The title of this page is because we are into the last days of summer-like weather. It was fairly cold for a week and then we jumped into glorious Indian Summer yesterday and today and tomorrow, too. So, it's back to sitting on the deck in the mornings. All summer long Bill and I have been sitting on the deck as soon as he gets home from work. That is our reconnection time; my favorite time of the day. I don't what I'll do when it's too cold to sit out there. Bill says, "Put on a coat." No, sorry, I seriously doubt that we'll be doing that. So, he gets home from work, pours himself a beer and we bring the unshelled peanuts out to the deck and we sit and sway on the two-seater swing and catch up on the day and watch the activities of the wildlife in the backyard.

There has been a frenzy of squirrel activity in the walnut trees but by October 1st they had stripped the branches bare of usable nuts. The little red squirrel can finally relax. It seemed to us that he spent more time chasing the gray squirrels down the tree trunks than he spent collecting nuts. He is one fierce territory protector. Poor liddle guy. While he's up in the treetops risking life and limb chewing the nut stems and getting them to drop on the ground, the gray squirrels are down below gathering up what he's dropped. I'm always rooting for the red squirrel, though. He's the cutest little thing I have every seen. And so fiesty.

This past week there has been more bird activity in the treetops. The robins are flocking there making lots of twittering noises and jumping back and forth to the tree branches. Once the mulberry tree has stopped giving up fruit by mid-July, the robins disappeared from the yard but now they've come back again. And there have been cedar waxwings in the uppermost level of the trees. They dart out and collect bugs then disappear behind the yellowing leaves again. Today I spotted robins, cardinals, mourning doves, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, flickers, and nuthatches all moving around out there. There has been some yellow warblers, too, but I'm not positive about the identity. I want to say migrating pine warblers.

Most traumatic event of the week. The fact that one of the cats, Kaboodle probably, captured a chipmunk in the outdoor cat enclosure again. I didn't get to rescue this one this time. Sometime between 3:30 and 4:45 she came in with it. I didn't see her because I was watching TV at the time in the bedroom. She laid it on the computer room rug and devoured half of it before puking up what she had just eaten. That's not like her at all. She usually eats the whole thing except for an organ or two. I'm not sure why she couldn't hold it down this time. She has been upchucking a lot over this past year. She tends to throw up fur and food every two days in the basement. We call her Puke-O-Matic. But when it came to fresh meat like that she's never thrown it up. She's not losing weight so I don't think it's something to be concerned about. Hope not. I'll have to ask the vet about that.

Most expensive venture of the week. We had to have our air conditioner replaced so while we were at it we had a new furnace put in and a heat pump. Our old furnace was horribly inefficient and our heating bill was sky high. It took the workers a full week to put the new one in and get it working. They were here most the day for the whole week. So, speaking of cats, one of the cats went up and peed on Addy's bed for two or three days. We mostly suspect Dusky since he is the most fearful of people. There would be NO way that he was going in that basement with strangers down there. To say Todd was mad about having to change bedding, and throw out two pillows, just as he thought he was going to get Addy to bed would be an understatement.

Now, this picture does deem some explanation. Bill was going to use the concrete blocks that were stacked by the garage. He took off the board that had been covering the top one and found a small possum inside having his daily sleep. The board had been leaning a bit on the fence providing just enough room for an alert but getting sleepy possum to decide it was a fine and proper bed. He called me to take a picture, and as you can see the possum wasn't too happy about his photo shoot, and then Bill put the board back as it was. The next day when Bill looked the possum wasn't there. Smart possum.

Most prized photo of the week. This one of the ruby-throated hummingbird. Actually this wasn't taken this week. I was taken two weeks ago when a male and a female hummingbird were fighting for rights to the sugar feeder. They were out there round the clock practically and the male was spending precious energy chasing the female off as much as he could. For two weeks they fought it out and then, quite suddenly, they disappeared. We have left the feeder up hoping that some other hummers would come along but none have yet. But the bees are enjoying what's left of the stuff. It takes a lot of fuzzy shots to get one really good one of these fast little darters. The feeder probably should come down now but I keep hoping that another one or two hummingbirds that are still migrating will come along and find it. It's looking more dim, though, as each day passes.

There has been a spider hanging outside my window all summer. She has been protected by the sheet of plexiglass that Bill hung over the catquariums. The plexiglass is there to stop the Chinese water torture that drips from the roof after it rains. I have enjoyed watching this spider live outside my indoor world. She has given birth to three spider sacs and killed numerous prey that have been unfortunate enough to get caught in her sticky web. And she has dropped her detritis on top of the catquariums forevermore. Now she is living under a dried leaf that happened to get caught in the web. She figured it was a better hiding place than being out in the open like she had been all summer. I think she is working on another spider sac. What came out of them were hundreds of tiny specks that didn't look like they were moving around. They hung in a loose ball for four or five days and then all of a sudden they were gone and the sac dropped down on the catquarium top.

Most celebratory moment of the week. Addy turned 3 last Saturday. It was a quiet celebration done on Friday because she and her mum and dad were driving north on Saturday to have multiple birthday celebrations with Todd's side of the family. Amy is having another baby and it is due February 4. I got Addy a book called "I'm A Big Sister." I just didn't get out to the stores to get much else but I figured she'd get a pretty good haul from the other relatives so she wouldn't miss not having one more present from me.

Got one more picture. There were a bunch of sunflowers that sprouted under the bird feeder from the sunflower seeds that birds dropped. We had quite the garden of them. The tallest of them was this plant shown here. It grew taller and taller and then sprouted a pretty pathetic little sunflower head. But after that head died off and started drying out, and you can see it hanging on the far left, more sunflowers began sprouting on the stalk. And they kept sprouting and sprouting. This group came out first. I had never known sunflowers to multiple sprout like that. It purely fascinated Bill. He'd come in with the latest count of new sunflower buds every couple of days.