Goodbye Fall, Hello Spring

The past week or so has been pretty busy. We're mostly working to get the estate here ready for winter, driven mostly by the realization that we will soon be away for about 7 weeks. By the time we get back home, it will be winter.

We've been collecting leaves, horse manure and soil, working on the various garden beds around the place, cleaning the house, splitting wood and just generally finishing off the fall season.

Fall is usually quite pretty here in the Koots. We can look up to the hills above us and across the lake and see many, many golden larches in their fall splendor. The leaves in town might not be quite as nice as they are some years, but the sight of a large maple in full fall regalia is quite pleasing to the eye and the camera.

Today is one of those foggy, cloudy, rainy, soggy days that we get around here on occasion. There is even some snow mixed in with the general precipitation. A good day to work inside.

We're heading off for New Zealand in a few days, where spring is under way already. The packing is close to completed, just the travel to Vancouver and the looooong plane flight (14 hours). One oddity is that we will miss October 31 completely. We leave on the 30th and arrive in Auckland on November 1. October 31 will just disappear.

It should be possible to update the blog once in awhile and pictures will be posted to Picasa as usual. Watch for them.