Oct. 6-12, 2025

Weather | 10/6, sunny, 60°, 82° | 10/7, 0.60" rain, cloudy, 55°, xx° | 10/8, xx°, xx° | 10/9, xx°, xx° | 10/10, xx°, xx° | 10/11, xx°, xx° | 10/12, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 10/6: Halloween Decorations
  • We heard coyotes howling during our predawn walk with Plato. Coyotes aren't usually howling at that hour.
  • I took the .22 rifle north to the machine shed to blast squirrels first thing in the morning. Two squirrels bounded across that building's tin roof and gave me a quick eyeball look, then spun around and loudly ran away. There's nothing quiet about a squirrel running on a tin roof! I never got a shot off.
  • An American kestrel flew over the yard as I was looking for squirrels this morning. Mary saw it, too.
  • After we let the chickens out and were back inside, I spotted a buck deer between the machine shed and the grain bins. He had a nice rack.
  • I picked up all of the soiled wall calendars and chicken feathers on the dirt floor of the machine shed. In past years, I left this stuff. I'm trying to eliminate feathers that mice stuff into the cracks and crevices of the woodsplitter engine.
  • Mary vacuumed spiders from throughout the house and found 11 Asian lady bugs, so the autumn/winter bug invasion has commenced.
  • I hunted squirrels in the late afternoon while sitting on a stool at the east side of the machine shed. I saw nothing. Then during evening chores I checked and two squirrels were in the tops of trees northeast of the machine shed. I tried a long shot and got another fox squirrel.
  • We put up the Halloween tree and decorations (see photos, below).
  • I finished Alexander Kent's 12th nautical novel, Signal—Close Action!, and started the 13th novel of the series, The Inshore Squadron.
  The fully decorated Halloween tree, this year with blinking lights.
   

  

  New Halloween pumpkin lights over a door in our kitchen.