Feeling better, catching up

A beautiful fall Sunday here. I think I've had the flu. Achey all over, etc, etc. I never have had a flu shot because I never get the flu—well once every 12 years or so. This hasn't been the kind of ordeal I remember, just a couple of days of feeling punk. The worst part is the headache that is immune to medication. Quite a distinctive flu headache—you know, the kind that feels like the liquid in your head dried up, so your brain bonks against the inside of your skull whenever you move. Almost gone. You can tell that I feel better because I put earrings in the holes in my ears this morning. That's not vanity, just habit, but when one lays around all day with one's head on a pillow, earring posts poke into your head, so I leave them out. Earrings = not planning to lay around all day.


Last week's rain knocked most of the beautiful leaves off the trees and inspired some amazing fungus to sprout in the yard.

Apparently a beaver came through the neighborhood a couple nights ago and cut down a tree near the creek.

He chewed the bark on the tree on the left and chewed right through the one on the right.

Here's the downed victim.

I guess Beaverton, the closest city, was named that for a reason, but I've never seen a beaver, except for a dead one laying in the road years ago. I guess they are nocturnal. We can't imagine that anything else could have dispatched that little tree like that.

I'll leave you with the last vestige of summer—one last nasturtium on the porch. It glows in the late afternoon sun and catches my eye every time I walk past the front door.