All is fairly quiet in the Malloy world as renovations near their end.  This week, we expect the mirror and the shower doors to be delivered, which will be the end as far as the project goes.  There are one or two minor details to be addressed and then we will have our house back to ourselves.

In the meantime, this fancy new room is forcing the upgrade of other rooms, so I am in the midst of repainting the master bedroom.  This will be the third time I’ve painted it, but over the years I have learned some extra techniques for wall repairs and finishing, so this should turn out the best yet.  This room has always been cold and drafty, but as I crawl around on my hands and knees at the baseboard level, I am finding new areas to chink, with the hopes of improving things somewhat.

Even though the house has sucked up most of my time, I did manage to finish another quilt.  My friend, Rita, gave me a pack of fabric of the most lively colours I have ever seen.  I needed a new winter lap quilt to make up for one lost, so this seemed to be the ticket.  It is hard to be depressed around this quilt.  Fortunately, I found a much more subdued backing.

You might see that behind me, in the forest, there are few leaves left.  We have had a week of high winds and rain, and the trees have shed 90-95% of their leaves.  The temperatures are still pleasant, so this week will be a good time to put the garden to bed for the winter, and to de-frog the pond.  Despite cleaning out our little pond thoroughly each year, inevitably we find anywhere from 1-2 dozen frogs of varying sizes in this little pot of water.  Our tradition is to relocate them to a spring-fed dugout on a neighbour’s property so they can survive the winter.  Witness Brian's efforts, including the dumping of Frog #13.  This year we sent 18 in total to the spring-fed spa.

And finally, the wildlife highlight of the week was seeing a small juvenile black bear in the back yard a few days ago.  In hindsight, the big one we saw in the spring must have been Mom.  The youngster was merely checking things out of curiosity, and we enjoyed watching for a few minutes before scaring it off.  It is heartening to think the area can sustain a bear family.

That's it for now.  The bathroom should be finished by the end of the week, so more pictures will come.