I am enjoying the cooler weather. I can sit in the early morning dark with the window open and listen to the sounds of town. A few birds chatter even in the dark, though the moon this morning is bright enough it does not really feel like night.

I had a busy yesterday. I began with a short run (working at building my stamina/mileage). Then I went and picked up some new shoes as my old ones were kaputski. Then I picked up some pansies on sale along with a few moms and planted them all. 100 pansies, so the few spaces we have should be overcrowded very soon with blooms and such. The moms are beautiful, though they will likely not last more than a month at best. Still, they were on sale for 5 bucks a pot so the two pots were a decent investment for the time they will bloom.

I spent the afternoon at the library shelving books. They were short handed and were glad of my assistance. Kind of interesting seeing the kinds of books that are in the library.

Today I will go for another short run, probably won't do a longer run until I feel comfortable with these short ones again. Maybe another week or two before I begin increasing my mileage/time. I am enjoying being back on the trail again.

Tomorrow I haul Carol off to the airport, she is off to a convention for a couple of days.

I did finish double digging my first wee plot and will likely begin another one this week. The first one is not going to work too well for a garden as it does not get full sun until late in the afternoon. I started with it as it had been pre-dug, at least in part, therefore, making my job easier. Still, I would love a larger plot for next summer. I figure if I can dig a 1' by 4' section every other day, I should have a rather large plot by the spring. Although, the soil is harder here than up north, I do believe it is more fertile. It definitely has no rocks!!

Happy Birthday Art Clokely! Gumby an Pokey are cool!

I am listening to rain fall off the eaves, occasional thunder followed by lightning (strange how I notice it backwards this morning), and a train moving off east. One thunder boom was so loud it woke me from a sound sleep and sent Mags scurrying under the bed. I love waking to the smell of petrichor in the morning.

I was planning on running in the park this morning, but I don't know that I will now. Too muddy at the one park and I am likely going to be a walking zombie soon. Ahh well, I may yet be able to get back to sleep for a bit.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

To everyone living in the frozen Northern wasteland, Happy Thanksgiving. I hope y'all have a great day!!

I woke to the sound of rain falling off the eaves this morning. The weather page says .75 inches already with another 1.5 still to come. I will not have to water most plants today, if any.

A red headed wood pecker visited our bird bath yesterday. So far, there have been more interesting birds in this yard than at the Brittany place. There is more bushes for them to disappear into here.

I did go for a run yesterday. I was not as efficient as I once was, but not as bad as I was when I began last December. It felt great to be running once more. My broken toe gave me no real pain though there was some discomfort.

We managed to get the boxes out of the living room and kitchen yesterday. Still a lot to do, but at least the house is not looking like a total mess.

Today, I will likely walk down to the library to get Taha's most recent poetry collection. I will also go down to the coffee house for a morning stroll/coffee. It is nice to be living somewhere that we can do that. I really loved living in Chapel Hill and being able to take an afternoon/morning stroll downtown and have a coffee or an ice dish.

If my garden is not too muddy, I will do some digging. I also need to wash clothes (an iron), do some research for a project that is work related, and organize my office a bit. I may also make a nice curried soup with yellow split peas. yum.

I had a bit of sad news last night. The poet Taha Muhammed Ali died Oct. 1. I first heard him at the 2002 Dodge Poetry Festival. This is a video of him reading at the 2006 festival.



When I saw him, he was excited to be in America reading his poetry at the Dodge Festival. Rather hard not to like him and his enthusiasm for life and poetry. He was 80 this year.

Going to try running this morning, hopefully my toe will allow it. I am getting rather tired of its constant whining. 

The weather dudes are calling for t-showers over the next few days. I hope we get a lot of rain as we really really need it.

ok, I am officially weird, or maybe just tired. I am sitting in my big ole easy chair waiting for the Nobelprize.org site to go live so I can hear the announcement for this years winner of the literature prize. At the moment, all one sees is a crowd milling about without any purpose. Schmoozing, I suppose.

Quiet week so far. Busy for a few days, but nothing major happening. Well, I keep waking up at 4:30. I am beginning to wonder if someone nearby leaves for work at that time and makes enough noise to wake me. I was blaming the cats, but they were not responsible this morning.

I haven't had time/energy to do any digging this week, though we did pick up some ornamental cabbage to plunk down in the central flower garden. Still to hot to think about planting pansies, heck, it will likely get to 90 today. There is no point putting pansies out until the temp falls below 80.

Still not fully unpacked either. I don't think I even looked at a box this week. I need to spend some time organizing my bookshelves, reordering the living room, putting away cooking spices, etc., etc.

Well, I am thrilled. The prize was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer,  a poet whom I have read and who is really quite extraordinary. Sides, I am always thrilled when the prize goes to a poet! And, as a Swedish poet, he includes bleak, cold, winter images. Images Canadians can relate to very well.