Friday dawns cool and damp and I'm driven inside to the warmth of the old kitchen to cook up something good. The menu is Katsudon, a hearty Japanese meal with pork cutlets and rice, and I decide to fix it in the shank of the day. On the player is an Irish CD and Tommy Blaney's waltz just finished. Hubby could smell the onions cooking inside and he's reading and waiting to eat. Upstairs I am finishing up on the border of my quilt and hope to have that project wrapped up in a day or two and the finished product on the daybed.

I've a bushel of apples outside beckoning something be done with them, and instead of supper tonight, when we get peckish, I'll throw on a pot of apple dumplings for something. All in all, a pleasant way to spend a "nearly October" day.

It's getting down to the nitty-gritty, no more playing at getting ready for a season change, the change is almost upon us, you can feel it looming and lurking near by. So it's high time to prepare, don't want to have to huff and puff in cold and windy and rainy (did I say that?) weather.
Next week the folks at the NOAA tell of probabilities of showers and temps in the 60's.
So the hen house is cleaned out, and the goat house is mucked out; the garden waits for some moisture, I don't have any more to give, our water-table is way low, and until real storms begin, it shall stay that way.
One begins to think "is this flush necessary?" and to pour leftover water from drinking glasses onto house plants and to wear that pair of pants another day. Five minute showers are better than none at all. I'm not whining, at least I don't have to buy water @ $3000.00 per truck-load, as some folks in the hinterland have to do.
It is that time of year, the lesson is: Cowboy UP!
Lilo

Sated.

Yelp, sated. T'was not necessarially a feast, but it was the next best thing. One reason that I don't mind not having any real culinary establishments in town is that I can't eat all that is served in a restaurant that comes with a meal. The portions are just too large. So Wednesday, for supper I grilled a steak and baked a potato. Ate one half of the steak and one half of the potato. Saved the rest. For today. But on the way home I picked up another Alaskan King Crab claw. So I had surf and turf just a little while ago.

Leftovers, done right, don't have to taste like leftovers.

I'm listening to the Buffett buffet. Lots of his good, early stuff. Hard to image Mr. Buffett has been at this close to 30 years, now. Later, at seven, it will be the Thistle and Shamrock again on APR.

The icing on the cake tonight is the premiere of the new season of Doctor Who, with another new actor playing the good "doctor."

Not a bad day, and not a bad evening, methinks.

Cheers!, everyone.

Elia

Yep has the "feel of fall" here in Maryland. Going down to plant swap in Aquasco Md. tomorrow, then off for a week at Ocean City tuesday. Good grub and surf fishing. Wife and I will have the place to ourselves a couple of days then dtr and SIL rest of week. Then back to dig gladiolus bulbs and after first frost get the dahlia tubers out. Grass growing like crazy here. Lovely Fall. Steve in Baltimore County

The weekend saw the first night that slithered to under 50*... in fact, the thermometer saw 50* on the 20th, first time since early May. A few beeches are showing bright gold, but the oaks are dropping their drought-shriveled, brown leaves. Mid-week, showers drenched us, nearly an inch of much-desired rainfall. Trees, shrubs, lawn, everything woke up their green, a glorious exurberance of color after 3 months without rain; if the hurricanes hadn't spattered us for a couple days just before the Labor Day weekend, that would have been 4 months. The stores are selling mums in all the autumnal colors, but my in-ground Purple Dome aster is just beginning to flaunt its color. The scarlet salvias are flaming, and an occasional errant monarch butterfly stops by for a visit.

The winds blew the perillas sideways down, and I can't decide whether to re-plant or just take snips for over-wintering. I've already committed my best windows to the impatience, and perilla is such a *big* plant, even in stem-tip.

I mowed, mostly to get up the oak leaves and windblown squirrel nesting. Prior mowing was a month ago, I sure can't depend on pushing the mower to get exercise. Weathermen are advising temps will be in the mid-eighties this week. It's difficult to think about wrapping the tomato plants to protect through coming frosts.