It's Still October!!

We spent much of yesterday afternoon stacking firewood to dry, putting summer items like patio umbrellas and garden tools into storage, and retrieving snow shovels and containers of dried bark for kindling.  I wanted to get the garage clear enough to put Habañero inside, because there was a lot of snow predicted, and I wanted to be able to leave this afternoon without a lot of cleaning and dampness.

And it's probably good that I did that, because this is what morning looked like.

 
This image has not been Photoshopped.  It was not a hold-over from some prior winter.  We are not sending it back in time from January 2012 as part of our top-secret time-travel project.  This is what our yard looks like at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, October 30th, 2011.

I mean, really... this is just unreasonable.

The cats do NOT want to go out this morning.  Their buddy the chipmunk is sleeping in, and they see no reason to go stand in four inches of slush.  Nor do I.

So I'll be driving back to Boston a little early today, so that I'm on the road during daylight and warmer temperatures; whatever melts this afternoon is going to re-freeze overnight.

October, the iconic month of autumn.  Guess I'll go shovel some autumn off the porch.