What a glorious weekend!
It started yesterday with a comfortable 40 degrees on the porch at 7 AM with clear, clear skies overhead. When we went down to get a gander at the new Lowes in Mansfield and hour later, it was just 30 degrees down at the post office(and 20 degrees at the Elmira airport) but the skies continued to be blue, BLUE, BLUE!
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Incidentally, it's weird going into a store (Lowes) where every item on the shelf hasn't been touched since it was stocked, where stocked item/box is full, where every item of lumber is pristine in its full pallet, where there still lingers an aroma that says "New Store" in the same way there is a "New Car" scent. Oh, there were still some empty spaces where the ordered supplies had not yet arrived, but they were few. And the red-aproned help knew where things were despite this being the first day they had opened their doors.
This store is slightly smaller than the one up in Horseheads/Arnot Mall area but it suits our rural area. It will take some custom from the local hardware/lumber yard (Arnott's Lumber) and might draw some from the Agway, but there are sufficient differences in offerings both material and services that they should all thrive. I know that having a Lowes here, means no more 30-40 mile drives to reach the nearest Lowes/Home Depot. And that will be a blessing.
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When we got back from the store, I decided to spend some time outside raking up the leaves. It didn't look like much of a task, but as I began, I realized that you rake up a leaf here and another there and pretty soon you've got a heap of leaves! Especially if you hit the little nooks and crannies around the edge of the lawn, under the propane tank, and in the corners of the Aerie where the swirling winds have stashed the leaves for later play.
It took me a little over an hour to complete the raking and hauling away of leaves. By then it was noon and the temperatures were still rising. The thermometer had passed 60 degrees on its way to a high of 70.5 degrees at 2 PM...on November 12th. And things will be much the same today and tomorrow although there's some hope it won't get quite that warm.
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Today I'll sped some time trying to get the bird feeders cleaned up/repaired. Then we'll fill them up and put them out.
There haven't been many birds around the yard since we got back from Alaska...a few blue jays and chickadees with ravens and crows flying overhead...but that could be due to lack of food and the exceptionally warm weather that lets them forage in the fields and woods. Once the weather turns, however....
Strange observation: There have been no gray squirrels around. Despite having lots of oaks and pines nearby, there haven't been any tree rats roaming around and that is...eerie.
2 comments:
I read a report several months ago, and seen a follow-up type of article, source lost, that indicated the gray is losing out to the Red's.
Our population of Red's is rather skimppy this year also.
Good things happen here. Keep writing.
Leaves are so good for the garden. I used to tell all our neighbors, when we lived down in town, "just dump all your leaves inside my garden fence." I would rake them back in the spring and underneath would be the best soil you could imagine. In a season or two they were completely gone and I had to keep adding more. I didn't mind moving away from town, but I sure hated leaving all that good dirt! Up here we only have locusts=tiny leaves too small to rake.
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