It's Fall, Y'all!

Welcome to October---the most beautiful month of fall. Trees are trying on their fall finery, color blazing from every leaf; one last exhibition of exuberant extroversion before the quiet, inner contemplation of winter sets in. There was frost on my grass on the morning of October 1, and visible snow on the mountains two mornings before that. Frost in the morning means that soon zucchini season will come to an end—thank God-- and we can all go back to leaving our car doors unlocked when visiting friends with vegetable gardens.

I spent the middle of September in NYC, where summer was not going down with out a fight. The days were hot, the nights were warm and the humidity was---well, in a word, YUCKY. Fortunately, the showrooms where I spent most of my days were air-conditioned. We could crank the AC to “Arctic” and shiver. Which, as it turns out, was quite fitting for my assigned duties. Chief among them, hanging Christmas stockings and wrangling sheep.

Look at those faces!

Serta Sheep when not properly wrangled

When I returned home, fall had come to the Pacific Northwest. My grass was green, my marigolds were spectacular and THERE WAS NO ELK DAMAGE---HUZZAH!!! My neighbor sent me a welcome home text that included the message that I had missed the 100 elk herd that passed thru the neighborhood. Hah! I texted back, they missed me! I love my fence!

Hubris, I haz it.

Friday afternoon another neighbor sent me a picture text of my fence---in pieces.

The best defense?

Stupid dang elk. (Full disclosure: that’s not what I actually said) Fortunately, while they had managed to dismantle an entire corner and 50 feet or so of fencing, the actual damage was only one broken strand and a whole lot of tangling. A friend and I were able to fix the fence in under an hour.

Stupid dang elk.