Fall is in the air

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WiscWoody

Minister of Fire
Dec 24, 2011
2,078
Winter WI
Up here it is anyways. We’ve had two recent mornings when the temp was down into the upper 40’s and the days have been unusually cool and wet for August but the last four years here have been wet all around and this year they say we could hit a record for precipitation if it keeps up the way it has been going. My stove is apart now and all I need to do is get up on the roof to brush the chimney down and then vacuum it up in the stove box. The heating season usually starts for us in about six short weeks. Agh... BTW, they think our wetness up here has to do with climate change and here in NW Wisconsin we’ve had a 100 year, 500 year and a 1000 year flood in the last two years now. The towns can’t keep up with replacing culverts and when they put s larger one under a road they find that they have to dig it up again to put a even bigger one in or add another culvert right by the one they just put in. I’ve seen it here in this town a few times and they had to cement the banks of the roads to keep them from washing out all the time too. Agh again...
 
Up at my cabin northern Wisconsin down to 44 the next couple nights got a fire going toasty warm.
 
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I saw a big sugar maple that was starting to change colors last weekend in NH. Kind of early but we have had some cool nights. My tomato's are just getting ripe so hope the first frost is several weeks from now.
 
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I have a cigar on the porch at night, generally sometime after 10 PM. Whiskers, our male black cat, lays on the chaise. It's been cooler at night. He jumped down and was staring at the porch floor by the house, like he heard something under the deck. Then, he went inside the house and was looking with his ears pointed to the floor.

I pictured a mouse with a crossing guard vest waving a line of mice out of the woods and into the basement.

I freshened the peanut butter on a mouse trap in the basement on top of the foundation. :)
 
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I have a cigar on the porch at night, generally sometime after 10 PM. Whiskers, our male black cat, lays on the chaise. It's been cooler at night. He jumped down and was staring at the porch floor by the house, like he heard something under the deck. Then, he went inside the house and was looking with his ears pointed to the floor.

I pictured a mouse with a crossing guard vest waving a line of mice out of the woods and into the basement.

I freshened the peanut butter on a mouse trap in the basement on top of the foundation. :)

Great story, Paul. I can almost picture you and Whiskers sitting there. Been more than a year since I pulled a cigar from my little humidor. Maybe tonight, today is sailing at the lake and Dark and Stormy by the pool, enjoying those last warm weekends.
 
Some vine maples up north are starting to turn. 3 yrs ago our red maple leaves were fully red. This year they are still about 80% green. Around us a lot of local foliage is just going yellow, most likely due to lack of moisture.
 
Couple stressed trees starting to turn in the southern adirondacks.


It's all good. I need to clean the chimney. I never want to do it in spring just incase wasps decide to plug it. They dont do well with the spinning weed whacker of death I push up into the chimney.
 
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To me it's already fall. We haven't been around here the end of Aug to the end of Sept for over 12 years spending that time at SML in Va. So don't know if this is normal or not. Haven't had to cut the grass in two weeks
 
Couple stressed trees starting to turn in the southern adirondacks.


It's all good. I need to clean the chimney. I never want to do it in spring just incase wasps decide to plug it. They dont do well with the spinning weed whacker of death I push up into the chimney.

Might do the same today, if it remains too wet to mow and aerate. I wanted to get some grass seed down, so that’s first priority.
 
82 tomorrow 57 the next day ,typical central pa weather.
 
The days are quite a bit shorter, the nights cooler and there are rainy days. I am trying to get the last chores done before I have to shut down for winter. Tomorrow I hope to have enough sunshine to uncoil 900 feet of poly pipe, glue up 400 feet of conduit, and plumb the cisterns. It would be nice to get dirt back in the trench before everything turns to mud.

It is supposed to be about 60 Wednesday and Thursday, and start raining on Friday.
 
I’m burning regularly now, just a fire in the morning and again before bed. It’s been cold and wet up here with it raining nearly everyday lately. In fact we set a record for annual precipitation last Tuesday and it’s only early October. The last record was in 2016 and the runner up was last year so we are trending wet here.