P.S.

Outside my window, the wind is blowing. Dead leaves scatter across soon-to-be dead grass. The threatening sky has been a deepening grey, all day long.

I have come to the conclusion that autumn and fall are two different seasons.

Officially, autumn begins with the equinox in late September - but I think it starts earlier than that. In my mind, autumn starts in early September. Sometimes, it might even start in late August. Fall, I think, starts sometime in late October.

There's a certain undefinable romance with autumn. In autumn, leaves are changing colors, and ripened apples and pumpkins dot the trees and the farms. Late afternoons are filled with golden sunshine. Sharp shadows are cast long across still-green fields. Cool nights approach gently, and encourage deep sleep and sweet dreams.

In fall, the once colorful trees have shed their leaves, leaving behind skeletal frames silhouetted against the graying sky. The cool days of autumn have turned chilly and raw. Nights arrive abruptly and linger stubbornly through the cold, long hours ahead.

In autumn, memories of summer are still fresh, though unnecessary. The pleasant days and nights of autumn stand on their own. In fall, the wasteland of November begins and recent memories of autumn are slowly forgotten. Thoughts turn instead to the inevitable arrival of a once distant winter.

I look out of my window and the wind is still blowing, the leaves are still scattering. Over the hills, I see narrow fans of sunlight streaming through distant breaks in the sky.

But the day is still cold and soon it will be dark. And the wind still blows. The leaves still scatter.

The Fall of Autumn

Sam and I finally made it outside to rake leaves on Sunday. It was less than fun. It had rained all day on Saturday, so the leaves were nice and wet. It took us about three or four hours to clean up the front yard (with another four days and counting, to loosen up my stiff back).

If I hadn’t had Sam’s help, it would have taken me no time at all - literally. This is because I probably wouldn't have bothered to rake at all. Instead, I would have let the leaves gather on my so called “lawn” and let them decay on their own, naturally - for the next decade or so.

But I had Sam's help, and I’m really grateful for it. And, if it doesn’t rain this weekend, we’ll try to tackle the leaves in the backyard. The backyard is more of a challenge than the front yard.

The front yard has one lone maple tree. I’m told this is a red maple - though it doesn’t look red to me. The leaves on this “Red Maple” drop earlier than most of the other trees in the neighborhood. This makes it slightly easier to rake up because, first of all, the damage is fairly contained and secondly, being a lone maple tree, there are fewer leaves to rake.

The backyard is a different story. I don’t have any maple trees in the backyard. In fact, I don’t have any deciduous trees in the backyard. My neighbors, however, have plenty of them - all maple trees. I’m told that these maples are "Norway Maples". Nothing against the Norwegians, but according to this article, these trees are not well loved. I can see why - at least leaf-wise.

My tiny backyard is plastered with these leaves. (Did I mention that not one of these trees is mine?) The problem is that,while there's a ton of leaves on the ground, there are still a bunch in the trees, refusing to let go. I suppose I could attack them in waves, over many weekends, but to me, this just prolongs the agony. Instead, I would rather rake them up all at once - and only once. But they take their sweet time falling. They fall late, they fall slow and they never end.

But right now, there are enough leaves on the ground that I guess it'll be a worthwhile investment of our time. I guess. Maybe.

They're predicting rain for Saturday. We'll see. If we can't rake leaves on Saturday, we'll try for Sunday. This will make it a full week since we raked the leaves in front yard. And by then, hopefully all of the leaves will have fallen - though I doubt it. But maybe, if nothing else, by waiting that extra day or so, my stiff back will have loosened up - though I doubt that, as well.

More of the Same

I guess, like the rest of the world, I continue to get my share of scam emails. These things seem to come in spurts. I'm not sure if these people have some sort of monthly quota or what, but lately, they seem to be particularly active.

Here's one I got yesterday. This is another one from my friend, Fake Chase...

I have to give him credit. Even though he continues to struggle with spelling and grammar, he's not giving up. I say, good for him!

And here's another one. This one just came in this morning...

This one almost got me. At first I thought, How flattering is this, that Google has choosed me for their Google poster? Finally! Someone has recognized my photographic skills! Thank you Google Poster Committee!

But then I noticed that, while this appears to come from "Google Photo Share", the actual email address reads: "dean.parker@jct600.co.uk".

Interestingly enough, I used to know a real life Dean Parker, but he didn't work for Google and he was about as likely to move to the UK as I am. (No offense, UK. I just don't like to travel.) I dunno, maybe you can get a UK email address without moving there. I haven't looked into it.

