At least the weather has made its transition from torrid summer to pleasantly warm early autumn. I can go back to having the windows open in the afternoon and evening and closing them at night. Having the windows closed at night cuts down on the racket of the cicadas. The mildness should continue through the week, and then there's a possibility of rain on Sunday and Monday, but even if it rains it probably won't get very cold. Mild spring and autumn rains are always so much more enjoyable than chilly winter rain. I'm looking forward to it.
A handful of leaves have fallen from the mulberry tree, but they are mostly from one twig that appears to have died. All of that twig's remaining leaves are shriveled and brown, but the rest of the tree is still green, and is casting a lovely, translucent green shade. The oaks are already turning brown, though, and the oak leaves in the back yard are almost plentiful enough to justify raking. The walnut tree has also dropped quite a few leaves, along with another two dozen or so walnuts. I'm leaving about half the walnuts out for the squirrels, but I'm collecting the rest for myself. The squirrels get any nuts that fall beyond the jasmine hedge, and I keep those that fall on the lawn.
The black cat who has moved in across the street gets left outside all night, and because there is a big dog in his (her?) back yard, is inclined to head this way when venturing out. This interloper has little fear of me, and has repeatedly come into my back yard and eaten the food I've left out for the feral kittens. Running the beast off does no good. It just comes back a few minutes later. I'll probably have to adjust the kittens' feeding schedule to deal with new cat's incursions. If it finds nothing to eat, then there'll be no reason for it to come here— unless it's an intact tom, of course, and then the presence of three female kitties will be bound to bring him back. Then I'll have a bigger problem to worry about than the cost of the additional cat food he eats.
I got six single-serving packages of frozen lasagna on sale at the market Sunday. They're usually a bit above my budget, so I was happy to find them fairly cheap. One is for dinner tonight, but I'll try to make the rest of them last through December. I just hope we don't have any power outages before I've used them up. My oven is electric, so I'd be unable to cook and devour them all in one sitting if an outage causes the freezer to defrost. Eating them all in once sitting is a nice fantasy, though.
Life is so exciting. It's a wonder I don't swoon from the drama of it all. Or is that what my unintentional naps are?