Change in the weather

Yesterday it was in the 70s, warm and humid (for this part of the country, anyway). A truly beautiful fall day. As part of the world’s slowest landscaping project, my husband chopped down the viburnum that had completely outgrown its little niche next to our bedroom window, as well as the monstrous junipers on the other side of the walk. We were surprised to find out that the monstrous junipers, which occupied easily 12x4x8 feet of space, consisted of only 2 plants that had been placed in an attractive 4×4 foot square framed with railroad ties. I bet they looked really nice 20 years ago. Now the view into the backyard is much more open, and we need to decide exactly what we’re going to do with that space.

I watered the large trees, because KUNC’s Tom Throgmorton told me I should. We have 6 blue spruce that are over 40 feet tall. I’m sure I didn’t water them nearly as much as Tom says I should. We pulled up the basil plant and I plucked all the leaves, washed them, chopped them, and did up about half as ice cubes and half with olive oil. I have enough basil in various forms to supply several families for several years.

I had pumpkin puree left over from the pumpkin from our CSA share, and made a pie. My sweetie begged nicely for a cherry pie as well. To take advantage of the nice weather, and because we knew what was coming, we had pie and coffee outside on the patio in the afternoon.

As soon as it got dark the wind came up and the power went out, which hardly ever happens here (unlike in Washington DC, prompting our German au pair to compare it to a third world country). We went to bed early in the dark and woke up to big happy fluffy snowflakes. What a great place to live.