Not much to report this week. We made and ate a lot of food, visited with a lot of family, and didn’t go out into the cold mist very much. I’ve been knitting. Johnny jump ups are still blooming, and the strawberries are a nice shade of red.

We made a new bluebird/ swallow box and hung it on the trellis by the garden.

Our motion camera only took pictures of us, despite the tell-tale fox droppings in the yard near the hugelkultur bed where it was aimed. You can see that this is the time of year when we wear orange as if it is armor. So far, so good.

It really feels like we’re about to launch into winter. The chicken water is almost always frozen in the morning. I finally drained the rain barrels and hoses, and put away the last of the garden tools. I put snow tires on my car. Crazy that this week two years ago, I seriously needed them–this photo is from Nov 26, 2014.

Today we saw a bald eagle fly by our perch up on the vista above the Hermit Castle in Erving. (This is the place, but the photo is from mid October–now, all the deciduous trees are grey skeletons among the evergreens).