Radiators, Socks, and a Great Blue Heron

The radiators popped on this week. When I woke up I could smell them. And it’s always nice to hear their early morning hissing. When the radiators come on, I know that fall has officially arrived.

In other seasonal news, today was the first day I really noticed a lot of fall color. You can tell from the above photo (taken last Wednesday at Forest Park) that we’ve still barely entered into our fall foliage season. But, today, on my drive to the grocery store, I noticed a lot of the maples have turned, so it won’t be long now….

We’ve had a recent visitor to our yard – a Great Blue Heron.

On Monday, he strolled bold-as-anything across our front lawn.

The next day we saw him while walking the dogs,

And, later that day, we caught sight of him on the roof of our shed.

I hope he hasn’t eaten too many of our pond fish – but he has my permission to eat any of the rodents in the yard. In fact, I would be particularly pleased if he helped himself to the ones living in my compost pile.

The backyard is taking on a definite fall “look”. We have a nice crop of butternut squash in the final stages of ripening. The chickens love to rustle through this area, poking in and under the few remaining squash leaves.

They’re also big fans of the raspberries.

With the weather cooling, Ginger has turned her attention to indoor gardening. She’s currently enamored with succulents and is reading books about them and dreaming up ideas for a succulent “nursery”. Here is her most recent acquisition.

(Succulents really are fascinating plants. I’m learning a lot from the things Ginger’s been telling me).

Meanwhile, I’ve been knitting.

A sweater? No, it’s a sock. It just looks like a sweater. I realize it may appear enormous, but I’ve tried the thing on and it does fit my leg. Hopefully, I’ll have a finished pair to show you next week.

And finally, lest you think that our infatuation with the Prisma App has ended, I submit this lovely photo of the Great Blue Heron, created by Ginger, who was able to turn one of my very blurry, poor quality photos into a work of art. (I love the colors!)

From the dining room table, really, really hoping that heron hasn’t eaten all of our fish,

Mrs. Smythe