LIMINAL LIVING #94: 13 OCTOBER TO 19 OCTOBER 2025

Animals, Birds, Books, Collector Garden, Community, Foliage, Food & Drink, Garden Planning, Gardening, Geology & Rocks, Harvest, Insects & Arachnids, Landscape, Liminal Life, Nature Preserves, Pollinators, Seasons, Wetlands

LIMINAL LIVING #94: 13 OCTOBER TO 19 OCTOBER 2025

October 19, 2025

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

Weather

High temperatures ranged from 64.9°F (Sunday; and The Weather Channel said we hit 66°F; we had the bedroom windows opened that night) to 47.7°F (Thursday), averaging 55.4°F. It was very windy on Thursday as well — at 10 a.m., the “feels like” temp was 31°F — and also on the day before and the day after. The lows ranged from 33.1°F (Saturday morning) to 43.2°F (Monday morning), averaging 39.3°F. We’re still in a bad drought, extreme, and we received less than half an inch of rain this week, almost all of it early on Monday.

Beginnings/Firsts

Our permaculture group started discussing a new book this week, Your Natural Garden by Kelly D. Norris.

Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post

some birds Merlin heard here this week

Wandering

I walked in town most days and on Sunday we walked (one of us carefully and slowly due to broken toe) at the bog.

in town

bog

Curiosity & Discoveries

This migratory grasshopper (Melanoplus sanguinipes), as iNaturalist identifies it, is new to me, seen at the bog this week.

Creating

I might’ve already said this in past autumns but I’ve created an early-fall pollinator playground in the garden with goldenrod, green-headed echinacea, several kinds of asters, and perennial mums. (And most years, a colony of sneezeweed, but only one plant came up this year.) I’m thinking about what to add for next year, besides more sneezeweed. I’m also realising I need more late-season pollinator plants and late-season plants that monarch butterflies (adults) can use in the back yard.

I took this photo to remind me of a spot where I can plant some of these things, between the woodland sunflower and the composter (not in photo).

Repairing and Maintaining (me, the cat, the cars – everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: Usually this section is just about me but I have to mention that my husband dropped something heavy on his big toe on Tuesday and xrays later that day showed there is a break.

Fortunately it’s not a complicated or major break but it still requires icing, elevating, and in general managing it for several weeks or maybe months. He’s been told that he can use it if it’s not painful.

We both got our flu shots at a local pharmacy on Thursday and I had a negative Covid test on Friday. I worked out four times (4 hours) this week and walked more than 10,000 steps on six days and more than 14,000 on three days. I got my hair cut on Tuesday morning.

Cat: My husband made the appt. on Monday for the cat’s annual vet visit in a couple of weeks. Bumble’s putative birthday was on Thursday, when he may have turned 14 (he was a rescue eight years ago).

Gardening/Yard

I haven’t been spending much time working in the garden lately (I spend plenty of time in it just looking), though I’ll have to do some work in a week or so when my garlic and tulip bulbs arrive from Fedco and need to be planted. This week I worked maybe an hour outside, harvesting scarlet runner beans (podded some and others are still drying in the sunroom) and a few cherry tomatoes, and doing a little pre-cleanup in the vegetable garden. My husband mowed the lawn for the eighth and perhaps last time this year and he emptied the other rain barrel, unattached and drained the garden hoses, and set up the watering tube we use for the heated birdbath in the winter (so we can add water to it from inside). There’s still a lot we need to do out there to get winter-ready.

some of what’s happening in the garden this week

Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: My husband replaced the broken Stiebel Eltron heater in the dining room with a new one, bought from eBay, on Friday. He did some straightening of the upstairs rooms and stairs on Monday and he vacuumed those spaces. I watered the houseplants on Monday and did clothes laundry on Wednesday. We both did the dump/recycling run on Thursday and he dropped off some nursery pots at the farmstand for recycling on that same trip.

I cleaned both downstairs toilets at least once this week and did the usual cleaning of bathroom counters, kitchen counters, sinks, mirrors, the stove, some woodwork, some floors, etc., as always.

