Weekly update - October 30, 2026

I'll dive right in.
  • It is finally starting to actually feel like autumn and the leaves are turning.
  • In one of G.'s classes recently, they had to take a survey on their technology usage growing up. I'm more than a little proud that G. scored as an unusual combination of 90's child and Internet child. 
  • The path that J. built last weekend used up nearly all the bricks that we had. We still have need of more pavers, though. That's why I jumped on a freecycle offering of a significant amount of them. We collected them today; it took a couple of trips.

  • We had a fence builder out to give an estimate on the additional fencing we need. I'm a little nervous about how much it's going to be.
  • Ducks are funny. They like to stay out late floating in the pond, long after the chickens put themselves to bed. The trouble is that once it's dark, they can't find the pen door and we need to go out and shine a flashlight on it so they can go to bed. Tonight, while J. and I we cooking dinner, we heard an odd noise on the back porch. It was the ducks all standing by the back door, some pecking at the sill. I wondered if they came up to ask for a light to go to bed, so J. and I went out, J. shine a light on the pen door, and they all matched themselves in. 
  • Tomorrow is L.'s last day of work on the boat for the season.
  • Y. is filled with stories from her work and I am agog at how much people spend at restaurants. She'll see some customers more than once a day, usually ordering at least $25 of food each time. That's about a third to a quarter of my weekly grocery bill. I cannot fathom having that much disposable income. 
  • Adult children are all doing well.
  • Have you seen the pictures of the triplets baby capybaras at the Edinburgh Zoo? Go look them up if you haven't. I love capybaras and think it's totally unfair we're not allowed to keep them as pets in Illinois.
  • I'm in the midst of a mystery reading kick. Have you heard of the DS Cross series by Tim Sullivan? The first title is The Dentist. I'm working my way through them and am very happy there's more than a few titles. I particularly like the character development that happens as the books go along. I find DS Cross to be a really interesting detective and I love how the author handles and humanizes toes his (the detective's) neurodivergence. Highly recommend if you enjoy mysteries.
  • And I turned all the ballots from our house into the county yesterday. I was congratulated that all the envelopes were completed correctly allowing me to drop them off. If you haven't voted yet, be sure to vote on Tuesday. The existence of our democracy depends on every single one of you. 

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