*sigh* Although I’m not a huge fan of temps in the upper 90s, with humidity to match, I already miss summer. Today, we moved half the upper patio furniture — anything that has cushions — into storage. The rest of it can stay outside all year. We also moved the big-ass maple wood rack back from the barn to where the patio furniture we removed was. Next up is filling it with firewood.
Although I will miss summer, cozy fires in the wood burning stove at night (and sometimes in the mornings) are nice. The chimney will need to be cleaned before we light one, though. It’s not a big deal, but does involve rolling back the rug, hanging a tarp over the fireplace area, disassembling the chimney pipe, and getting filthy dirty. Think chimney sweep from Mary Poppins, to get an idea, but Dick Van Dyke never got as dirty as this job really is.
As for closing the pool, I could not schedule people to get here to do it before the 29th of October. That means I’ll have to keep sprinkling calcium hypochlorite in it for another month, and vacuuming/skimming it as all the leaves from the walnut trees land in it. Bummer. I’d wanted to get it closed before we left for Cape May.
We did get an appointment for our black cat to get her exam and vaccines before we leave for our birding vacation. The cats can stay here without us for a few days, given plenty of food, water, and clean litter boxes. The dog is going with us. We were supposed to go back in April, but Governor Gormless announced two days before we were going to go that “short term rentals,” which included the B&B, weren’t allowed. The owner graciously gave me a gift certificate for the 50% deposit I’d paid upfront, for a future stay, that didn’t have an expiration date, rather than refund me. That was fine, since we’ve stayed there many times before, and planned to visit again, once we were allowed.
So far, Fall is working out alright. I got my rifle (yes, with a federal background check for you international readers), and bulk ammo for it, in case the lefty loonies show up in my town. The pool will get closed. The furniture has been moved. The firewood’s ready to go. We got a bigger log splitter than our old one. The repair kit for a broken trailer hitch fit, and works.
Mostly, what we need now is a replacement toilet seat for that crappy squishy foam filled vinyl one the previous owners installed before they sold the place, a couple of gallons of barn red paint, and maybe a roll of chicken wire to keep the deer from eating my newly planted Sombreuil roses before they root in, and go dormant for the winter, although I think we have some extra chicken wire that could be wrapped around the rose arch.
I love old garden roses. Sombreuils are super thorny, but they’re gorgeous white climbers, tough cookies, and are easy to train while they’re growing. Oddly enough, my next favorite OGR is Reine des Violettes, which, unsurprisingly is sort of a nifty violet color, and not quite thornless, but close to it.
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