I’ve commented on this before and I’m going to do it again: So many things that keep the household running, as you know, are as habitual as making the bed every morning, which I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned doing in these posts. As a result of their regularity and normalcy, I a. forget I’ve done them and b. find it boring and unnecessary to mention them.

(Side note: But just because they’re part of the routine doesn’t mean they’re not satisfying: they are satisfying, by which I mean they run the gamut from very satisfying in terms of aesthetics, comfort, result to satisfying only because they’ve been done.)

Along with the regular cleaning I mentioned in a paragraph above, I also don’t note that we scoop the litter box multiple times every day and refill the cat’s water often (not to mention feed him and play with him), that my husband does the dishes after most dinners and runs the robot-vac in the bedroom and master bath usually at least once a week, that I shop for groceries and sundries multiple times per week in addition to items we buy from the farmstands or co-ops (I mention those in particular because they are local independent businesses in our community and it’s important to support them), and so on.

I tend to focus here, in this section, on cleaning and maintenance that’s either unusual, maybe done once every year or decade or ever, or perhaps seasonally; that requires more thought, effort, or skill than usual; and/or that involves fixing or mending things.

Financial/Admin: I backed up my laptop on Monday.

Food: Monday was veggie burger/arugula with sautéed local summer squash, local peppers, local broccoli, and onion. Tuesday I made a tortellini dish with local orange bell peppers, peas, corn, olives, artichoke hearts, our basil (I’d put some in a glass of water when I harvested it all a few weeks ago for pesto and it lives!), and local parsley. My husband had that on Wed. (I had had a late lunch out that day so just finished the leftover veggies from Monday and ate a couple of cheese crackers) and I finished the tortellini dish on Thursday while he had a Progresso canned gumbo soup. Friday I made a pasta dish with gemelli pasta, roasted local cauliflower/capers/our garlic/garbanzos + parsley and lemon juice (inspired by a recent Julia Turshen post), and Pecorino-Romano cheese. We had it again on Saturday, along with sautéed local summer squash (that I needed to use up that night or toss in the compost), local green bell peppers, and a Vidalia onion. Sunday my husband finished the gemelli/garbanzo/cauliflower dish, adding roasted chicken to it, and I had some leftover plain gemelli pasta with tuna, peas, and melted cheddar cheese, plus raw purple and orange bell peppers.

This week my husband made three sourdough baguettes on Friday; he gave two away and we kept one.

Sleeping & Dreaming

I got more than my usual amount of sleep this week, even with having to get up unnaturally early (6:45) for my hair appt on Tuesday. Don’t know if it was the cold weather that made me sleepier, the flu shot (on Thursday), or more cat cuddling, but my average time asleep this week was 8 hours 11 mins. My average Fit 3 sleep score, which just seems like a made-up number at this point, was 96.3. REM sleep accounted for 14 hours 23 minutes, deep sleep for 8 hours.

Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

Reading

BOOKS: I finished I Am Your Judge by Nele Neuhaus this week. Another in the Pia Kirchhoff & Oliver von Bodenstein police procedural series, set near Frankfurt, Germany, and another very violent novel, set around Christmas and New Year’s and keeping Pia from accompanying her new husband Christoph on a cruise. It begins with the murders of two older women days apart by a sniper (whose voice we hear in a few paragraphs around each killing), each with the same MO and ammunition, but until an “obituary” appears in the mail the police have no idea how the murders of these seemingly innocent, likeable victims are related. It’s a clever plot that develops slowly and that makes good use of apparent lack of motive for the murders; and even once they understand the motive, which in some ways is complicated, involving a woman whose body was used for organ transplant 10 years ago, it’s no easy task to determine the killer as the bodies stack up and the investigation moves rather slowly.

Next up is The Good Liar (2025) by Denise Mina.

OTHERS

perhaps handy?

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“the growing good of the world is partially dependent on unhistoric acts”

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I found these interesting reading this week:

Why is Switzerland So Rich? by Simon Grimm in his newsletter.

