an awful falafel?

Pepita has gamely worn her donut...

...but now it's off and she's footloose and fancy free!

We've had our first frost...

...but she's still out on the trail.  I bought so many size S and M coats for her, but she's a lot more...stout...than we anticipated.  She's a short dog, but pretty stocky.  Still, a few fit.

Despite the frost, the days are warm enough that bees are still buzzing around.

A few butterflies and moths too, but mostly I find reminders that their time is nearly up.

Despite virtually no attention, we still have quite a few flowers blooming.

I'd planted morning glories in a pot by our porch in MAY.  All summer long, I hauled jugs of water for it, but we just had a lot of leaves.  Disgusted, I stopped caring for it in September.  The pot dried up.  The leaves drooped.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, it started blooming. 

Another head-scratcher...we didn't have any apple blossoms (or apples) this year because of a fungus.  However, six months late, we're starting to get a few blossoms!  Crazy!

We've been hearing coyotes almost every night, and close.  Deer regularly visit the yard, including this buck...

...with the same leg infection that we've been seeing all summer in local deer.

Claudia is thriving in the barn but refuses to go outside, even on nice days.  That's all right...we have a new feral cat to focus on!  His name is Falafel, a word that I think is really fun to say.  It works on two levels, too, because Todd isn't keen to have stray around...just in case Claudia decides to come out.  So he can call him Fal-Awful.  But I've already decided to feed and house Falafel this winter.  We've got stray cat houses and electric water bowls, so I'll set up a feeding station in our white barn.  Yay!

Just a little bit of yard work in these waning days of October...

But for me, the weather has turned and I'm mostly hanging inside with the cats.

Loving fall so much this year.

Have a great week!