You're Doing It Wrong

Here’s what the raised beds look like filled with leaves. There’s also pulled tomato plants and some bits of wood and other stuff I had around the yard.

I feel like I just filled it with bugs and seeds so I’ve created a whole set of problems for myself in this fresh planting environment.

But also: nature, baby.

This is my neighbor’s yard where I raked yesterday. Can you tell where I raked?

You can see the tree is still really heavy with leaves. It’s just funny that yesterday a big swath of lawn was visible and now you can’t tell.

This is Dad’s fridge.

At dinner they often offer cookies and Dad takes one but doesn’t always eat it. So then he stashes it in the fridge. You can see the upper level areas for saved cookies and the lower level areas for saved cookies.

He also had a bunch on his counter but I finally threw a bunch away because they were hard as a rock and I didn’t think he’d notice. (He didn’t.)

Also in his fridge — grapes. That is his favorite snack and we makes sure he always has some washed and ready. In season, he loves cherries, too.

Also: Smart Water. At one point one of his medical staff wanted him to drink more water and he said he didn’t like to drink water so she suggested we try the Smart Water.

She knows her business because he will drink it regularly. The lemon and the orange.

This was from summer.

We were on a walk and crossed through the park and found this little shoe sitting on the picnic bench hoping to be found again.

This is the same park where I saw a pair of sunglasses propped up on a tree hoping to be found.

Let’s call this park the Lost and Found.

October was so crazy busy it took awhile until I had time to flip my closet. I was making do with just a couple of cold weather items.

Then we had a day that was supposed to be 37 degrees in the morning. I take the bus. I need my layers.

I keep my winter clothes mostly in underbed bags or those bags where you can suck out all the air. When I packed them for the season it started to be an organized system but ultimately I was just throwing things anywhere they fit so I could get them stashed away.

When I wanted to find something for the cold day — I ended up throwing everything in the living room and pulling them open and frantically searched around until I found the stuff I need.

There was week of chaos before I got it all cleaned up.

The big fig belongs to my neighbor’s tree and the smaller fig is from Percy, my fig tree.

I felt that Percy’s figs were beautiful and more than adequate but it’s hard to ignore how giant the next door figs are. Also the neighbor tree had so many figs it was almost a national emergency.

I froze a bunch. We’ll see how that works out this winter.

So, what’s going on in the upper left corner of this photo? There was a note that I wanted out of the picture. I rarely use photoshop for anything except cropping and super light photo editing. I couldn’t find the clone tool and couldn’t remember the name of it. I finally figured it out and what happened to it? I didn’t understand how it worked or what I was supposed to do with the window that popped up. I used the brush tool. hehe.

If I have to start all over to learn Photoshop, then I’m getting one of those cheap knock off programs.

I used to put out peanuts for the blue jays and inevitably the squirrels would get them.

This picture one of those big wooden spools that was in our yard when we moved in. One time a peanut fell into the center hole and I guess a squirrel imprinted on that and now, I guess, its progeny (?), still seek snacks in that hole.

How long to squirrels live? It can’t be that long. It seems like it’s been years since that happened.

I had the hole covered just out of habit and I went out one day and that other hole had been eaten through the wood.

Is even a peanut worth that? What is wrong with squirrels? There is no food anywhere around there. Weirdos.

I saw this in our neighborhood on one of our walks and thought it was funny.

I can’t remember the last time I sat around a campfire. Probably in Orleans before the pandemic.

I keep thinking Bob and I will go camping again someday. I love being outside and there are great places a short distance from where we live. But it’s harder to sleep on the ground. Or not even the sleeping part — just the getting up and down off the ground.

I still like to think, one of these days.