Local Flavor: Color Change, Mood Change

This year's descent into fall happened faster than ever before, it seems, and with absurd amounts of work to do along with it. We've had topsy-turvy weather, too -- some days it's in the 40s and chill and other days it's in the 60s or 70s and sunny. Above is a shot of the shop from down the street a couple weeks ago.

There's pasture land just north of us and I snapped this on my way back from a milk run one evening.

We've also had some of those spooky, gorgeous, misty mornings.

We're still getting a bit of color from the garden but the trees around it are nearly spent -- a couple days before this shot the sumacs were red like fire engines.

Middlebury is always a week or two or three behind us -- here's the spillway off of the dam's right side.

The walking bridge down by it is also always a joy to pass over, though.

Whenever the forests turn golden I can't help but think of Tolkien and Lothlorien. Nerd moment.

On Monday Bonnie and I got a quick walk in before picking the kids up from school.

We'll never pass-up the chance to be goofballs...

...but her winter clothing alarms me.

Meanwhile, Kazoo sometimes helps me in the workshop...

...while Rosie sometimes smothers our children.

Said child drew this picture of Rosie and Kazoo (bottom) trick-or-treating for Greenies while I drew them as pumpkin-sitters.

A little later she and I painted, and here's my coyote campfire.

We got in our last little event of the season -- the jam group played the last Farmer's Market in town. There's some choice equipment up there not in my hands -- Ham's got a '58 Gibson L-48, Todd's got a '60s Jazzmaster, Rob's playing a late-'60s Gretsch, Ed (behind Rob, sorry!) is playing a more-recent Martin OM-18V, and I'm playing my $100-find '70s Tokai bass, hah hah.

While I was working on the building outside, this random kitty adopted us via randomly appearing across the street at our turnout. I'm guessing it dropped out of a passing car, but I found it crouched in the grass like a jungle cat -- waiting for me with those evil eyes...

Aside from normal work, I've been doing a ton to the house and shop. There's a lot of fresh trim paint and the most recent was getting the cream of the store porch down and some fresh green on the posts. Eventually (maybe tomorrow, even!) I'll get some flowers painted rising from the green "stalks."

We have new light fixtures in the house and a replaced ceiling in our bedroom. I whined like a little, itty, bitty baby doing that last job. That's miserable work. I feel for you, contractors!