So here's our barn about as finished as it's going to get before winter, for we've officially run out of time and money. A huge hole was dug all around and in front of it to level the ground, then a special kind of gravel was poured then rolled over which makes it nearly as hard as concrete. Well, kinda-sorta.

My outdoor "toys" are still outdoors. We've already had snow and yet there my terra cotta planters and wooden ducks and plaster of paris figures, etc., sit out in my garden or in the flower beds nestled against the house. At first I thought my not bringing them inside the barn meant I was lazy. And well, there is that.

But mostly? Mostly I think it's a rebellion of sorts. I am rebelling against the end of summer and an especially-early end of autumn. It all went so fast and I'm denying that soft, golden days have ended. We moved here in June, a whirlwind of activity and of acclimating ourselves to a whole different life woooshed by, swept us up, then sat us down-- bam! Right in the snow of an early winter.

Sigh.

But alas, there's next year. There will be a first Spring and a whole round of lessons and first sights and sunny mornings for appreciating it all. Yet now there will be snow and new wintry scenes from these windows and we will watch and wait patiently and remind ourselves there are times and reasons for each season we pass through in Life. I hope we will wait patiently, I mean.

***



This weekend I sponge painted above the two smaller windows in our diningroom. I've got many projects planned even though "they" say you shouldn't redecorate/remodel your house around Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you've read here very long you probably have surmised I don't really care what "they" say.