Fall is in the air.

This morning I woke up to see 35 degrees on the thermometer just a few degrees away from frost. The trees have just started to change in the last week and the large maple to the left is just hinting at turning yellow. Mums and pumpkins are for sale everywhere. I did succumb to buying a mum, but it is too early for a pumpkin. Halloween is still over a month away.
Today I will prepare the house for the fall. It is my annual bug spraying of the exterior. This helps stop the ladybugs and flies from migrating inside and making a mess to clean up. The ladybugs are really Chinese Beatles that look like lady bugs. They were brought in by the State to help control the gypsy moths and now are a big nuisance. After we have a few cold days and then we get a warm day they will swarm out of the woods and land on everything. When they are really bad they bite and leave a yellow residue on you. When you suck them up in a vacuum cleaner they smell real bad. Before I used to spray the cabin you could shovel them up. Now only a few get in usually tagging a ride on the dogs or us.
My other project is the annual cleaning of the chimney something that isn't as much hard as it is dirty. My mother is coming to visit this week and she gets cold easy so having a fire could be a real possibility. Lee will protest the fire if it isn't below 50 inside the house, since she is some sort of Polar Bear, but she will just open the windows to compensate. The temperatures look fairly moderate for the week with chances of rain most days so maybe we won't have to start a fire. The last project is three dogs getting a bath so the visitors don't have to smell them. Scooter rolled in bear dung yesterday(one of his favorite things to do) and did get a fast creek bath to get the black out of his fur. He is the worst at rolling in things and being white it shows up real good. So it sounds like a day I am going to be wet, smelly and dirty, pretty much a normal day at Camp Eaglebear. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off.