto the porch and noticed that the zinnia still has blossoms.

• The sun and the roses.

☮

Currently reading: Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Training.

 On Sunday I took the broken parts of the marigold plant and set some to dry, collected seed, and I am trying to propagate three others in a pot.  So far, the propagating prospective plants have survived the frost and three days.  Not very long, but they still look pretty good.

Other things I am happy for today:

• They were overstaffed at work and looking for people to volunteer to go home.  Instead, I asked if I could be trained in something else.  It seemed like a good time.  I am now trained in diverting/pushing.  I had done a little of this before but not had the official training.  
• So far, the thundershirt we got for our dog, Aesop, seems to be working well.  It may even be too good.  He didn't even get up when I came home.

• I worked at removing weeds from the triangle area of the yard. If I can get more things planted there before the end of the month it will be good and I will be ahead of when I planted things last year.  

☮

Currently reading: Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Quick Happy List

Just a few short things that I am happy about today:

• Ice cream.  
• Keziah did some research and we now believe that much of our dog, Aesop's, bad behavior is due to anxiety.  After a little bit of conversation and more research she went out and got him a thundershirt.  It worked like a charm.  Now to do more research to get the best usage out of it.
• What I thought were the last roses were not.  There is another bloom and a new bud!

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Walking in the Rain

 Again, I have stayed awake longer than I should have.  My bedtime on a Monday should have been a little over an hour before sitting down to write this.  It was a rainy day, but there are things-other than rain- to be happy about.  My day started with a walk with Aesop, the dog.  It was raining steadily then, and we didn't walk for long.  It was a good walk though.  Other happy things:

• Planning out my day this morning I was ready to go dig dirt and plant bulbs in the rain.  It was then that I saw the reminder on my phone about my appointment with the optometrist.  Instead of playing in mud, I woke up Keziah, took a shower, and we headed to the appointment.  They had to dilate my eyes and I wanted Keziah to drive me home.  This was a follow-up exam from six weeks ago and all the tests came back good.  
• Later in the afternoon Keziah and I took Aesop for a walk on a nearby paved rail trail.  Aesop hasn't been the best behaved lately.  He was doing better though towards the end of the walk.  Progress is good.
• I was wearing dark sunglasses for the walk because of the earlier dilation of my eyes.  I took a few pictures and just now, looking at them, they came out pretty well.  There was detail missing with my eyes being the way they were, the camera did a good job.

☮

Currently reading: Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.


Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Frosty Morning

 Last night was the first frost of the season.  I'm not ready.  There are things I want to plant.  The cold also made it hard for me to sleep last night.  One of today's tasks became making sure all the radiators were cleaned off and now the heat is on.  Other happy things for today are:

• Being the person to take Aesop out first this morning gave me a chance to see the beauty of the tiny ice crystals clinging to the plants.

Frosted black-eyed Susan.

• After lunch, I met a friend at the Tower Hill Pond Trails and we caught up.  We walked the loop around the pond but there are many trails that spur off.  

• As the sun was setting I noticed part of a cloud formation.  To me that one part  looks like one wing, like that of an angel.

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Dune-no spoilers

 It was till the garden day.  We finally rented a machine to turn the garden.  It is later in the season than it probably should have been, but the rotted clapboards on the house was the top priority.  I only used the machine for a few minutes, the rest was all Zed.  He claimed to enjoy the task. 

So much land to till.

Almost done.

It took most of the day.  I'm happy that he did it.  I moved things around, removed rocks, worked in the sheep manure, and stuff like that.  Other happy things for today:

• Perhaps it was a hawk that flew over?  I'm pretty sure it was a red-tailed hawk.  Whatever, it was fun watching it soar.

• Zed brought home a pick-axe and shovel from the dump today.  For anyone that plays Minecraft, they know that a pick-axe is a very important tool in the game.  For me, a person who plays Minecraft, it is the one basic Minecraft tool that we didn't already have within the household.  The others being the shovel, hoe, and a regular axe.  And so the joke around here is that we are prepared for the zombie apocalypse now.

• With a tiller in the van the back had to remain open transport.  This meant that the back-up camera was aimed at the sky.  I liked the view...

• In the evening, I stepped out of my comfort zone with Keziah and we went to the movies.  We saw the first part of the new Dune movie just released.  I would have been okay waiting to see it at home, except the rest of the family will be seeing it too.  Gideon will not, he will be introduced with a previous version.  This is partially because the current movie is just the first of a two part film series.  There were some gorgeous scenes, and I will leave it at that.

☮

Currently reading: Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.


Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Sun Sets

 Aesop, the dog, keeps trying to give Winston, the orange tabby cat, his rawhide bone.  It doesn't go well.  Winston just gets mad and defensive.  Aesop starts getting anxious because his attempts at friendship are met with anger and aggression.  I have mixed feelings.  It bothers me that Aesop gets anxious and barks a lot to try to get Winston's attention.  It also bothers me that Winston feels that he has to defend himself.  On the other hand-I'm happy that Aesop is trying to make friends and I am happy that Winston wants to protect himself.  Pets...  Things I am happy for today:

• It has been a few days since I went through one of the boxes that I brought over from being stored last week.  I only went through one of them today.  I didn't empty it, but I did get rid of a bunch of things that were in it.  Most of what is left are pictures and a book and some things to file.  
• I climbed into the netted area to check out the strawberry plants and the marigold.  A few days ago I noticed that the marigold was broken, as if stomped on.  One of the first things I noticed was a hole, like a chipmunk hole.  I'm not sure what I am going to do about this yet.  I'm glad I have a theory about the breakage and can think about this for next year.

This marigold is so big.

• With the marigold plant, it is so big I took some clippings to dry and to attempt to propagate.  I also gathered seeds from it.
• I took a walk with Aesop and got some pictures that I really like.

I love this part of the
conservation area with the birch trees.

Still some color on the property.

Setting sun.

Setting sun.

• Gideon joined TF and I while we played Minecraft tonight.  It was nice to have another player.  He watches videos on Minecraft all the time and helps us learn about more things.

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.
        People atop the mountain started recording temperatures in the mid 1800's.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.

Sleep

 It has been a long three days of working with minimal sleep to carry me through.  I had a nap this afternoon and it helped me feel human this evening with the family.  Yay nap!  Other happy things for today:

• Fluffy clouds. 

Clouds and maybe a vulture?

• Over the weekend I made some ajustments to how the wildlife camera hung on the tree.  When I went to check on it I was met on the trail with many colors.  This is such a pretty time of year. 

• I took a few minutes to braid some of the wool that might someday become a rug.  I started this when I was a teenager and then it sat in a box for forty-ish years.  I only did a couple inches, but something is better than nothing.

☮

Currently reading:  Mount Washington A Guide and Short History, by Peter E. Randall.

Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.