tuesday, wednesday and thursday

 sunday night was difficult because my sister called to say that she and my brother-in-law had to take my father to the hospital. we had no idea what was wrong and the doctors actually thought we were going to lose him. we were all upset and monday morning chanda, morgana and i drove up to connecticut. we found him sitting up in a chair next to the hospital bed looking better than we've seen him in months. now it has been determined that he was severely dehydrated, and since they've replenished his fluids, he's doing much better. however, he still doesn't have an appetite and they are considering giving him a medication to stimulate it. i'll go up again tomorrow with korrina to give my sister a break from the hospital visits, and to see when they will release him.

chanda carted her pumpkin up to connecticut and then back home again as we came home earlier than planned. morgana was suffering from an allergic reaction on her face to some spicy food she ate saturday night and i wanted her to see our family doctor. she'll be fine but has to let everything run it's course. she took benadryl for a few nights, but is doing much better now.

on tuesday chanda carved out a cat . . 

 i like the ears . . 

 this pumpkin lasted a long time out in our hallway, but it's starting to look a little sad now from the warm weather we've been having.

 hermione likes her chair and doesn't like when she has to share it with other creatures.

 lunch today was a concoction morgana would eat in austria: homemade bread with a slice of ham, pineapple and cheddar cheese. it was very good!

 and dessert was the pumpkin pie i finally made yesterday.

i almost forgot to take a picture. we ate it so fast.

autumn leaves, an autumn rose and an autumn concert

i'm writing this very late and am rather tired. it's been a busy day. chanda and i have been getting ready to visit my sister for halloween, and in the midst of the preparations my friend invited me to a concert at a local church.

the above picture was taken in our courtyard while doing laundry . . we took down two bags and when i walked out i was shocked to see that the leaves had finally started to fall and were turning color on the trees. it was also cool and crisp today. new york can be so warm that autumn will just sneak up on you.

an autumn rose!

a border going into a lesson book . . 

here's the title of the concert my friend invited me to: thomas tomkins, the great service. our local church has a choir of beautiful voices and i've always wanted to hear them sing. 

thomas tomkins lived during the reigns of queen elizabeth i, james i, and charles i. he was born in 1572 in pembrokeshire where his father was master of the choir. in 1594 he went to london to study with william byrd (the prominent composer of sacred and secular polyphony and consort music), and then was made master of the choir of worcester cathedral in 1596. he composed beautiful anthems that combined a madrigal style with an older cathedral style. the most important example of his church music was published posthumously by his son nathaniel in 1668 and is titled musica deo sacra. 

when i returned home chanda was carving her pumpkin. i could smell the pumpkin when walking in the door.

i set to work on making the pie (i had made the dough before the concert, thank goodness).

finally at almost midnight we had a jack o'lantern cat and a pumpkin pie (this is also when greg returned home from watching the florida state game, and korrina returned from school with a myriad of different sauces in her bag that are now in the frig).

pumpkin carving

 we had a quiet day. morgana and chanda actually didn't work on costumes this year. they decided not to go trick or treating. we thought we would have a chicken soup dinner with greg at home along with pie and hot cider, and then go over to our friend's house in the evening for more pie and hot cider.

 do you think she likes cats?

 for lunch we had . . brains . . ! cauliflower with brown butter. this was actually supposed to go with the chicken for sunday dinner. however, the oven is broken and i couldn't bake the chicken as i had wanted, so i made soup today and we had the cauliflower for lunch.

 for dessert we had leftover pumpkin pie custard. i baked the pies in my neighbor's oven.

she used an exacto knife this year. she wanted to be very precise around the eyes. she ended up cutting the eyeball out completely and had to glue it back on. I found this very amusing.

 

meow!

at the vet's, at the coop, and at home

jack had the oddest growth on his behind by his tail last night. i was very squeamish and couldn't even look at it closely . . which was really silly because if i had, i would have slept more peacefully. since i didn't, i slept fitfully thinking he had worms! (greg was away in boston, or he would have set me straight. i had korrina and james examine it for me . . but they couldn't tell what it was). morgana and i were up early today to take him to the vet at 7:30 am. he had his paws and the folds on his face thoroughly cleaned, and his growth electrocauterized. he also went nuts because he got too close to another dog and i could hear him squeaking and barking in the back room while i sat in the waiting room. i came home with an oral antibiotic medicine, an ear ointment, and little scrub pads for his facial folds and between his paws because he has a lot of "bacteria" that must be cleaned out. (sigh.) when we got home, he was exhausted and collapsed in the hallway by the front door and kitchen. I got ready for a coop shop!

this is the pretty house that the car was parked in front of when we went out. it has a lovely round stained glass window above the door. i'll have to include it better in a picture . . next time! i was going for the pumpkins and gourds in this shot. it's part of an apartment building . . a new construction that i actually like.

we tried to keep the grocery items to a minimum, but we were buying cider and other goodies for halloween (and some necessities that hadn't been bought in awhile) . . so it was a bit of a sizable shop.

afterwards, we delivered some groceries that janet needed to her home. the girls climbed up to the second floor window.

"oh," janet sighed as camille helped them up, "yes, let's show how easy it is to climb into our house!" such things we have to worry about in the city . .

back at home, korrina left for her unitarian universalist youth conference retreat in shelter rock, and m and c started working on their pumpkins.

i worked in the kitchen baking cookies.

the kitty is finished!

but the bulldog still needs a lot more work!

it was later than i liked when all was finally completed . . but they were very happy with the results.

busy thursday

our coop had a company come and clean out the shaftway in the bathroom and kitchen. i'm glad they were early, as we needed to go to the fabric store after our work, and i knew there would be quite a bit of cleaning up to do. when i had finished with that, chanda put the dishes away, and . .

. . morgana worked on her guitar. she has a concert next week.

chanda did a little practicing with jack.

we walked through the courtyard to put in a load of laundry on our way to the fabric store. we stopped by our wildflowers and found that because of the warm weather these past few days, our little bud had opened just a little more.

we also observed this fluffy flower/seedling . . could it be bog cotton, a hebridean wildflower? i don't know. i'll have to look more carefully tomorrow. it's a little finer than the cottongrass, i think. cottongrass is thicker and more like it's namesake: hare's tail. it'd be exciting if it was, though!

weaver fabrics is a great place. we bought TEN yards of the lining material for chanda to be wrapped up in during the opening of her dance. she changed it quite a bit, and now begins by rolling onto the stage. ellen is very happy with the changes (yay!) and feels that the dance has really grown. morgana also bought a few yards of brown linen for her jedi costume. she is going to be siri from the jedi apprentice books, and will borrow james' purple light saber.

james and korrina carved pumpkins this evening, toasted pumpkin seeds, and had some apple cider.

they came out so well! with the cooler weather today, it feels wonderfully like autumn and halloween.