10/11: Fall or Winter?

We awoke this morning to a silvery frost on the grass and garden leavings. Birds passed quickly overhead, heading for warmer pastures. Our tiny chihuahua did her business as quickly as possible and refused to go further than the driveway. Stubborn.

Snow is possible tomorrow, but a hard freeze is definitely forecast for tonight. So we got busy today:
- we disconnected the sprinklers and hoses, rolled them up and covered them
- the 2 blueberry plants in pots were moved indoors to the family room, as were the pots with the asparagas and banana
- Weslee and Doug moved the potted tomato plants from the backyard along the fence to the front porch. We're hoping the warmth of the house will help keep them alive.
- we changed the furnace filter and turned on the heat. The living room thermometer read 55 degrees when the heat kicked on.
- all of the beds got more blankets
- Weslee and I pulled up the rest of the black turtle beans even though several bean pods were still green. We're hoping they'll dry out inside.
- Doug put the bean plants and cucumber plants in the compost bins where we hope they'll "cook" during the winter with everything else in there.

We still have to hook up the grow lights tomorrow for the tomato and other plants which will reside indoors this winter, but for today, we're almost done.

It seems like it went straight from Summer to Winter. Was it really only a month or so ago that we were complaining about the heat? Now we're going through our clothing to find long sleeves, hats and gloves. (Weslee's lost his gloves, again.) Time to get kitty litter into the back of our cars, de-icer stored for our front porch steps, and cars winterized. Ugh. Yet another expense.

Doug is about to take the dog for one last walk (hopefully she'll leave the driveway this time). Weslee is already in bed, and since I've caught the flu, I'm going to bed to rest so we can continue tomorrow's Winter preparations.

Vikki http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/