Last week, the temperatures were ripping in the mid nineties. Tonight, I sit here with my red flannel shirt on and trying to decide if I have enough ambition to brew a cup of orange and spice tea. I think not.

I just got in from checking the teenager chickens I moved out to the henhouse a week or two ago. They're loose in the population, but are still hiding behind a large plastic bin where I have sat their little dishes of food and miniature waterer to keep the greedy old hens from stealing their rations. Like human babies, they need feeding more frequently than their adult flock mates. Although many of my hens went broody this year, non of them seem particularly maternal toward the new hatchlings, unlike most other years when one hen or two would take them under their wings, in the most literal sense.

Today, I spent several hours cleaning the glazing of my rigid greehouse we use as a solarium to winter over ferns and tropicals. My houseplants are all large, I kill little ones, and all of them are outside yet. I shall call it autumn in ten days, but not a day sooner!

Company is coming in from England tomorrow, and they'll be staying at my daughter and son-in-laws, but they'll be over for many visits and the house is falling in around me with clutter. LOL. All of the produce I've canned from the garden is lined up in rows on the dining table. So much so, that it started to tip over on the unsuspecting schnauzer laying underneath. But, before I can move them to the pantry I need to make room. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta has been my mantra all year it seems. But, now it's taking on a urgency. Everywhere I look "I gotta" do something.

I made some wonderful french bread tonight in my earthenware baguette pan and the husband and I have killed a crock of home made grape jam already consuming it. Eight pumpkins lay in the garden I need to bring in to process and the last hurrah from the garden tomatoes to turn into salsas. I've left five more plants along the garden fence for fresh. It's anybody's guess if my last planting of corn is going to make it to fruition before frost. The lack of rains left it looking like little Danny Divitos all lined up in rows. IOW cute, and plump and barely higher than my shoulders and it's in tassle.

Out of ten or so apple trees on my property, I don't have enough to bake a pie, and they are shining red at the very tops of the trees now, taunting me. I'm afraid to call my friend the orchard man to see how his crop fared after the freaky late freeze. Last year I had so many apple drops, herds of whitetails meandered around the property for weeks, eating the falls. It may be slim pickings this year for the deer.

The shallots are dried and braided and hung over the kitchen fireplace and tonight we had bean soup for supper. That's a clear message the weather is changing. The night sky looks like autumn as well. Fall skies have a clarity about them lacking in summer. I'm just about ready...