21 September 2025

Meteorological Fall

While tomorrow is the advent of astronomical Fall, meteorological Fall started on September 1 ... and overnight last night we had our first low temp in the 30's (F). That brings the temps in the house low enough that it was also the first night that our pellet stove kicked on in the wee hours - this is the primary heat source for the main floor of our house:

We have backups in the form of baseboard heating driven by a fuel oil furnace, and a small mini-split heat pump mounted on the wall in the living room. But those are both more expensive to operate than the pellet stove.

For the rest of the coming week, we're only expecting lows in the high 40's / mid-50's, so the stove may stay off for the next week or so. Good to know it's opperating as expected, though.

Fall Color

We're given to understand that the Fall colors are going to be underwhelming this year - due to moderate drought throughout the Northeast, the trees tend to go straight from green to brown, sometimes with a brief pass through yellow. Looking out at the world and in our yard, that seems to be true - we're getting leaves falling, but no real color other than some yellows.

That said,  we still have flowers blooming in small patches around our yard. I've said it before, but the gardens that we got from Lorraine when we bought the house have been pleasant, and colorful from early Spring straight through Summer and into mid-Fall each year. And it's still on for us now, like these New England Asters:

Chores

We were up early today, around 0600. Got Marcia's vitals taken and recorded, got her breakfast and coffee for us both, then I settled down to do the monthly production Linux patching for work. More work to do later today, but I've also got a stack of chores around the house that I'd like to get ahead of. So I'll leave you here for now.