September This-And-Thats

Here we are, as the dog days of summer turn into the cool days of fall.  The days are getting shorter, the temperatures - especially at night - are much cooler, yet the mosquitoes are still buzzing about.  Well, before I have to change the title I best start typing, eh?

• While I'm thinking of it, here's some things that happened this last week that have not happened in some time:  Wearing a light jacket.  Turning on the furnace.  And getting our first frost of the season.  Some people like fall, I say at least it's not winter yet - but you know it's coming...
• With that reality I spent time today moving the power washer and other garage things inside to over-winter in the basement.  Cleaned up about half the pots on the stump and reorganized the garage a bit for a place exclusively for garden items and pots.  I also spent more time bent over weeding than I should have.  This year's side of the compost bin is fuller but there's lots more to come.
• I had another critter digging a hole by the side of the house recently.  Neighbor Dave had a critter bomb left over so we set that off, but to no avail.  I refilled the hole a couple times, put rocks on top, even pounded a thick branch down the hole yet the critter persisted.  Next, I bought a small live trap, caught the chipmunk almost immediately, and let him go down by the creek.  Thankfully, no more holes since.

• I wrote everything above this sentence yesterday, ran out of thoughts and took a walk down to the creek, came back and wrote another flood post.  Looking back at my third sentence, I must now get this finished today!
• We got a bit of rain last night, but thankfully not enough rain recently to exacerbate our high water issues.  Hopefully with time the water will drain and smarter lake levels will be maintained in the long term, but next year I suspect short memories will leave us susceptible to this happening again.  But I hope not.  Also, we weren't the only area in southern Wisconsin to have flooding issues, and I know South Carolina is certainly still having flood issues.  Weather 'events' seem to be happening at a much faster rate than years past.  Global warming or not, the climate is changing.  I wonder what this winter will bring?
• The Badgers had a bye yesterday, the Packers play soon (so another break from writing), and the Brewers and Cubs games are this afternoon.  The Brewers and Cubs are tied and today is the last game of the season.  If they both win there will be a tiebreaker game tomorrow, and the loser plays in the wildcard game the next day while the winner gets first seed and home field advantage for the playoffs.  It's going to be an interesting day, then I'll finish this.  I promise.

"...(T)hen I'll finish this.  I promise."  Famous last words.  I wrote the first half of this on Saturday, the second half on Sunday, and now it's Monday.  No sense continuing with the bullet points, I didn't have much to write about anyway.  And screw it, the title will remain unchanged.

So, since I last sat down to write we got more rain overnight and all day today.  There's water in the basement again so I got the rugs up after work today, but just a bit too late.  I haven't looked at the numbers yet and I'm not sure I want to.  We could sure use a dry spell - until winter.

Also, the Packers won yesterday, but even though they shut out the other team (for the first time in like 8 years) the mood seemed somber as they could have played much better.  Also, the Brewers and Cubs both won yesterday and played a tiebreaker game today which the Brewers won so they win the division outright and with the best record in the National League will have home-field advantage as long as they're in it, up to the World Series.  Go Brewers!

Lastly, I include pictures of a lone mushroom/toadstool I saw in the back yard a couple weeks ago that I thought would make a good picture.  I hope you think so too, because I got about 487 mosquito bites taking the pictures!