We were out earlier than usual this morning for our walk, and met several of our neighbors - either walking or driving.  Some are getting ready to call it a summer and heading south in a week or so; others are here for the duration, having decided Joe's Pond is pretty nice in the winter, too. 

We got some pictures, and this one reminds me that lots of people are wondering what Don Encarnacion is going to do with his land that being cut off.  There were lots of really large trees on his lot, and Don, who is now 90, has told us he no longer wanted to deal with trees that come down in wind storms, so decided to have them cut.  That's all we know.  It does look different, though, but as I've mentioned here before, 75-100 years ago all that is now his property and most of what's ours on this hillside was all open pasture and fields, being actively farmed.

We're probably going to be taking out some trees in back of our house, too, but for a different reason - we're looking into a solar installation, and that means taking out the big trees along the southern edge of our lawn.  We have a couple of viable sites - but won't know for sure where it will go until they start digging.  One may have lots of ledge, and the other site may have underground springs.  We've been thinking about solar for a long tome, but couldn't make it seem  cost effective until now.  The prices seem more reasonable and the installations are more efficient than they were 10 to 15 years ago.  I'm kind of looking forward to having the trees gone - while I appreciate the shade in the late summer afternoons, during the winter, it makes us dark way sooner than we'd like.  However, we have placed maple trees strategically over the years to provide shade in the summer, and now even some of those will be troublesome when they grow tall enough, so we may move them.  Fred is not looking forward to digging and resetting them, I'm sure.  We've been through that plenty of times in years past.  

Life was simpler before fuel prices skyrocketed and alternative energy choices came into the picture.  You banked the house with sawdust or spruce boughs, built up the woodpile for the winter, planted big spreading maples along the sunny side of your house and quick-growing spruces for windbreaks on the west and north.  Lots of farm houses were connected to the barn by a long shed for wood and where visitors could head their horses in to get out of the wind and snow.  That provided a sheltered route to the livestock in the barn on cold winter mornings.  Some of the very early settlers shared living space with their farm animals as a way to keep warm.  It's hard to say whether the animals or the humans benefited most, but it was certainly more energy efficient, although probably not ideal living conditions.  It was better than freezing to death, though.

We are sorry to learn that Sam and Judy Lewis on Sandy Beach Road have put their lovely home on the market.  It's  listed on our website.  They will be missed.  Both have been active with Joe's Pond Association and in the community since they moved here a few years ago.  Things change so we have to make adjustments - as they say, "life happens." We certainly wish Sam and Judy all the best.

We're having a mix of weather today - we've had bright sunshine early in the day, and now we've just had a little shower, but the sun is coming out again.  There is lots of wind out of the west.  I can see the cloudy scudding across the sky from my office window, and the trees on the hillside bending in the gusts.  Tonight is going to be cold, but may not reach frost levels as predicted previously.  We'll keep track to see if we need to cover the garden again.  Once it gets to this point, I'm about ready to call it a day and bring in everything, ripe or not.  I don't have much left in the garden - mostly tomatoes and summer squash that haven't finished producing.  I have a few beets to pull and some potatoes to dig, but they can wait.   My garden wasn't a large one this year, so I don't have a lot of preserving to do, but there will be a fair amount of ground work to be done so it will be ready next spring.