The Fantasy of the Saved Folder by Haley Nahman in her Maybe Baby newsletter. From it: “As Merlin Mann … put it in his Wisdom Project, which I was spurred to look up: ‘”Storage”’ is the least muscular or affirmative use of space in your life. Live and active areas represent future possibility; “storage” is an emotionally costly way of warehousing the past.’”

Another one by Haley, You’ve Got 48 Hours To Turn Things Around, from which: “The 48-hour memory is the idea that our perception of how we’re doing in life is disproportionately impacted by our last two days. … In the famous Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon, four people recount their memories of the moments leading to a man’s murder. All four of their stories are plausible but different, and the film gives them equal weight, never revealing ‘the truth’ but instead casting doubt on the idea that the truth even exists. I think the same doubt can be cast on the notion that there exists a ‘true’ answer to ‘how we’re doing’” Just like the unreliable narrators of Rashomon, our 48-hour memories are a collection of subjective truths that both challenge and reinforce our understanding of ourselves and the world.”

Also this: The one about advice during sad times … A little note for people who are enduring a rough patch (Pip Lincolne/wallflower cordial): “If advice has you rehashing things in ways that feel a bit panicked or feeling retraumatised as you relive dark days. If advice has you feeling like you need to comply with someone else’s plan for you or be rejected. If advice has you feeling like you need to FIX yourself in worrying ways you had not even thought of before the advice. If advice has you feeling 127 times more confused than before the advice. If advice has you heading under the doona and sobbing your heart out. YOU ARE NORMAL.”

New Word: Doona, used in the excerpt just above this paragraph. A quick Google search tells me It’s the brand name of a baby car seat-stroller combo, and I guess you could cry your eyes out under one, but since Pip is in Australia, I think it’s much more likely that she’s sobbing under a duvet or a comforter, as one has on a bed; the word doona in this instance derives from a 1970s brand name for such an item. Thank you yet again, Reddit.

Watching

We watched the new Only Murders in the Building on Tuesday and season 7 of Death in Paradise on BritBox the other evenings. I really enjoyed the Vanderbilt v. LSU football game on Saturday.

Connections & Community

Local Support: Shopped at the farmstand a couple of times, buying cauliflower, broccoli, arugula, peppers, tiramisu wafers, and crackers. Ate a late lunch at a local restaurant with a friend on Wednesday. My husband & I had a late breakfast at a local bakery/café on Sunday outside on the patio. My husband volunteered at the car museum for the last time this year on Tuesday for 3 hours.

Relationships: Quite a bit of the week was dominated, at least in my thoughts, by a friend’s (ND’s) cancer surgery, which was on Monday. I got an update by phone with her daughter in-law on Monday afternoon and had phone calls and texts from her husband and her son on Tuesday and Wednesday. She was released on Thursday and my husband & I visited her at home on Friday evening for an hour or so. (We brought one of the sourdough loaves my husband had baked for her/them — and she gave us sawdust for the compost and newspapers for the woodstove fire!) My husband also took a sourdough loaf to our friend and neighbour LD earlier in the day.

I had a late lunch out in town with a friend (MAB) on Wednesday, to catch up on things (and she gave us onions and garden amendments). A friend (ED) picked up an item for us on Wed. while she was shopping at a grocery store we don’t get to often and we chatted a bit when she delivered it. Chatted with a neighbour (SL) and her dog (O) on Monday while I was out walking and also on Sunday. My good friend RVN’s father died this week; we texted a bit around this.

I hosted our permaculture group on Zoom on Thursday morning; six of us started discussing our new book, Your Natural Garden by Kelly D. Norris. My Salon group met on Friday for 2.5 hours with four of us.

Donations: I renewed our Longwood Gardens membership on Friday.

Endings

The car museum where my husband volunteers closed for the season on Tuesday, so he won’t be back there until May. The lawn was mowed for probably the last time this year on Saturday, though he may take another pass over some of the leaves to create mulch for the gardens; all together, it was mowed eight times this year, thanks to the drought.

RIP, Paul V.