Pssst!

There's a cool new challenge photo up at Wordsmiths Unlimited, as well as the October story round-up. Some mighty fine reading there, and possibly a prompt to get your noggin full of ideas for writing once you're full of turkey and stuffing. What ELSE do you have to do over the long upcoming weekend?

=====================

I just picked an apple out of my lunch bag. It smells like vinegary old feet.

Candy machine, here I come!

====================

This past weekend was the one when all the leaves came down. OK, maybe not ALL, but certainly enough for us to now be able to see our neighbors behind and to the north of the Tiny House.

All summer long we can pretend like we don't have backyard neighbors, because there are trees and other leafy green plants that block their view of us and our view of them (amazing, how that all works out, huh?). Ah, summer, when it's too daggone hot out to consider spending any time in the backyard, and when there are so many mosquitos out there that you take your life in your own hands if you go out un-slathered wtih DEET, and when the air is too thick to breathe, there are leaves. Come October, when the weather starts to moderate there's a window of about 2 weeks when the sky is clear, the air is crisp, the bugs are too lethargic to bite or fly, porch sittin' is just about perfect.

By the middle of November though? It's all over. It gets COLD (brrr- 40 degrees! Shocking! I might have to put on a jacket!), and the trees shiver off their leaves, preferring to stand naked in the winds of winter. Our backyard lies exposed to the prying eyes of the neighbors; not even the weeping willow whips can keep out unwanted stares.

No, we can no longer pretend we don't have neighbors, because there they are, right over the back fence. Our privacy is vanished, and the glass block of the bathroom window becomes not QUITE enough shield from the outside world. Curious folk who live in the old mill could make out bedroom activities if they chose, so the blinds must be lowered, shutting out their view, and ours. We become a little more trapped in our home when the leaves fall, having forgotten how small 4 rooms can feel when the doors are all shut and the blinds lowered and louvered.

It begins a season of patience, of biding time.

The good thing for People of Little Patience such as myself is this: Spring arrives early around these parts, and so come March we'll have our living screen back again.

Just about the same time the first hatch of mosquitos arrives.

====================

Enjoy your afternoon, my friends. See you tomorrow.