A September To Remember Turns Into Where In The H*%^^ Did October Go?

And she's back! I looked at my profile picture and shivered. Yeah, it's getting to be winter here. There has officially been snow. There has officially been ice. Sleet, rain, mixed with all of the above... The only thing we don't officially have yet is snow that has stayed on the ground. Nope, still mud, and mushy leaves.

I know that October existed. I know this because my brother turned 50 during October, and a deal was made about that. Not a big deal, but it wasn't forgotten either, and I'm not done with that yet.

I know that October ended because little parasites, munchkins dressed up in all manner of ghoulish things knocked on my door wanting candy. Lest they take over the world, they got candy! And I know that November is well on it's way to being half way over because The Mouth turned 25 (and let me know about it).

But, what I don't know is how it all slipped by so fast. One minute I'm canning up a storm (along with tomatoes and sauerkraut) and the next I'm wondering how apple season got missed. There are still pumpkins to be put into jars, awesome for pumpkin pie, and although there will not be any home canned applesauce and apple butter this year, the pumpkins will make up for it.
The livestock has pretty much all been battened down for the winter, but I don't really remember doing a lot of that. Probably the routine of it all.

So with winter knocking on the door (literally, the wind is doing it's windy wind thing), there is precious little time to finish up fall chores. There is still a couple of crates of spuds out on the deck that need to be brought in, and more firewood brought up to the house. And the next nice day (meaning, no wind and preferably not a lot of precipitation) I will burn the last of the summer's garbage.

But the next big thing to look forward to is our family reunion in 2 weeks! Yes! In 2 short weeks I will be sitting atop a very large boat in a very large, hopefully warmish body of water, drinking margaritas and coronas and playing with things like stingrays. We will dive in Grand Cayman. We will do the Margaritaville thing in Cozumel and maybe Carlos and Charlies too. And in Jamaica we will climb the falls in Ocho Rios. And swim in the water. Warm, warm, Caribbean water. And then it will all end and we will come back to cold, snowy Michigan to resume real life.

But first... all of the details like getting someone to watch the critters... have to be figured out. How to keep the aquariums warm without the heat being on, stuff like that. It will all be worth it, just as soon as we step off the plane in Miami and head out to the pier!