09-19-03

It is so much fun to read notes coming from all around the world as the seasons change. Leonie in Australia is so happy to celebrate the coming of spring after a long and difficult winter. Here, we are just beginning to feel the effects of the weather breaking. Still warm days but the nights are dropping nicely. Washington State has already seen a week of nights down to freezing says Wanda. Brr. Stacy in Pennsylvania says it's been down into the 40's and she is wishing for colder. Everybody is ready for a change of wardrobe as well.

My complete working outdoors schedule changes with the seasons. I can do the brushcutting and other heavy duty chores all day. Not just early or late. It takes some getting used to but with the days growing shorter, I need to best use all my time. Even Randy's schedule must change. He had to give up the early morning walk with Max and it is getting more difficult to have enough time for their evening walk. Max would want to go in the dark with a flashlight. I am still working on creating a space where Max can be let off the chain and allowed to run. There just isn't much confined space where that would be safe.

The garden is still a beast untamed. I learned that I should never allow even one weed to grow thinking it couldn't possibly get too big. A storm blew it over and there it continued to grow. There is a space 10 foot square that I cannot get into at all. There was a leak in one of the soaker hoses and I couldn't get to it to fix it. It just gave the weed plenty of water. I won't take any more pictures and post them until it looks better. I might even get a bit of fall garden going. The grasshoppers may still be too heavy to allow any new growth. They are starting to eat the tomatoes. Sigh.

When we decided that we'd have to build onto our trailer instead of a new structure, it became clear that would not be wise. We'd still have a very old mobile home that has walls separating from the floor. There would be no way that it could have been cheaper, maybe more in the long run. So, it's back to the drawing board. Randy is picking up building materials to continue work on the Shop this weekend. I am taking pictures as we go along so we can show progress later on. Having the Shop finished will go a long way to being able to do work on the house during the wintertime. We are thinking more about keeping all our buildings closer together. We are getting more neighbors who for some reason think it okay to wonder up toward the house like they should be invited.