Happy time change! Amazing how setting the clock back an hour can mess a person up. It now gets dark by a little after 5 in the afternoon. I arrive home from work, depending on whether the bus is late or on time, between 4:50 and 5:15. I usually let the Dashwoods out to roam the garden until dark. Now the poor chickens will be almost ready for bed by the time I get home. Bookman doesn’t go to work until a couple hours after I do so he is thinking he might let them out in the morning for an hour or so.

The Dashwoods have been snacking on a treat from a friend’s garden these last few days: kalette. It is a newish hybrid, a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts. It gets leaves like kale and a long stalk with small sprouts on it. My friend said it got huge. He loves kale and Brussels sprouts and when he finally cooked some up he was quite disappointed. He said it wasn’t very good at all. So he asked me if the Dashwoods would like it and I said that I was sure they would happily compost it for him. And yes indeed, they like it pretty well. But then they like most things except broccoli, which is baffling. But every time we have offered them broccoli they squeal and run the other way. Go figure.

This last week we had snow on a couple different occasions. We didn’t get a lot and it melted almost right away, but it appears we are in for a good, cold winter this year. I hope. Halloween was the coldest in eleven years so we are off to a good start.

The weather has been so wet and windy though that Bookman and I haven’t had the chance to get all the perennials cut back and a few other end of season garden chores done. We did manage, barely, to get the rain barrels emptied and turned over so that’s something. We still have chard in the garden, it is a wonderfully hardy plant, and carrots. I plan on getting the carrots pulled up this week before they end up freezing in the ground. I tried to dig up some horseradish but quickly discovered that a hand trowel will not do the job. Bookman will have to have a go at it with a big garden fork before the ground freezes. If he doesn’t get the chance, it will have to wait until spring.

Bookman and I had some culture today. We went to a matinee performance of the James Sewell Ballet in collaboration with the Ahn Trio. The Ballet company is a small company based in Minneapolis. The Ahns are sisters playing piano, violin and cello. The trio was on the stage and part of the ballet, moving in and out of the dancing and around the stage. It was a great collaboration, adding both playfulness and heightened emotional moments. Really well done. I have not seen the Sewell Ballet before but would gladly see them again. And the Ahns are amazing. I will be acquiring some of their recordings for sure and would love to see a full concert with them. They are not local though so maybe one day they will come back.

The week ahead appears as though we might get some dry weather and even sunshine. I have almost forgotten what that looks like! But temperatures continue to slip downward with most days at or just above freezing. Winter is just around the corner!