Not on board with this whole FALL thing...

It frosted last night, for reals. Our wood stove is not quite ready for the cold weather (maintenance-wise), so we're suffering through the cold by wearing pj's to bed (plus the dogs help keep us warm, like cavemen, yeah?) and snuggling down under millions of blankets and quilts.
Although we've been neglecting/ignoring the garden, this is really the end of it. We still have some tomatoes on the vine (that we might try to salvage and pawn off on the neighbors). And the popcorn, we're going to cut that down and dry it and hopefully have movie night with homegrown popcorn.

Keith FINALLY got the Renger up and running, back to normal health (for a 20 year old truck). Turns out it was the spark plugs coil packs ignition module fuel pump fuel regulator!!

Many, many oil changes later, the Renger has some new parts it didn't necessarily need and Keith has a lot of knowledge about the innermost workings of our truck, though he was quite frustrated by WEEK TWO when it still wasn't running and he had no idea why.

(As usual I was trying to take photos while Keith was asking me to help him.)

My job has been keeping me really busy, not that that's a bad thing, and Keith has been equally busy (hence the neglect of the garden, blog, etc.). And he's even roped me into working for/with him.

Installing a chain link fence.
Yeah.
A) Keith's never installed a chain link fence and B) neither have I.
But we're doing a pretty good job! (per the guy who asked Keith to build it, anyway)
It involves many steps that are, in themselves, pretty simple.

1) dig holes (Keith did with a rented tractor thingamajig)

2) make sure the poles are plumb and pour concrete in the hole (that's where I came in)
3) measure the poles so the chainlink is even from the top (harder than it sounds)

4+) I'm not quite sure; we're not that far yet.

BUT! For the concrete-pouring part (by the wheelbarrow), we needed a supply of water and the 5-gal bucket just wasn't cutting it. So we decided to assemble one of our rain barrels for the job. Since we were going to put a faucet on it anyway.

And it worked magnificently.
Of course!!

And now it's ready to hook up to the gutter. (But that's not happening any time soon.)

Big things are brewing around here (not at all involving reproduction, I recently assured a friend, so don't get any ideas--that seems to be the conclusion people jump to when you say you have a big announcement) and we'll hopefully be making it public in the next couple of weeks. Things are about to get even busier. And I didn't even know that was possible.