Where Did Summer Go?

 All of a sudden it feels like November out there! I'm confident we'll have more warm weather before snow sets in for the duration, but I really enjoyed those mellow days we had last week. I was watching the forecast and seeing "possible snow in the mountains and Northeast Kingdom" I decided to bundle up my rhododendron and not wait to do it when my fingers are freezing and the wind is whipping. I have one tree that suffers from windburn in the winter if it isn't protected - it's some sort of arborvitae I got years ago and is now taller than I am, but it's a slow grower and I can still get it covered. Any part that is exposed to winter winds and cold dies, so every year I wrap it in burlap.

Most of our leaves are off the trees - only a few still hanging tough on the lower branches where the wind didn't hit as strongly. We've had some pretty strong winds lately - along with some rain, but we still need more rain, which will come tomorrow in the form of snow, I expect.

This is the time when critters begin to seek shelter wherever they can. This includes mice, spiders and those little red beetles, and of course, cluster flies. We have found most of the tiny openings to keep all of these out of the house, although occasionally I find a spider high in the corner by the big living room windows and once in a while a fly makes it in to hang out in my office window when the sun shines in late in the afternoon. But nothing serious. However, the garage has plenty of openings for mice, chipmunks or squirrels to get inside, so we have to keep a close eye on that. Now that we don't have Woody, our cat, to keep the population down, we have to resort to trapping mice. They are prolific creatures, but there's little inside our garage for them except hiding places where they can bring in material for nests and food to store for the winter, if we aren't diligent. Woody was good about catching them, but sometimes he would bring one into the house alive and let it go - a present for us, I suppose. We miss Woody very much, but not those evenings spent chasing down a terrified mouse.