A Moveable Garden

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

---

• Weather

Still no rain, since 16 Oct. Temperatures seemed seasonal, with highs fluctuating from 68.4°F to 46.8°F, and lows from 24.8°F to 44.6°F. The average high was 56.9°F, the average low 33.6°F. Most days this week were sunny, with blue skies.

• Beginnings/Firsts

We turned clocks back on Sunday morning, ending daylight saving time and beginning standard time again.

✨✨✨

I walked in the sorghum maze at our local farmstand on Monday and again on Friday. I’d never done it before — I’m not sure they ever grew sorghum for a maze before. It was fun! I startled some birds, who started me.

✨✨✨

I started a new jigsaw puzzle this week, a New Yorker ‘Season’s Turn,” mostly black (cat) and white with shards of colour. 😬 At least it’s only 750 pieces?

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

• Wandering

Walked in town every day but Wednesday and also walked around the lake on Monday, at The Fells gardens and trails on Wednesday, on a wetland/wooded trail on Thursday, and at the bog on Friday.

in town

wetland trail

bog

lake

The Fells

• Curiosity & Discoveries

We found a stinkhorn on a trail where we’ve never seen one before. The smell gives them away and then we start looking around and usually spot them. There was just one this time, with many flies (both number and variety) on it.

We found this ephemeral art piece on another wooded trail this week.

When I saw this titmouse on the motion camera (in smaller format and unedited), I was disoriented and thought for a second it was a gorilla or bigfoot near our house.

• Creating

I think my November creativity project will be multi-pronged: writing poems and possibly drawing or painting, and when circumstances or inspiration make that level of creating not feasible, creating time (as if!) for (a) meditation and (b) reading books. I meditated for 45 mins on Sunday (1 Nov) as part of the Dharma Sunday meeting.

• Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars

Human: I worked out four times (4 hours) this week using the Body Electric streaming program. I walked more than 10,000 steps every day and more than 13,000 steps on four days, with a high step-count day of 19,945 on Thursday. We ping-ponged for 35 mins this week. I participated in Dharma Sunday (with six other people) for two hours by Zoom, with Chris Crotty leading meditation (45 mins), teaching, and discussion on ‘Taking Good Care.’

I got my annual (fasting) blood work done on Thursday (CBC, lipids, metabolic panel, thyroid measures, A1c) plus a lipoprotein(a) blood test (aka Lp(a); to check for an inherited LDL cholesterol marker – it’s a new thing they’re now checking at least once for most people). Everything came back good. My cholesterol measures in particular significantly improved from 2025: they were edging higher last year, so I added oatmeal (with pecans and dried fruit) for almost every breakfast in the year since; upped my already-sizeable overall intake of nuts, especially walnuts; and reduced my cheese and butter intake by about half. Overall cholesterol dropped by 38 points, triglycerides by 32 points, and LDL by 29 points.

• Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: I watered the houseplants on Friday, did a load of clothes laundry on Saturday, and cleaned the floor tile in the primary shower on Sunday morning (1/2 hour, using Tilex and old toothbrushes to scrub).

Financial/Admin: Backed up the laptop on Friday. On Tues., I called to move my dermatology appointment two weeks ahead to avoid a conflict in mid-Nov.

Supplies: Moved Chewy autoship ahead a couple of weeks when we realised we were running low on one of Bumble’s foods (it was delivered Friday). Ordered Bells & Stars Christmas shortbread cookies and a couple boxes of Taylor Christmas tea on Saturday (before they run out).

Food: Dinner Monday was veggie burgers with arugula, air-fried Brussels sprouts, and corn. Tuesday we had leftover Chinese from last week, with raw carrots, bell peppers, and humus. Wednesday was more leftover Chinese, with air-fried Brussels sprouts and raw carrots. I had the last of my Chinese food on Thursday while my husband had smoked salmon on bagel with the fixins (including our chives), and we both had sautéed spinach (with our garlic). Friday I made the one-pan orecchiette, chickpeas, kalamatas, garlic, rosemary, tomato paste dish, served over arugula, which we also ate for dinner Saturday. Sunday was a cheese tortellini, white bean, artichoke heart, kalamata dish.

• Garden

The garden is winding down, though we still have more chores to do before snow flies. I spent 1-2 hours in the garden, observing, taking pics, refilling the heated birdbath, pulling out the last tomato plants (very long roots!), their tomato cages, and two metal trellises. The raised bed now has just two calendula plants (still blooming) and a rosemary plant (I dug the other one up from the main vegetable garden and brought it inside when I planted garlic). I also cut back some perennial stems and cleaned off the tiered shelving after removing the planter boxes from it, though the alyssum is still blooming and cilantro still alive, so the boxes are sitting for the moment on the patio. And I harvested chives! My husband spent about 5 hours in the garden, mostly clearing and chopping fallen leaves (predominantly red oak and Norway maple), saving some of the chopped leaves for later (next year) mulching, and he did the last mowing of the lawn on Friday. He also cleared leaves from the gutters and applied something to the roof to get rid of the moss/algae in a few spots.

some garden photos this week

• Sleeping & Dreaming

My average (Samsung Fit 3) sleep score was 89.1 this week, with an average of 7 hours 28 mins of sleep per night. The turning of the clocks back an hour on Sat. night didn’t seem to affect that night’s score or other variables. Overall I had 14 hours 22 mins of REM sleep and 8 hours 15 mins of deep sleep this week.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

Reading

BOOKS: Didn’t finish a book this week. I read a lot online but I’m experiencing that drought of alluring printed books that seems to occur at least once every year.

OTHER:

This little piece about the value of empathy from John Naughton’s 28 Oct Memex 1.1 newsletter caught my attention: “From PRRI’s 2026 American Values survey … ‘a majority of white evangelical Protestants (54%) believe empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.’ … Interestingly, Elon Musk, the ketamine-fuelled billionaire, thinks that ‘the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit… they’re [i.e. migrants] exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.’”

Also from the PRRI executive summary on this topic, “The vast majority of Democrats (84%) and independents (70%) agree that empathy helps build a healthy society, compared with 54% of Republicans.”

✨✨✨

Listening

Shazam’d songs between Tues. and Friday.

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: Bought items at the local farmstand on Monday (spinach) and Friday (40%-off planter). Had lunch at a local restaurant with a friend on Tuesday. Had breakfast at local bakery/café on Thursday and bought treats there on Sunday. Bought three platters, two sets of lights, and a dishtowel from the local consignment shop’s holiday pop-up shop on Sunday ($14).

Relationships: Had lunch out with a friend (GV) on Tuesday. She dropped off some homegrown squashes and gourds the next morning (and I shared some of those with another friend, RL). A friend who’s moving (ND) gave us a beautifully crafted birdbath, a Christmas nutcracker (which I intend to regift), and lots of notepads on Friday. Sent RVN catch-up email on Thursday. Chatted for 10 mins or so with a friend (LL) while we were walking on Sunday and she was transplanting perennials in a town garden. My husband caught up with a friend (PF) for an hour via Zoom on Tuesday. Salon met on Friday with six of us for two hours.

Donations: Renewed our membership in The Trustees of the Reservation.

• Endings

Harvest: chives!

Endings: Daylight Saving Time is over as of early Sunday morning., when most of the U.S. turned our clocks back an hour. Now the sun here in NH rises around 6:25 a.m. and sets around 4:35 p.m. (eventually reaching a nadir of about 4:10 in December). 😭

✨✨✨

Finished the New Yorker “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” puzzle on Wednesday.

• All This Useless Beauty

this smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria) foliage

this pathway

art