Nature
It's starting to get really beautiful here, lots of yellows and oranges as the soft maples turn. Should be more red, but maybe the weather has influenced the hues. Anyway, the woods are starting to glow and the weather is brisk--I love September, it's one of my favorite times. Almost universally people here talk about how much they love this month. The weather is clear with lots of sun, and just cool enough so you can enjoy being outside without a jacket, but not in shorts.

Dinner at Fred's last night. Something called No Peek Beef, which cooks in the oven for 8 hours in a covered pot. Fred cheated, of course, and peeked. It was delicious and accompanied by roasted vegetables. Have to do that myself, they were very good. Carrots, rutabagas and potatoes roasted for an hour.

Ken enjoyed the change of scenery and he loves going to Fred's camp, which is really beautiful. Bill arrived mid-meal, was a nice treat (is there such a thing as a disagreeble treat?). All very festive.

Julie gave me a huge bag of grapes from her arbor--at least 10 pounds worth. I was planning to make jelly, which I did last year with fantastic results. I left the bag, however, on the dinner table this morning, forgetting to put it outside in a safe place. I'm sure Chances will eat a lot of grapes during the day. She's exhibited very bad behavior recently and I don't know why. I've been paying a lot of attention to her every day and I say her name at least 50 times. ChancesChancesChancesChances. She practically purrs when I do that, but is still intrusively destructive when I'm gone. Yesterday she ate 2 peaches I mistakenly left within reach; last night while I was at Fred's she ate a bunch of wax. Maybe the grapes today will be a wax-chaser and I should be relieved that she will clean out her system.

I seem to be pretty cheery this month. All the meds apparently are working their chemical magic on my brain. I'm looking forward to the weekend, even though it's supposed to rain. I need to trim the branches around my driveway--I can't drive the circle anymore because there are 4 cords of firewood which were dumped in the middle. Instead I have to use the half of the circle which was (until recently) blocked off by 6 cords of wood delivered in May. My life must be pretty great if these are the problems I face at home! I need to get this load stacked posthaste so it can do a decent job of drying before I'll burn it next year. I arrange my wood in a very systematic way. Some in the woodshed--last year's dry. Some in a pile on the LEFT side of the shed, the rest in a pile on the RIGHT side. Location based on the dryness of the wood. Oh the games we fireburners play.

We've had 2 serious frosts, but not a killing frost yet. My snapdragons are having their second bloom and my cosmos looks nice. Nothing much else in the pots on the deck, but a few things blooming in the perennial bed. I ordered a bunch of daffodils and got a free batch of tulips. Daffs haven't arrived yet. I'll have to figure out where to put them--all the good spots are already taken, but it's been a dozen years since I planted those bulbs and some are getting tired. I should put flags up in the sparse patches so I'll know where to put the new ones. Some people draw diagrams or pictures of their gardens on graph paper. Now there's something I'll never do.

Today I'll spend the day doing authority work on the latest records put in the data base. This is very tedious but rewarding work. Have to check the forms of author's names and make sure the correct subject headings have been used. There are probably 1500 records for me to check. Lots of caffeine and good music needed here. I often get really frustrated when I do this because the member libraries put in short records for paperbacks and they're always a mess. Oh we catalogers are a goofy bunch. Detail, detail. And yet what we do determines whether anyone can find the information in the data base or not. That's why it's called AUTHORITY CONTROL. Emphasis on CONTROL.