Greetings fellow readers! As I look out on this day I see gloomy skies, fog and drizzle. As the day wears on the fog gets thicker and thicker. It’s so dark outside! I am keeping cozy by the fire with plenty to do however. My pumpkin pie is in the oven baking, filling the house with a wonderful aroma, the cranberry sauce is done (in my Mom’s crystal bowl).

With a few of the Thanksgiving tasks taken care of I’ll be settling down now in front of the fire to have a mini marathon of my favorite Christmas movies. Have you seen any of these?

They never fail to jump start my holiday mood. Since Thanksgiving is so late this year, I need all the help I can get. Why is it that I don’t ever really start thinking about Christmas until Thanksgiving? I wish they would insert another month in-between. That would be much more to my liking. That way you’d have plenty of time to gear up for the holiday season. Yikes! Christmas is in just a few short weeks!

I’ll also be working on these while watching the movies: Rick’s slippers. Don’t worry, I know they look big enough to be clown shoes but they get thrown in the washer and felted down to a normal size. Cozy and warm, and my favorite pattern of all to knit! (More on that later.)

I might even get to start this:

I need a thriller right about now!

Hope your holiday is cozy and packed full of all the things you love!

Dress No. 4: Black dress, ruffles (Rick wants me to call them tiers instead of ruffles), asymmetrical shoulders was worn in the end. At least it won’t have the dubious aura surrounding it as the I-got-drunk-in-the-cobalt-blue dress does. I may never be able to wear that cobalt blue dress in mixed company again. Well, at least not the company I was with last night since they all know the story now.

Back to clothes with dog hair and dog slobber on them today to finish up the business of raking/blowing leaves. In other words, back to normal life on four acres in way-out-of the-suburbs New Jersey.

“X” marks the spot over my house.

Not much going on around here lately. We spent a quiet weekend doing mostly chores. Saturday we finished stacking the two cords of wood, so now we’re ready for colder weather. Our weather over the weekend, however, was balmy and sunny—and mid 60’s! Now, I ask you Mother Nature, why couldn’t you have given us this weather earlier on so the trees would have been happier? Speaking of the trees, that’s another time consuming chore. I ran Johnny over the yard again to mulch the final leaves that had fallen and Rick did leaf blowing duty in various spots. The big oak in the back yard still has leaves, so I’ll wait until they drop to go over the back yard once more and then it will be time for us to change out the mowing deck for the snow blower.

We did take time out on Sunday morning to take the dogs for a walk on the old Jungle Habitat grounds. Not much remains of the old enclosures except some fencing and tall, heavy wrought steel gates. Some of them look like they used to keep T-Rexes and velociraptors captive. You just have to use your imagination. But in reality, where lions, tigers, and elephants used to roam there are now only squirrels, chipmunks, deer and bear, bicyclists and dog walkers. The dogs love it because they can be off-lead, meet other dogs and people. On this walk we didn’t see any other dogs.

I hadn’t realized there was so much bittersweet growing here! It covered the trees. Next time I come I’m bringing my garden clipper so I can take some home with me! I know it’s parasitic but it’s so pretty.

And talking about parasitic ... the vines here are pretty creepy. They take over the trees.

This one looks like it created a loop to catch someone or something in.

The bark of some kind of birch tree glowing silvery-gold in the sun.

A watering hole along the way is always a good thing Bella says.

The moon looks like it’s being embraced by the tree branches, don’t you think?

We do a loop of about a mile and a half. It’s a nice walk along the abandoned road system with some short climbs. The dogs were pooped when we got home and slept while Rick and I did the outside chores. A very full weekend of just “stuff.”

Our autumn was pretty disappointing this year. Too much rain I guess. The colors were not brilliant. Most the of the trees went right into ochres, burnt siennas, and umber colors. Very dull and muted. A lot of the leaves fell off before achieving full color. A few days ago the sun came out and I took a drive down by Monksville Reservoir to see if any color had survived the wind and rain of last weekend. I found some at Long Pond Ironworks that I’d like to share, especially since it’s foggy and drizzly here this morning.

One of the things to truly shine this year were the burning bushes. They waited until the trees had lost most of their leaves so they could steal the whole show.

I give you Magenta Pink. (with a little reddish orange mixed in)

Orange.

Red.