I has been a dreary day - more November-ish than October-like. For us it's been a really nice break from our usual routine. We met friends Joanne and Jamie Stewart at Three-Ponds for lunch and found Jane Milne, Dot Larrabee and Pete Blackadar there - they were sort of leaving as we arrived, but we had a chance to chat a bit. Lunch was very nice. I have never been disappointed at Three-Ponds.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As we were leaving, Fred noticed movement a little down the road from our driveway and realized it was a bear. We watched from our driveway - a couple of cars went by and the bear retreated, but came right back; then three motorcycles went by and that seemed to frighten him/her a bit more, but we waited, and sure enough, he was back at the same tree, getting something or other. I'm thinking it might have been a beechnut tree, but we're not sure. We rolled slowly down the road, hoping to get some closeup shots, but the bear was having none of it, and we couldn't be absolutely sure of the exact spot we'd see him. It was a rod or so above where the truck went off, but on the same side of the road, on Randall's property. This is the second bear we've seen on the road going by our house this year. We also learned that a while back a hunter killed a bear just beyond us on this road. I know bears are fair game during hunting season, but still - we both felt sorry to think one of "our bears" had been killed.

Last spring I got the bright idea that with all the wildlife around here it would be fun to have a game camera. We picked one up - actually, Jamie and Marie lent us one at first, but we decided to get one of our own. We set it up and it's been running all summer. The only action we've caught on it was Fred clearing snow off trees in March, Jamie and Marie's dog,  Otto, coming out of the woods one day, and a strange man that seemed to be "casing our house" from the back yard - it took me a while, but I finally realized it was the nice young man that came around doing the reappraisals for the town. Then there are photos of Fred's eyes or sometimes mostly his nose as he adjusts the camera after unloading the chip, me with a wheelbarrow on my way to dump weeds and clippings in the woods, lots of pictures of Fred on the lawn mower, and even more shots of nothing but lawn, trees and sky. I think birds sometimes set it off but are too fast for it and it takes the picture after they've gone by. We still like to have it going, just in case there's some slow-moving animal out there sometime. Unfortunately, it wasn't pointed in the right direction to capture the bear. He was probably too far away, anyhow. I'm convinced one day we'll find we've captured a magnificent photo of something unusual.

Having goofed off most of the day, I'm feeling relaxed and not the least bit concerned that I put in almost no time on my computer today. After we came home from lunch, we watched the rest of CBS's "Sunday Morning" - they did really interesting segments on Janis Joplin, Herbert Hoover and Harriet Tubman.

Now the sky is brightening with the sun setting - hopefully we'll have a nice day tomorrow. Most of the leaves are stripped from the trees, but still, there is a little color left on some of the lower branches and trees or bushes that were protected from the wind. Anything at the top of any hill or standing tall and exposed is bare, and there are
lots of leaves on the ground. There was a hard frost last night, so there's no more growing season - except for grass.
And just as I was signing off, Fred got this picture of a rainbow over the Walden hills. Pretty neat!