Goodbye daylight, my old friend.

(You can thank Terry for that heading.  I've been humming Simon & Garfinkel for days.)  My biggest beef (or tofu, for you vegans) is that shorter days happen just when you need them to be twice as long as normal.  My neighbor across the road/up the hill sent me a concerned email saying that he had seen bobbing lights early in the morning and in the evening in my front yard.  Yes, I said.  You saw my headlamp.  The only way I can stay even ten steps behind where I need to be, is by squeezing in to-dos by the light of my headlamp.

Ergo, the dahlia bulbs got yoinked up and placed in a feed sack with peat moss by the dim light of my headlamp.  The peonies got trimmed down and support cages put away by the same headlamp.  The rest of the kale has been harvested (in what weak daylight we've had), along with most of the Swiss chard, although I have left some under cover to see how long it holds up.  My herbs have been harvested, handed out and hung to dry.  My tiny onions have been wept over (kidding - sort of) and the garden has been pretty much put to bed.

In the midst of all this, we got a hellova storm.  It seems, nowadays, that every change in temperature comes with its own near-catastrophic event.  Thursday it rain all day.  Then, around 11P, I awoke to the sound of a train rushing past the house.  I'm used to these high wind gusts, where you clamp your teeth and hope that you don't hear something large go 'thump!' in the night.  But this was a long, seemingly endless gust.  I was sure that nothing would be left when I went out in the morning.  It didn't even blow the lid off the trash can.  Apparently, it was a high wind.  They measured 56 mph wind gusts in my area.  Geezloueeze.

There is still a lot to dead-head out in the beds, but it is now the least of my worries. I have done my food shopping for November, moved tools into the barn for the winter, given Slimmie's room and good cleaning and reorganizing (of which he was none too pleased - cats are such creatures of habit), the winter curtains are up, summer curtains washed and stowed away.  I got a load of firewood in and my sister (bless her heart) came down to help me with the pre-winter coop cleaning.  I am always so amazed at how fast a job goes with more than one - and how much more fun it is.  I made another pot of soup, so now I have at least two weeks' worth of lunches in the freezer.

I also got a text from Marianne saying that they had a lot of shiitake mushrooms and did I want some?  Into the car I hopped and came back with 'some' in a box (I would have inserted a photograph here, but Blogger had other ideas).  Envision a box that held a dozen pint canning jars.  Now envision a mound of shiitake mushrooms the size of cup saucers - about 5 pounds of them!  I got out the dehydrator and got busy.  I now have about 2 gallons of dried shiitake mushrooms that should last a while.  A decade or so.

I find it ironic that, when I finally remember to pull myself together and take pics for you, Blogger decides it is not allowing the insertion - nay, even the ability to connect with them - of any images.  I will add them randomly to a later post.

Yesterday, taking advantage of the extra hour of daylight, I firmly yanked my BGPs up to my armpits (you're welcome for that visual) and tackled the carport.  I hauled out all the remaining flotsam of the ill-fated yard sale, sorted my garden supplies, moved all the garden implements to the barn, hefted, sorted, cussed and finally got it to the point where I can get 95% of my car inside.  I have to spread some straw and align my wheelbarrows and I will be all set.  I took photos of all the yard sale remnants and put them on Facebook for free.  Six of them will be marched out the door tonight.  Progress!  I'm giving the rest a week, then off to Goodwill they go.  Virtuosity is my middle name.