"Always be Prepared!"

Once again, I am rushing the seasons.  I am so ready for some fall-like weather that I am already thinking of Halloween and Thanksgiving!  Whoa...a bit too early according to the calendar!  I blame it all on that old "be prepared" rule that we were taught while kids.  "You should always prepare ahead of time.  You never know when something might come up during the last minute that could change your plans and make it difficult to do something."  This was usually directed to us as kids when we were supposed to be doing our homework for school! Well, I want fall to come so I think I will prepare!  I was telling Michael just today that I wanted to get my decorations out of the upstairs closet.  He looked at me a bit strangely so I had to make up an excuse of sorting the decorations.  "I might get rid of some of them", I told him.  Ha!  That is highly unlikely!  Me?  Toss decorations?  That is crazy talk!  So tomorrow, he has agreed to pull out the many boxes of fall and Halloween decorations for me!  Whee!!!

Speaking of fall, I am not the only one with the thought that summer should be over!  I went out to stroll about the gardens late this evening and could hear several squirrels barking.  For some reason, squirrels sound different during the fall.  Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but I think they are calling for a season change as well! I can remember "back in the day" picking up pecans and hearing the squirrels fuss at us to stay out of their orchard.  Even then, I thought their barks were of a different tone than earlier in the year.  I did notice that, although there is plenty of ready food, the squirrels are chewing the pine cones a bit earlier this year.  When I passed by a bench in the garden, I found a telltale pile of pine cone petals.  Perhaps the squirrel is "squirreling away" the pine nuts for later use but he sure is making a mess of my bench!

The young squirrel eyed me with a bit of frustration as I cleared the bench and tossed his supply of cones down the hill.  Tomorrow, I am quite sure he will have toted them all back to "his" workbench but I won't see them..I will be playing in the decorations!  Come on, Fall!  Mr. Squirrel and I are so ready for you!  We are getting prepared!