first frost

We had our first frost on Saturday night.  Any last remaining flowers have been pretty much zapped.  As far as outdoor tasks go, I still have to clean up my perennial beds before winter, and there's also some general leaf sweeping to be done, although the wind seems to do the job for me in the end.  We have a great number of black walnut trees, and the huge nuts are scattered everywhere.  We used to pick them up and toss them into sparsely-treed areas, hoping mother nature would do the planting for us, but we have also let them lie.  The squirrels are very efficient gatherers, and there are rarely any left in the spring.  So you see, my reluctance to pick up the nuts stems from the fact that I would be interfering with the squirrels.  I'm all about equal opportunities for squirrels and squirrel rights (or something like that).

My husband has mown the final bit of grass, and claims his list of tasks is almost complete too.  He'll have more time to monkey around with the kids now, something he truly excels at.

Being part-monkey comes in handy when he's on the (very, very) high roof (I can't look!) cleaning out the eavestroughs.  Perhaps I'll be able to give him my camera for some panoramic shots.  Let's hope we have many more good-weather days before winter makes its appearance.