The Streets are Paved with Gold.....

We have the loveliest Ginkgo trees in our town. They are usually fairly unobtrusive (except for this one!) and you don't notice them until sometime in November or early December when they turn a vivid yellow for a couple of weeks. Then they start to drop their leaves and there is a carpet of gold underneath each tree. Often they will be bare within a week. The drop on this one was accelerated by a small winter storm Thursday night.

If not now, when?

My new mantra, still in beta.

I found this when I was unpacking the Christmas decorations. Someone gave it to me at the office a couple of years ago and I've never used it. What am I saving it for? So this weekend it goes into the bathroom soapdish and we will use it for its intended purpose until it disappears in a flash of bubbles. Actually, I do know what I've been saving it for.....the grandchildren will love it.

Five Weeks to Go.....

The end of the four-day Thanksgiving weekend. Laundry is done, the Christmas tree is up though not completely decorated.

In Memoriam

Sam died last night, age 15 1/2.
He joined our family in 1994 after the black cat Reilly died of leukemia. Reilly's cohort Murphy was driving us crazy because he had never been an only cat, so we went to the animal shelter to find a companion for him. The inmates all did their little "notice me" routines except for one full grown cat who just sat back and looked at us. I thought he might be sick, but the attendant said he had a clean bill of health and also had all his shots and was neutered. We were even given the vet's name (turned out it was our vet.) The cat's name was Simba and he was two years old. So we decided that a nice, sedate, past-kittenhood cat was just what we needed to balance Murphy the Menace. This was the Lion King era and I don't like faddish names, so we changed it to Sam and introduced him to our household.

Preview of Things to Come

The great day is still two months away but I am taking this week as vacation, although we are not going away. I've been taking my time doing things around the house and garden, as well as sleeping late in the mornings. Yesterday it was 10am before I got out of bed and today it was 9:15. I think I'm going to set the alarm for 7am tomorrow - otherwise I'll be sleeping my life away.



In the garden, I pulled up the last of the squash plants. Only the zucchini was still producing but the fruit was quite small. Very unlike zucchini's usual mode - baby to giant overnight.



Also started pulling up the Roma tomatoes. There are six plants and they take up most of the northwest 4x8 bed. I uprooted one and picked a large bowl of ripe and green fruit. I read an article in the Chronicle a few weeks ago about how to store green tomatoes and I plan to give it a try with these.

Just before coming in to start dinner, I picked these lovely ripe figs. We are having a bountiful crop this year and there are plenty for us, the neighbors, my co-workers and even the birds. Last year I put up bird tape but there is so much fruit this year that I didn't bother. I sure wish we could come to this kind of agreement with the squirrels who strip the almond tree every year.

Our weather has been lovely this week. Low eighties and very little wind. The humidity has been even lower than usual and our county is under a red flag warning. So far, though, we have had no wildfires, unlike Southern California where the news of fires and evacuations gets worse every day. After tomorrow the temps are expected to drop and be more like late October should be. So we are planning a trip to the Coast to take advantage of the fine weather, probably Carmel where Leo the Rat Terrier can get a good run.