I pick up the black box that we perch on top of the water heater. What's the darn piece of plastic stuck to it? Or is it something else? It's a snake skin! A snake skin??? We have big fat snakes in the basement??
Ed!
He comes down to confirm my worst suspicion. I just rebooted the machine a few weeks ago so this is pretty recent.
A snake has passed this way fairly recently??
On the upside, they eat mice...
There is always an upside.
It's a brilliant day today.
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It's getting cool, but not so cool that we can't eat breakfast on the porch.
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And when I pick up Snowdrop after school, there isn't a doubt that we should spend at least a little time outdoors. The sun is strong, the leaves are gorgeous!
I take a different route today and we pass a house where some enterprising kid is selling pumpkins out on the front lawn (with a can nailed to the porch steps to collect cash when, as now, no one is there). Snowdrop had already been to a big pumpkin patch with her parents over the weekend, but she does love those pumpkins, so why not bring another one home?
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This then will give us Part I of our fall colors on Ocean: Snowdrop among the pumpkins.
(Let's buy the very smallest one, Snowdrop. This one! It's only $1.)
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(I appreciate your love of the bigger ones, but I don't think that one will fit in the stroller.)
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(Oh dear. I do not have a single dollar bill. Let's go to the coffee shop where I can get some change! And yes, I'll get us an oatmeal raisin cookie.)
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(Ready to go? We have to find the house with the pumpkins again so that I can leave my dollar.)
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(She likes the pumpkins, but she also likes the leaves!)
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(Are you sure we can't manage to haul these home, gaga?)
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(Fine! I love my little one! Warts and all!)
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(It fits perfectly in the toy stroller!)
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Part II of fall colors? Well, it happened after my time with the little girl. Ed had taken a kayak out on a river that I had absolutely no interest in navigating. And so I had timeto kill before I needed to go home and start in on dinner.
I go to the Arboretum.
The light is so beautiful now, toward evening! Sure, the fall colors aren't at 100% (a website rates them at 75%). But for me, they are sublime!
Here we go, fall colors Part II:
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(The wild turkeys again...)
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(So pretty!)
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(Gold!)
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(And ruby red!)
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Was it a grand day? Yes! -- snake skin notwithstanding.