The Fall Equinox approaches

For all practical purposes, we're halfway between the longest and shortest days of each annual cycle.  Even though this year's official Autumnal equinox is at 9:09 pm (MST) September 22, the sun right now is basically half way between it's see-saw migration back and forth across earth's hemispheres.  The Idaho Falls high temperature yesterday was 83.  By comparison, Phoenix set a new all time record at 109.  The end of September always marks an end of the 80 degree days in Eastern Idaho and is always breaks the back of the 100+ degree days down in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.  We salute a summer gone bye-bye and say Hello & WELCOME! to the turning of the leaves and those first flakes of snow sure to swirl gently down soon.

There were all sorts of fun activities available yesterday but I didn't attend any of them. It's really not very fun to attend big events by myself--it's much more fun to go to them with Susun.  When she returns, we will venture forth once again to Farmers Markets, festivals and so forth.  I was totally content to spend most of the day practicing my Samurai Zen art shtick and I'm looking forward to more of the same today.  We'll spare you those esoteric details as we will regurgitate them over on the "ifyouzuki" blog.

I did talk to Maggie on the telephone yesterday.  She had surgery on her foot and ankle Wednesday and she is doing remarkably well.  Congrats, Maggie!  May your mending process proceed quickly.  We also had at least two phone chats with Goatherder--he's embarking on a whole new career--that of becoming a wine guru in the Verde Valley.  It's a long story that's just beginning to unfold (or uncork, as the "case" may be) and we're going to wait to tell this story after it gets some longer legs.  The upshot of the phone conversations, however, is that Goatherder now has two brand new internet domain names.  Congratulations, GH!

Naturally, we made the obligatory daily pilgrimage to our T-Store Trilogy, spending more than $30 total.
Gee, that's a lot of money.  What did we buy?  Well, $25 of that expenditure was for a big bunch of dinner plates, salad plates, bowls and ramekin cups.  They are all very heavy and a pleasing (and matching) slightly off white tint.  They match some coffee mugs I had previously purchased.  They will all go to Arizona where we are in the process of rebuilding our inventory of table service, pots and pans and kitchen utensils. We hope to have a lot of friends over for weekend brunches this season and, hey, we want our table to look real nice.  Last year, all we had was pretty much the flotsam and jetsam of our camp kitchen.  It did the job but sure didn't get any style points.

We baked yet another fat chicken last night as well.  Having that remote sensing thermometer really makes it so much more fun to bake a big bird.  It turned out perfectly.  Prior to buying that digital temp thingie I never really could "get it right" when baking a chicken outside.  I had a very high failure rate.

We've been watering the lawn real heavily so it can get ready for its long dormant phase this winter.  If you don't give those grass roots a good drink each fall, they really don't do well during the snow season.  Today we will mow the backyard.  It's looking much better since we heavily fertilized it last weekend.  I'm guessin the backyard will need only one more mow after today but maybe not.  The front might need two more mows.  In any event, the grass mowing season is rapidly coming to a thankful end.

As I was driving around the city Friday, I noticed at least some of the Greenbelt Art Benches are already installed.  Hopefully, today I can bicycle down there and take pictures of all of them.  he formal dedication is at 10 am Tuesday in Hilda's Garden.  I will pick up Dina O. and take her down to participate in the festivities.

Well, that's about it for now.

Cheers, jp

PS--the ifyouzuki blog was updated about 10:30 am