Winter is coming

My recent observations suggest that winter is quickly drawing nigh.

Nights are cold. Not cool, but cold. There is a frost warning for early tomorrow morning. With windows open and several blankets and a thick comforter to burrow under, I’m sleeping like a log. Great sleeping weather, but it’s awfully early for the late summer flowers to turn brown and die.

The leaves have started turning colors. That’s nearly a month earlier than normal. And we already have a couple of naked trees in the neighborhood. Much too early, in my opinion. But nature has her own schedule to keep and she appears to have decided on an early winter.

The mice and spiders have started moving into the house. That’s a month earlier than normal. Last night the first mouse of the autumn season made her presence known. At least I think it was a she mouse. She was a little field mouse who I discovered in the oven of all places. I’d left a hollowed out round loaf of bread with the remnants of melted brie cheese stuck to the bottom. She was inside the bread bowl having herself quite a feast. Rather than run, she scrunched down in the bread bowl. I carefully picked it up and started to carry it toward the door. She stood up on her hind legs and seemed to challenge me. If she was afraid, she didn’t exhibit any signs of it. I opened the door and as soon as I placed the bread bowl on the deck floor, she scampered out and disappeared. Wouldn’t be too surprised to find her back in the house in the next day or two.

Yesterday morning I opened the lad’s bedroom door for the second time since he’s been gone. I decided it was time to let it be a part of the house again. Time to clean it out and clean it up. Much to my surprise, the room had been taken over by spiders. Big ones and little ones and wispy ones. In a month’s time they’d established themselves quite comfortably. I generally have a high tolerance for spiders in the house and we have an agreement that as long as they don’t abuse their tenant’s rights, they can stay. This was too much, though. I got out the vacuum cleaner and made short work of them. Except for the little black fuzzy jumpy spider. That makes four (that I know of) in the house now: One who has been living in the bathroom for the past several weeks, one in the hallway, one in the dining room and now this one in the lad’s bedroom. I think that’s about my limit.