Snow on the pumpkin, home

I used to be good at this blogging business—reliable, steady, and there every day with something new and, I hope, interesting gleaned from my daily travels through the natural world. But, sigh, another species of reality has been intervening too much, and I've fallen down on the job. It's surprising, to be sure: I'm supposed to be retired, for God's sake, so I should have an abundance of time. For various reasons, however, I actually have less time than I used to, and part of the reason is that, recently, I've been spending all too many hours in the care of various physicians. So it has been this week, as I've been to the operating room to have yet another heart unpleasantry treated. That was on the 26th, and while it only required a one-day-and-night stay, it's taken three additional days to kick the brain fog from the anesthesia and the anti-pain meds.

This morning, praise be, I was well enough to be able to grab my camera... finally... when a sharp cold front arrived to turn the chilly rainfall into a squall of wet snow, the first of the season. It did manage to coat the leaf litter in white, and while there was surely going to be frost on the pumpkin as a result of temperatures forecast to be in the 20s tonight, there was also something more by day. Overjoyed I'm around and functional enough to be able to see and record it.