Anyway, out of curiosity, I right clicked on the "View Albums" button to get the link information. Imagine my bitter disappointment when I saw the address was from somewhere called "mixmeat.ru/assets forward slash something, forward slash something". I'm not positive, but I don't think "mixmeat" is a legit email from the Google Poster Committee - even if they are from Russia.

I hate to say this, but it looks like my photographic skills will continue to be ignored. But, just like my good friend, Fake Chase, I think the lesson here is to keep on trying. It's bound to pay off someday.

More Things that Keep Me from Posting

... or "Another Typical Weekend"

On my way home from work on Friday, I called Sam, just as I do most Fridays. Friday night is when I give Sam an option of what he would like to do for dinner. Actually, I give him options just about every night, but every other night, the options involve food I already have at home - and it usually involves leftovers for one or more of the options.

On Fridays though, it’s his choice and his choice usually means going to one of the grocery stores to buy something along the lines of chicken strips and potato wedges. This is a tradition that started long ago when his brother and sisters were little. It gave me a night off from having to think of an idea for dinner and it gave them a night off from having to eat one of my meals.

So we went to the grocery store and after dinner, we prepared to make apple butter.

We still have a ton of apples left over from when we went apple picking and Sam had wanted to make apple butter. This was fine, but t apple butter takes a while to cook, eleven hours, in fact - at least, it does the way we do it. So Sam and I weighed out the right amount of apples. I peeled them and Sam chopped them and then we put them in the crock pot where, along with the other ingredients, they simmered overnight.

Saturday morning, I got Sam his breakfast and while Sam ate, I whisked out the apple butter. When the apple butter had cooled, I put some of it in a container so Sam could have some later. The rest went into some freezer bags, which Sam had labeled for me, and then I somehow managed to fit them into the freezer.

Next, it was time to help Sam with his checkbook. His bank statement had come earlier in the week, and so had another paycheck, so we worked on balancing his checkbook and getting his bank information together. While Sam worked on the math, I entered his information where I needed to enter it, for the ever present SSI issues. When we finished, we worked on making our usual grocery lists - one for him and one for me.

We knew we were going to be doing another cooking project this weekend so, along with checking out the status of our usual necessities, we went through the selected recipe, finding the ingredients we already had and adding those we didn't have to our grocery list. Then, it was off to the bank and off to the grocery store.

Back at home, Sam ate lunch and I worked on cleaning an area of our overstuffed basement. This ordeal consisted of shoveling out several buckets of damp dirt (don’t ask), getting it to the point where I could remove an old, decaying pallet (thanks Helaina) which had sat under several temporarily relocated tubs, each containing God knows what.

Helaina also helped me carry away an old butcher block table. This is a table I had made, I’m guessing, maybe forty years ago and it has sat in my basement, on that broken pallet, for close to thirty years. With that gone and the broken pallet gone, and the floor shoveled off and swept up, I put some patio blocks down on our sometimes damp floor, and then re-stacked the aforementioned mystery tubs, back on top.

Saturday night consisted of me doing another load of laundry, because life wouldn’t be complete without me doing more laundry. It also consisted of me trying to keep my back from locking up, a goal I worked on pretty much right up until bedtime.

Sunday was another crock-pot day - and also, a baking day - perfect for a well-rested back. Sam and I worked on our chicken crock pot recipe and, once that was underway and before we started any more baking, we went onto going over his upcoming schedule.

Sam’s schedule is tied into the school calendar. Earlier in the week, I had printed out a copy of this calendar and my goal was to go through it with Sam, highlight the days when he didn’t have to go to work,and then have him put those days onto his calendar on the computer.

We made it as far as highlighting the days that he didn't have to go to work, but we didn’t get to entering them onto his calendar. Neither of us had the concentration or the desire to do this. We’ll leave this as "Step Two" for some other day.

Instead, it was back to the baking.

Somewhere between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, we decided that, even after making the apple butter, we still had a ton (literally) of apples left - and maybe we could come up with another recipe involving apples. In my unwinding the night before, I had found a recipe for some apple bread.

While this recipe seemed to be fairly unexciting, it seemed like it would go perfectly with the freshly made apple butter. Plus, it had the added advantage of using up another four apples, leaving only about three thousand more to use up.

Since this was a new recipe and of questionable quality, Sam and I decided that, instead of tripling the batch, like usual, we would instead only double the batch - a fairly radical call on our part. Once again, I peeled apples and Sam chopped them - and together we did the math, doubling each of the called-for ingredients in the recipe.

We measured and mixed, then poured into greased pans - and with it done and in the oven, I got Sam some lunch.

