Our hummingbirds have migrated back to Central America.  The last female was spotted at the kitchen window feeder on October 9.  All the feeders have been soaked in a soapy solution with a little bleach, dried, and packed away for another five months until I pull them out around the middle of March.  With our night temperatures dropping and cold fronts bringing cooler fall weather, I hung a suet out on the back porch where I could see it from my recliner.  It didn't take long before my downy woodpecker returned and landed on the suet block.  You learn a lot from watching the forest animals.  Our chipmunk has been making more rounds on the porch looking for food to store. 

 

Today we had two chipmunks pouching the seeds as fast as they could.  Squirrels sit and eat the seeds leaving the porch a mess with husks while chippy stores the seeds until his cheeks bulge, then scampers back to his hole.  This past spring I found little clumps of sprouts in my wine barrel gardens and all the smaller container pots and in the green wagon.  I figured a squirrel stored the seeds but usually I find   acorns stored in my gardens each spring. The other day I spotted a chipmunk moving from barrel to barrel digging little holes and storing the sunflower seeds.  

It was too cold and raw for me this morning to do anything outside so I finally removed the dried herbs from the little bathroom curtain rod and stored them in jars.

I dried my lemon balm, thyme, and oregano.  Thyme is kind of a pain to store because the leaves are so tiny.  Today I decided to try rubbing the dried tangles herb between my palms letting the tiny leaves land on the island.  It worked.  Then I just brushed them into a jar, labeled all the jars, and placed them in the cabinet.  

 The Murphy Chop House has been featuring German food all this month.  Cliff decided today that he wanted to celebrate Chop-tober Fest at lunch.  This week's featured menu was beer braised bratwurst with German potato salad, bacon-onion sauerkraut, Dusseldorf mustard and sourdough toast.  Seasonal German draft beer was featured but Cliff and I don't drink beer.  This lunch was a nice surprise for me..................

Later in the afternoon when the temperature hit 64 degrees, Cliff helped me get the garlic planted.

After we planted about 46 cloves in the two beds, we covered the beds for the winter with dried leaves.

Red salvia fills the lower half of the garden now.  While we worked the garden, Lisa's honey bees were heard buzzing and busily flitting from red flower to red flower gathering nectar.