Autumn. Season of mists and . . .

• road repairs
  Why one of the towns I commute through leaves their road repairs until the fall, I do not know, but it seems to be a regular thing. Last year they resurfaced a long section of road and only just got done before the first snow, and they appear to be doing the same thing this year. On Thursday the road was like an obstacle course as they had started raising all the drain covers to the new road height and it was impossible to drive in any kind of straight line down the road. Because they had surrounded all of them with large orange barrels, at times the only way to avoid the raised structures was to drive on the wrong side of the road. That made me very nervous as I set off on Friday's commute to work as we had some very seasonable, and very thick, fog. Fortunately, they had removed all the orange barrels, so it was actually possible to remain on the correct side of the road.
  
  
• rising smoke
  Usually at this time of year there is smoke rising from many chimneys when I drive to work in the morning as people are starting to heat their houses again with their wood stoves. Not so many this year, yet, as the weather has been unseasonably warm - into the 70's Fahrenheit (over 21 Celsius) several days this week. I miss the wood stove we had at the last house. It was good to know we had an alternative source of heat, especially as we have a friend with acres of woods who's happy to give us wood in exchange for helping him cut, split and stack enough for him and us.
  
  
• household jobs
  like taking all the window screens out and getting the snow blower tuned up for the winter. I took the window screens out last weekend, and then regretted it as the temperatures stayed so warm! Raking leaves used to be the bane of our existence in the fall, but that was at the old house. Although we have trees near the house now, the prevailing winds and the openness of the housing development means that the leaves blow right on into the neighbour's yard and we don't have to rake them :-)
  
  
• bear tracking
  The local university tracks the bears around here, but for some reason we only ever seem to see their bear tracking vehicle (an SUV bristling with radio antennae) in October. The Littlest American was asking this week why we haven't had any bears in our yard this year. I'll have to stop and ask the bear tracker next time I see the van if the bears have changed their wandering habits this year. It may be that we simply haven't seen them, though they do sometimes leave evidence behind. Sometimes they empty out the compost bins, sometimes they leave other 'evidence' behind. I was ready once to accuse a neighbour of letting one of her dogs c**p on our lawn, when I realized that her dogs don't eat birdseed! The bears aren't the daintiest of eaters, so when they go for the bird feeders they usually destroy them - more evidence!
  
  
• color
  Of course New England in the fall is beautiful. This week the colors around here finally started to look good - such gorgeous shades of orange, yellow, and red, that even when they were muted by the morning fog they were still stunning. I need to get some chysanthemums for the front step, though the geraniums are colorful as they are still flowering. We have a couple of little pumpkins that the kids got at school, but need to get a couple of large ones that we can carve for Halloween. It's time to buy another seasonal item too:
  
  
• unicorn bits
  (and other kinds of candy too, as we can't give out unwrapped candy to the trick-or-treaters.)
  
  
• Christmas decorations
  in the stores already, well before Halloween!