After lunch and after the bread was out of the oven (which, by the way, looked better than I had expected) Sam and I decided to head back to the grocery store. We had to return some bad produce bought the day before, and since we were going anyway, we decided to buy a few of the items we were now low on - thanks to our recent baking. This gave us both a well needed opportunity to get out of the house, and gave Sam a bonus visit with the Sample People at the grocery store (not to mention, the bonus samples).

Back home once more, this time for the final time this weekend, Sam and I did the prerequisite fiddling with the chicken, which was still cooking away in the crock pot and, other than some frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to instigate some badly needed cleaning (another thing to not ask me about), this was pretty much "it" until dinner - which was now less than an hour away.

After dinner and after the dishes, I dug out the election booklet. We have an election coming up in early November (though actually, we can now go in to vote before then). I had told Sam earlier in the week that I would go through the ballot with him, and I would try to explain the various questions (as best I could) and we could look at who was running for which offices, and he could think about who he might want to vote for. But by this time, it was late. It was time for showers. And after showers, it was almost time for bed.

When Sam came down from his shower, he asked about going through the booklet, concerned if we would be late for the election. I told him we had well over a week to go and promised that we would go through it together tomorrow night. I told him we would aim closer to dinner time - when we both had a little more time and a little more focus. And I promised that, if nothing else came up, we would plan on going to vote together, after I got home on Thursday.

Satisfied, Sam spent the remaining fifteen minutes before bedtime, watching cartoons on the computer. And I, like usual, sat on the couch, and tried to stay awake.

Through the Woods

The path forward (and back again).

Sam and I went on our first and probably only walk at the town forest the other night. We had talked about going there at various times throughout the summer, but it was always either raining, or so hot and muggy that the prospect of attempting it was always put off for another day. That “other day” turned out to be the other night.

We left the house just after dinner and by the time we got there, there wasn’t a whole lot of daylight left, but we chose a path and headed down anyway.

We didn’t walk the hill path. Instead, we walked a path which loops around the outer bounds of the forest, eventually coming to a gate. When you reach the gate, you can either leave the woods by going onto an extremely busy road, which is filled with blind corners and no sidewalk - or you can turn around and head back on the path you just walked on. We chose to walk back on the path.

By this time, it was nearly dark.

I had grabbed a small flashlight before we left the house, just in case. Turns out, it was a good thing. It was pretty tough to see where we were going and while the small penlight wasn't great, it was better than no light at all.

As we made our way back to the car, I was going to make some joking comment about how we better keep our eyes open for any bears - but I decided that, not only was it not very funny, but that actually, it was a very real possibility. Instead, I picked up the pace and we hustled back to the car, arriving safely in what felt like the middle of the night. I think it was closer to about 7:30.

In another couple of weeks, we’ll be setting the clocks back an hour, which means less daylight and therefore, fewer options for going on walks. I have no desire to walk in the woods in the dark, and even if I were so inclined go there, the bike paths we walk along all close at dusk. Time, I guess, to explore other options.

Scenes from My Morning Commute

Part of Our Sunday

Sunday was windy and cold and there was another Pokemon Go event in the afternoon. There was no question that Sam and I were going to go into town for it. The only question was whether we would drive slowly through town for the entire thing, like the last time, or whether we would park somewhere and walk through town, as we normally would on those warmer summer days

It wasn’t a debate between Sam and myself - I had my own opinion, but I kept it to myself. The debate, really, was just within Sam.

Even as we drove into town, Sam was still debating. We made our usual first stop outside of the post office - and he still hadn’t decided. Finally, we rounded the corner and drove into the parking lot and after thinking about it for another minute or two, he decided it would be a good idea for us to walk. I agreed that this was a good idea.

Technically, I don’t view this as a lie. Getting out and getting some exercise IS a good idea. We both need it. It’s just that I didn’t want to. Did I mention it was cold? And windy? But I mustered up a superficial veneer of enthusiasm - and off we went.

I’m glad we went, as it was a pretty good time - especially in hindsight (with the hindsight taking place in the comfort of my warm home). That’s almost always the case with these kinds of things.

I didn’t really do anything except walk along, keep Sam company, ask the occasional question or make the occasional suggestion - and tell him the occasional “great job”.

After forty-five minutes or so, we headed back to the car and then back home. Once inside, we heated up some of the mulled cider we had leftover from apple picking the previous weekend - and we made our plans for what remained of the weekend.

***
Here's a screenshot from my phone, taken of our walking route though town...

And here's a few photos from our walk. All of these are of the "I guess you had to be there" variety, but you get the idea...