Fall.

It's not a picture perfect fall this year. Too many of the early leaves lost first to Isabel then to a wind storm last week. There's a tree or two down the street putting on a show, but the vista's just don't seem to have the oomph this year. Every tree with some gold seems to have nearly as much brown this year. There were some beautiful maroons early but they are all gone. So I content myself with a few fiery sugar maples and laugh at my dogwood which had turned a nice red but seems to have sprouted a new growth of green on all the branch ends since then.

Yesterday was soccer early, then chores and errands. The in-laws were down for a visit but mil blew the timing and even though she said she'd watch the boy's game they didn't. Good thing we never mentioned it to the boy. Instead both the husband and I went. The boy is still way behind the little go getters on the team, but he's getting better each time. No stamina, though, he's the only kid there that asks to be taken out of the game.

The homestead is now bedecked in Halloween things. The boy's input on the decorating had to be curbed when he indicated he wanted every decoration on the same little bit of wall. Uh, no. We went out and got him a costume too. He's a strange opportunist about costumes. If you ask him ahead of time what he wants to be he'll say let's wait and see what they have. But he has to have one of the commercial costumes. Which is a little ironic since I can actually sew. So this year it's spiderman. I'm going to have to alter the hood because it's too small for his head, though. And make the eyeholes bigger. Husband tells me he never keeps the masks on anyway.

Other than that I did some fall chores. Now most of the them are done. I just have one more hose to bring in and the bird bath to take apart (to avoid breaking the concrete). The garden is still producing, but mostly strangely discolored tomatoes. I can harvest some carrots soon too! The fall planting of lettuce and radishes have had their leaves completely stripped. Not sure who I'm feeding, but they're eating well.

After that it was dinner with the in-laws about which all I have to say is they sure bring out the mean in each other.