not through a window

Today's weather was almost summer-ish, so I sat out on two of the porches to read. I was struck by how a window always frames the view for you, but in a different way so does a porch, so I took the camera around the house and shot some of those frames.

Going around the house from north east:

East:

Northwest from one side of the front porch:

North east from the other side:

I wasn't the only creature enjoying the weather today, but the lady bugs just didn't want their pictures taken:

North east from a different porch:

And south east from the same porch:

South from yet another porch:

And south west from that one:

West to end the afternoon.

heat

Saturday my hunters delivered some of this wood, and cut up what I had left from last winter into sizes that will, I hope, fit my stoves better. Spread out like that it looks like as much as I started with last winter, but it's all shorter, so I can't really tell. I only used about half of the approximate cord that I had, but last winter I was far more lavish with the radiant heat since my father was alive and old enough to have poor circulation, and of course it was his pension paying for the electricity. For myself, I've turned all the thermostats down to 60F in the rooms I keep warmest, and below that in others. I'll need the stoves if I'm going to feel toasty warm on cloudy days. (Remember, the solar gain has meant the heat has only run once so far, the night before the first frost.) I won't be home to feed the fires five days a week, though, so I hope this will last me.

first frost

Last night was the first frost of the season. The night before was the first time the heat came on. Last night I also was given the first deer liver of the season. Two and a quarter pounds. (Supper tonight: broiled liver and sweet potato.) This morning I started the first fire of the season. Fall's here, in spite of all the green leaves still around.

sneaky color

I kept trying to take pictures of the beginning of the color

change.

It kept raining too much. There was nothing much but green. Then the sun came out.

A few leaves turn among many still green.

In these, the veins haven't changed color yet.

Here's a whole little tree turned gold among the many green ones.

See that little red patch just left of center?

I have sassafras trees! I knew there must be some somewhere on 48 acres,

but I never spotted them until they turned red. In the spring, sassafras tea to "thin the blood."

To add to the Kentucky-ness of this, I found a pawpaw patch, too, but too deep in the shade for a picture.

rainbows unpictured

Far better than wallpaper. The wall is covered with random stripes of rainbow from the glass door, and the camera WILL not see them!

my commute

(Word pictures only. I'm not driving to work with the camera sticking out the window.)

I drive thirty-four miles to work. It takes between forty-five and fifty minutes (even though I drive, shall we say, "pushing the limit" for part of it.) This morning I left just as the sky was beginning to lighten, and I was seven miles from home before I saw another car. Usually I see one or maybe two sooner than that. I've been counting cars since I started back to work in July. I quit counting when I get to the urban county where I work, because traffic picks up a lot then. That means that this morning I saw thirteen cars in twenty-four miles. I don't count the ones waiting in driveways for the school bus, or the ones that cross the road far ahead of me. In all the work days since July I've never counted more than twenty-one.

I count deer, too. This morning I almost hit one. I saw the fawn by the side of the road, because its stripes were not yet faded and picked up the headlights, but Mama was not near the baby, as I expected, but out in the middle of the road by herself. I braked hard, and she crossed safely, but if the fawn had decided to follow, I'd have hit that one. Then a quarter of a mile farther on, five deer crossed the road far enough in front of me for me to react in time.

This morning the sunrise was only a line of pink under the clouds from last night's rain as they disappeared eastwards. No fog, either. Just gradually increasing light.

rainbow season

The sun is getting far enough south to spill rainbows indoors.

Just orange and red on the door jamb.

It dropped all the colors on the floor.

You have to look quickly, though. Between the time I first noticed it, and walking ten feet to get the camera and turn it on, it moved down the wall a few inches...

...and while I took three pictures it moved some more.

The green, which was quite vivid in real life, doesn't show at all.