There's a hurricane coming through here as I type. It's whipping up our old apple tree something fierce. When the tree inspector came out to look at it, he mentioned it looked to him as if the tree should be cabled together to keep the thing from collapsing in the wind or snow. It sounded like a good idea, but he wanted six hundred bucks to do it. We decided for six hundred bucks the tree should maybe fend for itself.

Instead, we shelled out fifty bucks for a couple of birdfeeders and twenty pounds of seed and felt magnanimous. At least we'd be helping out the chickadees.

And then the pigeon flew into our bay window. The silhouette is still there, even in the rain, the drops sticking to the oily residue.

I just heard our trash can go rolling like a tumbleweed down the street. Neal tells me tonight there's supposed to be snow.