Grevillea: Evening Sunlight

The winter evening sun is always special. The low angle causes it to slant across the hill revealing the fresh young green grass shoots coming up in the field on the other side of the fence. It seems that the condensation from the cold nights is enough to trigger the dormant seeds, for we haven't had any rain for a month. My picture today is yet again of the grevillea under the kitchen window, for it never seems to stop blooming. It is also covered with bees, seemingly not a good thing right next to the front door, but they are much too busy gathering pollen to bother anybody passing on their way to the front door.

The tryptophan coma that sent us to bed early last night had deserted me by midnight and the chocolate covered coffee beans I inadvertently ate (because they were there) must have kicked in, for I was awake reading Tim Cahill stories for a long time and when I finally fell asleep I had very strange dreams. John leapt out of bed before 6am to take the garbage cans down. If our regular bin pick-up day falls on a holiday, it moves to the next day. We, of course completely forgot to take ours down to the street last night and he has no idea what made him think of it this morning, but it's a good thing he did, because the bins were full.

Lindsay spent the night so over coffee and tea this morning, we talked about Adisa and Grace's Thanksgiving dinner (five different turkey TV dinners) and the progress they are making on getting Lindsay's dad's house ready to rent. He died about 6 months ago and they are now discovering what a pack rat he was....

I restored the living room to its normal arrangement, taking down the folding table and chairs and returning them to the garage, but not before knocking down a stack of them not two feet from Spike was sittting. He still won't walk by that end of the kitchen counter. I washed the tablecloth and napkins and mopped the kitchen floor. It was definitely the right order of things after yesterday's hard use. If I had done it before, I would have been like John who has been  rounding up leaves only to have them fall from the trees as fast as can pick them up.

There has been much talk of leaf blowers this time of year. The gas ones are noisy and polluting and the electric ones take a lot of power from the grid.  There is a long pole with a fan shaped array of curved tines on the end that can be used quite successfully to round up leaves into neat piles that can be picked up and put in the green can. It runs on muscle power alone and is relatively quiet. We have two of them, and a third with a short handle for getting under bushes. I wonder why nobody seems to use them anymore? 

As if he hadn't had enough cooking a turkey in a remote location, helping to figure out the Italian icons on my oven and generally managing the flow of a large number of foodstuffs in and out of it, he is going to cook a brisket for us and friends tomorrow. This time in his own backyard smoker....

Many thanks for all the hearts and stars for yesterday's family picture, which was also sent to missing members in North Carolina and New York.  It was good to be able to be together to carry on the Thanksgiving family photo tradition again.