November is nearly over. And here comes the Brown Icky Dreary Season. The clouds are low and grey, last night it rained nearly one and a half inches. The rains pelted the house and blew in from the north and east. From down in our little hollow we can hear the winds whipping this morning through the bare branches on the ridge. It sounds a bit ghostly. A mist or fog is moving in to make things look even more dreary. This would be a good day to stay indoors and read a book. Or nap. Yesterday started out wonderful. The frost came off the land in a beautiful fog. The sun peeked into our hollow and shone brightly. It was warm, it was nice.
This is a view of our place yesterday afternoon after I'd walked up to the neighbor's and checked on their chickens and goats. I also walked their dog Dexter. I am startled by the difference in the remodel and I am not used to seeing it this way yet. Our porch lights will light up the hollow in the night and can be seen from the ridge now that the leaves are down. Today though it is yuck. Super Yuck. The sort of day that you want to pretend is over. So I started to get out some Christmas Decorations. Rich walked into the house and saw some bags of decorations next to his computer desk. "Decorating already?" He wondered. "Well, thinking about it." I know why people decorate in our neck of the woods right after Thanksgiving. The gloomy days set in and a person has to have something to brighten their days. No one else really comes to the house and enjoys our decorations. Our Christmas Eve and Day are generally spent with just ourselves or we go visit Rich's mom so she won't be alone. I don't mind really. I went out and got the Christmas Chair. The horrid ugly chair that I found buried in the garage a few years ago. It needs refinishing, gluing, and ... well. It should be just tossed out into the rubbish pile. But. I like to take ugly things and pretty them up.
It will be interesting to see what I come up with this year. I try not to let any two years be the same. Well, except for the ugly chair. Let the fog/mist/rain/grey/dreary stuff roll in. Deer hunting is over, the blaze orange can be put away. The fall decorations can be stashed. It's time to decorate and brighten the indoors up. Stay tuned. The broken down chair will be transformed again this year. And just in case you didn't know. I love to take Still Life shots of the decorations.
Well I did find out thanks to my neighbor what the mysterious plant was growing by our mailbox. Lupine! I think it should actually be in a sunnier spot, but I'm going to leave it where it is right now and see what happens with it. We added some Veronica which likes more shade and should come up each year with purple blue spikes of flowers. Some of the seeds are coming up now just barely a week later. So we have high hopes for a semi decent mailbox garden! The other night I made supper early and took Siera out for a 'sunset' ride. She went willingly and we rode out to the black top and back.
Her mane is such a mess, it does need a trim pretty badly. I hope to get to that perhaps tomorrow. We'll see.
I rearranged the living room and packed up the old table we had for our computers. I used some plastic tubs [see through kind!] and stacked them up and laid left over plywood pieces on top as a desk top. When it comes time to move the 'desk' for remodeling, it will be easy to take apart. Morris rather likes the ability to stand on the back of the couch and look out the window. He actually doesn't do it unless there is someone out there that he can hear. He just curls up on his end of the couch with his blanket and takes a nap. He is handling the noises outside the house fairly well. We'll see how it goes when the guys move to start the interior.
This is a shot of the living room and the stairway. You can see the wall paper in the short hall has been peeled and the hole in the wall where we took out the small electric heater. The doorway is to the bathroom and you can see into the eating area.
Our house is very small, but we do like it. The extra room will be a blessing along with the storage. I don't know why I didn't change the layout years ago. This makes more sense to me. This morning I noticed the sky turned a very odd color while I was making coffee so I grabbed my camera and ran outside. There was a rainbow! At the break of dawn!
And then I noticed how fast the front was moving so I hit movie mode on my camera.
The rains came but no harsh winds. I am happy about that. We did need the rain, but it has turned our area around the house into a sink hole of muck. Last but not least I'm getting closer to getting the scrap wood table top done! Next step is gluing and refitting the pieces together.
I keep re-arranging the pieces. I may even get it right so I won't have to saw any edges!
This will more than likely be an outside table for the porch. I have also been sanding and painting some blocks for the 'toy' box. I bought a wooden crate to store them in. Now I am torn between using the crate for something else. Well if this morning's rain keeps away the construction workers, it looks like we'll have a quiet day. If it dries up there are things to do like lawn mowing, gardening, hiking, and cleaning up the construction site. The guys have done an excellent job, but I am a bit more of a stickler. I leave with a photo taken when I headed to town for errands yesterday. Ridgetop cropland as seen from Riley Road.
