Second Half of Autumn

 In northern Indiana where I live the first 6 weeks or so of autumn are glorious. Warm sunny days with cool nights and beautiful colorful foliage. 

But the last 6 weeks of fall are bleak and barren with cold days and some overnight frost. Before we officially leave autumn in December, we will probably have some snow. When I say I love autumn, I am definitely thinking of the first half.

Brrr! I am not a lover of cold temperatures. Usually Thanksgiving makes the second half of autumn special. This year we will not go to a buffet in a restaurant. My husband's sister will join us in our condo; there will be just the 3 of us. We will have the traditional turkey (I already bought a frozen breast) and pumpkin pie. We will probably work on a jigsaw puzzle or play games.

A card I received today from the Fort Wayne Hallmark store.

I brought the purple celosia in from the front porch several weeks ago. It is doing OK inside. It will eventually be replaced by a poinsettia. My cheddar pinks look amazingly fine after last night's heavy frost.

Covid is overtaking our state and county. An 85-year-old woman at my church who had Covid in early July has it again. That is not a comforting thought; that any immunity she had lasted about 4 months at most.

 I have dropped out of Grace Village choir for now. 20 people singing without masks was too much risk for me. Grace Village has put out an announcement that any health care and assisted-living residents that leave to spend time with family or friends for the holidays must quarantine for 14 days when they return. If they have no single room for returning residents to quarantine in, they may not be allowed back inside. Currently we have 5 health care workers who tested positive for COVID. We are supposed to get some National Guard workers to help with testing and other non-medical jobs. All of the staff, including independent living area, are being tested twice a week now.

I know a few people who plan to have big family gatherings for Thanksgiving. I hope they don't get sick. Since I don't have kids or grandkids, it is a little bit easier for me to stay away from groups.

The news that there is an effective vaccine in the pipeline keeps me plugging away, taking it day by day. There is still a long road, but there is hope for a brighter future.

Mums

Yesterday I bought some mums for my front porch. I was intrigued by the celosia (a "wheat" variety) so bought it, too. There was no care tag. When I got home, I looked up Celosia on the internet. It needs lots of light; the front porch is not going to give it what it needs. I bought a plastic pot and put the plant in my sunroom. The internet said it could be grown inside. Since I have never grown celosia I don't know how long it will bloom. For now, it is pretty in the house.

This afternoon I brought the celosia inside so just the mums are left on the porch. I expect the mums to last until the end of September.

Maybe I should take the celosia out of its original pot and replant into the textured container. I think I am going to just leave it as is; I feel lazy.

We have days in the 80's but by the end of next week we will be in the high 60's. Then I will put out some autumn decorations, including a green tablecloth with a runner of autumn leaves in the sun room. I bought some sweet corn from the produce stand this morning. They seemed to have plenty; lots of people buying big quantities for their families and Labor Day parties I suppose. These may be the last ears we eat.

There were at least a dozen people without masks in the grocery store today. They made no effort to distance either. Next week I am going to order online for car pickup. One of the county high schools switched to virtual learning for 2 weeks as they have 100 students with COVID (symptomatic), and because the staff have to isolate for 2 weeks, not enough manpower to keep the school running efficiently. We will see what they and the rest of the communities look like after Labor Day get-togethers. Lots of people are pretty cavalier about the pandemic. 

Found out it was 100 people isolating; only 5 students tested positive and had symptoms. By closing the high school, they were able to transfer janitors, cafeteria workers to the elementary schools where they were short of staff because there too people had been exposed outside of school and needed to be tested and get results.