Autumn Is Here!!

The long and lazy summer has come and gone and autumn is upon us. The boys are back into their daily school routine and seem to be enjoying life with a little less freedom than usual. They don't seem to mind the daily grind of school life again. I, on the other hand, have my own daily grind now that the trees are bereft of almost all their leaves in front of the house. The Dutch elms in front have dumped about three lawn bags worth on the lawn and I just cleared all that up this morning. Most people around here I've seen using leaf blowers and bagged lawn mowers/tractors to do it. I have the old fashioned rake and my leather personnel carriers so it was some good exercise. Today was a great day to do it, though, as the sun was out and the temperature was just right, kind of crisp, but not too cold, and a bright blue sky overhead. These days are numbered, though many a winter day can be enjoyable too over here with the way the sun shines so often. We just won't have as many thunderstorms is all. Of course then we have snow to look forward too, but we're prepared for that as we spent last weekend outfitting the boys in new snow pants for school and play. Aaron's Elmer Fudd hat still fits him, so I just have to talk Daniel into it...

We had a relaxing evening the other night out at the Humane Society for Dawn's autumn leaf burning. Daniel got to romp around in a rather massive pile of leaves, something new for him, though Aaron wasn't up for it. We made a nice big brush fire of sorts out of the pile of leaves. It got so hot it was hard to get within four feet of the pile with a rake to keep it burning. There is a sprawling pasture-like yard out there with some dirt where the leaves were burned and a nice tall dirt heap that Daniel also availed himself of as an earthen slide.

Dawn made up some sloppy joe's and we had dinner there with Dawn and her mom, Judy, and Dawn's foster son, Josh. Dawn's mom gave Daniel a ride afterwards on her four-wheeler, so yet another first for Daniel. His eyes were really big as they motored around the yard. Now to talk Aaron into a ride...

Not much else is up these days as we ease into the new season. We did pick up a Star Wars clone costume for Daniel to wear on Halloween. Aaron's so big, I'm not sure yet if we'll be able to find anything for him. K-mart had everything in small or medium height. We may need to be creative on that one... I suppose we'll be making the obligatory candy run pretty soon to be prepared for the expected deluge of neighborhood kids, our first Halloween in TRF.

For all interested parties, "The Weasel" continues to run well, though we still haven't racked up many miles on it (about 60 so far). I take them now and then to school in the morning as a surprise. I still have over half the tank of gas it came with. I'm still looking for opportunities to walk and bicycle as an alternative, especially with the weather holding as it is. Hope the weather is nice in your part of the country (or world, if you're Jeff and Katrina).

Until next time...