Tuesday - 214th

 Morning, mostly cloudy and cool. Morning walk -- mostly lovely and full of that October burst of color.

(hi, cheepers!)

 (morning walk)

(lilies, one last time)

We eat breakfast on the porch, even though it's just 51F (10C). We may yet eek out another morning like this, but it's not a given. Yes, Friendly the cat will miss our presence going forward. (Dance is out and about, so Friendly has joyfully taken her place on Ed's lap.)

I have work to do in the yard. I have a new plan for the space created by Ed's chopping down of the tree. Step one is to dig out the hostas growing there. With two trees now gone (both were Carpathian Walnuts, both died) from the spot, I have a reasonably sunny area begging for flowers. Hostas are not the right choice. So I dig them out. (Into the wheelbarrow they go, six at a time, one on top of another...)

They are huge! Monster hostas. I move them to the large, weedy spaces by the sheep shed and barn. Seventeen transplants later, I am wiped. Everything aches! 

I'm not done yet. I still need to dig out weeds and prepare the soil in the new bed for spring planting. Ah, but it's exciting to imagine a new place for more lilies, more phloxes, and for early spring -- daffodils and English bluebells.

 And of course, once you focus on a new planting area, you want to improve everything about it. I coax Ed into trimming the curly willow growing at the edge of the bed. The dead limbs are so high that even he takes extra precautions in bringing them down -- note the head helmet!

These Fall days have been stunning to the core. They're begging us to add just a little bit of joy to these somber times. Just enough to smile when you stroll past a golden birch, or a scarlet spindle tree. Autumnal colors came to us earlier this year. But, the cold temps stayed away longer. Tradeoffs: in nature, there will always be tradeoffs.