Guess who forgot about setting the clocks back last night, both external and internal? That’s why I got out of bed at what I thought I was 7:00 this morning and jumped in the shower so I would be ready to leave the house at 8:30. As I was standing there with hot water pouring down over my neck and shoulders, Rick came in and told me that it was really only 6:00. Well, I was already wet so going back to bed was not an option at that point. So, here I am in front of the computer instead. Aren’t you lucky? This is one of those random-not-planned posts.

We have plans for today. We enrolled in a cheese making class at a creamery about an hour’s drive from here. We get a tour of the farm and then make our own round of cheese which they will store and age for us. I think we get to pick it up sometime after Christmas. Should be a fun day.

Yesterday we took care of all the leaves carpeting our front yard. I think they make a lovely carpet but if left they will kill the grass. In the two years that we’ve lived here we had someone professional come and blow the yards of leaves. It’s a lot of leaves! It’s also very expensive as you might imagine. This year we took Johnny Jr. (who has a mulching attachment) and drove very slowly over the leaves mulching them into tiny pieces that just disappeared into the grass. Good for the grass; good for the pocketbook. It worked like a charm. We’re very pleased at how well this worked. Here you can see before and after.

We also replaced our little wood stove in the sun room. It was old and tired and needed new stove black. You couldn’t dampen it down to burn efficiently and it ate wood like it was candy. Our new stove will burn very efficiently and heat the sun room and kitchen area very nicely. Here they are side by side for comparison. The difference is like night and day. (Pun intended as I took the photos at different times of the day obviously.)

The man who installed it is also the chimney sweep that didn’t show up last week in our deluge of rain, so that was handy. He took a look at both chimneys and gave us a reasonable quote for sweeping them soon. They need it if the amount of chunky soot that came out of the little stove’s pipe is anything to judge by. We need to break it in so we had two little fires in it yesterday. What a difference! The tiny pile of wood burned for a very long time, giving out the kind of warmth that only wood can provide. Cozy.

As I type our little turkey family is out there in the front yard pecking away at the seed I threw down yesterday afternoon. It’s pretty light out there now at 6:59 a.m.

The trees are still beautiful. The colors are now all burnt yellows and oranges since we’ve had some pretty good frosts.

Gorgeous color, crisp days, frosty nights and cozy fires. What’s not to love about this season?