Fall catch-up

I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon but had to bow out. Had a bad night's sleep and woke up this morning feeling like I was coming down with something or other. I feel a little better now, but better to be cautious these days. A couple of years ago I would have taken the chance of giving a cold to other people—maybe—but now it just seems terribly irresponsible. I am very disappointed though.

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I put my birdfeeder up this week and after a day or so the blue jays discovered it and now there is constant activity just outside my living room window. So far I have also seen a couple of chickadees, a pair of cardinals, a nuthatch, and a song sparrow. The goldfinches are so far missing in action, I hope they are just slow to get the memo.

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I have an appointment later this month at a clinic over an hour's drive away that may be able to give me a formal diagnosis, and yes I'm still sick. Both summers, 2020 and 2021, were moderately healthy but by fall it was all back in full blast. Something about the fall I guess. The house badly needs a paint job and I thought when the cooler fall weather arrived I could tackle it, but now I don't have the energy for it. The yard work has pretty much come to a halt now but there is still a lot left to do. I did manage to get the garlic planted but I don't know how much more I am going to be able to do.

I have a stack of library books that I can't read and am wondering why on earth I ordered them. Even the titles are daunting. I harvested a whole bunch of cabbage which I am wondering why I planted because I don't like cabbage. Now I have a bumper crop and no idea what to do with it. I managed to trade the two biggest heads for a couple of hubbard squashes, so that's something, and the person I traded with gave me a recipe for pickled red cabbage which she said was really good on tacos, so that's something too. If I ever get up the energy to pickle.

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In spite of feeling crappy this is one of my favourite seasons in this province. Especially October. It's still warm but not hot, lots of sun and because the sun is so low in the sky a beautiful yellow tinge to the light. And of course the fall colours, which are really only just beginning. They usually peak around Thanksgiving but this year peak colour seems to be delayed. We get "Frost Advisories" regularly now but until this morning I have not seen any sign of frost. And it's what they call "patchy", I saw frost on the back lawn of a house across the street but none anywhere else. My neighbours got frost but I did not.

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After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I've settled on a contractor to install a solar panel system and the municipal financing program has sent me a contract to sign. Ten pages of fine print. Most of it was pretty much what I expected but one paragraph in particular seemed a little too vague for my liking so I have requested clarification before I sign.

I contacted a couple of roofers to see if I need to do anything about my roof before I cover it up with solar panels and one of them followed through with a site visit. Running his name by friends later it turns out he comes highly recommended. Anyway, he's going to send me an detailed estimate but gave me a ballpark figure which is a bit daunting. He had a nice dog which he says he takes everywhere with him, a point in his favour. I may be eligible for a housing authority grant to help seniors stay in their own homes, but I don't know if I'll qualify, mainly because I think they prefer that your roof be leaking or otherwise in very bad shape, which mine is not.

I had to laugh though, I had had some work done on my roof a half dozen years ago and I thought I'd give that roofer a call. I couldn't find his contact info so I googled his name and it turns out he's now in jail for murder. Oops.

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I now have three bikes in my shed and that's probably two too many. So I put one of them up for sale on Facebook Marketplace, only minutes before Facebook crashed. My bike crashed the system. However the next day I got a response from a woman who said she's been looking for that exact type of bike for years, but she lives in the city and wondered if I could put it on hold for her till the weekend. I was a bit hesitant but she offered to pay for it right away, I agreed, and she sent me an etransfer immediately for the full price. 

It all happened so fast that I was kind of shocked; I then wondered what else I could put up for sale since this seemed so ridiculously easy. She has not yet picked up the bike, she was going to come yesterday but messaged me that her daughter was sick so could she postpone a couple of days. Sure, no problem, I've already been paid and can afford to wait a few more days to get rid of the bike.

Well, must go now, the blue jays have emptied the feeder so I'm being called to replenish.