A Foliage Timeline

 I've been thoroughly loving my first Fall back in Central New York. I started taking weekly pictures of my backyard view to document the leaves. It's been so fun to watch the progress. It's gorgeous out there.

 Peak foliage is glorious!

The Animal Kingdom is Winning

 After fixing the siding we put up a few "icicles" where there were already hooks and pinwheels along the ground of the house.  The icicles are actually called wood pecker deterrents.  They work for the spot you're trying to protect, but the woodpecker just decided to go around to the other side of the house.  Boo.  The pinwheels are too low to the ground to prevent anything.  I've bought more hooks and icicles, so that's a project for this weekend.  I'm hopeful we can reach high enough in a couple more spots enough to deter the dang woodpecker, because I've heard it gets worse as it gets colder and insects hide during the Winter.  

In other news, I figured out what animal is burrowing holes all through our landscaping.  I was outside placing the pinwheels and icicles and along came CHIPMUNKS.  They're so cute, but so destructive.  Who would have thought?!  They're starting to burrow under our front porch, so now we have to figure out how to stop that.  The animal kingdom is definitely winning at this residence.  

A Tiny But Loud Pest

 I did not have a woodpecker pecking on my house on my Bingo card for this month, and yet, here it is.  He's loud and insistent.  He's woken up Little Lady multiple times pecking at the trim outside her bedroom window.  It's been getting worse by the day.  There are 4 separate areas on our house that it's been pecking. We power washed the house to make sure there wasn't anything on the house for the woodpecker to eat.  We then got someone to come out and replace the trim. Getting rid of the holes helps deter them.  We were hopeful that this would stop the woodpecker, but 5 days later he's back on the opposite corner of the house.  We've researched it, and you can put up netting on the house, get bird reflective tape, or try pinwheels.  We're going to try pinwheels in the backyard first and move on from there.  Either way - it's annoying.  He's cute but very destructive and costly.  

We'll see how it goes.

Bird House

 It's slightly ironic that Little Guy made a birdhouse at his church activity while we're dealing with a pesky woodpecker at our house, but he loves it, and it's now a part of our backyard. 

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Fall

 The pumpkins are out and I've planted my mums.  Yay!  I love Fall.

Last box Standing

 It's taken us a full week, but this is the final box to unpack.  Wahoo!  If I never see another box again it will still be too soon. 

We're so excited for all the boxes to be hauled away tomorrow.  

Unpacking and Painting

 Little Guy was opposed to the pink walls and carousel horses in his room, so painting became one of our first projects.  All 3 of the kiddos had their rooms painted and then we freshened up the office and family room.  The office felt super dark with the red paint.  We kept it as an accent along the bookshelves and painted the rest.  We're really happy with how it turned out.  We're still swimming in boxes, but we've made a lot of progress.  

Before and after:

We've excited for the recycling company to come pick up all our boxes next week.  The hope is that we'll be completely unpacked by then.

Anxious Kitties

The poor cats have not been taking the move very well.  The drive was awful and then they were very anxious at the AirBnB.  By the final day they were starting to calm down only to be in a car accident and dumped in an unfurnished house.  Stella was so anxious she hid behind an office desk that was left behind in the study, and didn't leave it the entire first day in the house.  I finally put a cat bed there for her, so she would be a bit more comfortable.  Luna explored for a little bit, and then she joined Stella in the office.  They are completely overwhelmed.

An Unfortunate Event

Today was meant to be a happy day - we're finally moving into our new home.  We packed the van first thing in the morning, including the cats, and set out to take Little Lady to seminary.  We dropped off Little Lady and headed toward home.  My hope was to have the boys help me unload both cars and get the rugs all out before the bis came for them.  It was still dark outside.  A deer jumped directly in front of my van while I was going 35 mph.  It hopped out from the trees lining the street, so there was no warning.  I slammed on my brakes as it hit me.  All the alarms went on in the van and I knew it probably wasn't good, but I only had a mile to go to get to the house, so I kept going.  I don't know anyone and the van was full. It would have been a nightmare stranded on the side of a country road.  Luckily, I made it and called a tow truck.  I got out and the van was hissing.  It was pretty obvious the radiator was punctured. It was also leaking multiple fluids.  I'm incredibly grateful we're all ok, because it was a very large deer.  It's entire side slammed into the front of the van, so I'm grateful it didn't hop up onto the hood or through the windshield.  It hopped away, but I don't know how it can survive the impact.  I didn't tell Little Guy that, because he was very worried about the deer.

It's hard to see the extent of the damage with it all being black, but I'm just praying it's not totaled.  I really hope the internal damage isn't too great, because the van is only a little over a year old.

The day was fairly dull after that.  Our couch was supposed to be delivered at 9am, but they kept pushing the time back.  I couldn't go sign paperwork for them to start looking at the van, because I was waiting for the delivery.  I had no where to sit but the stairs or the fireplace all day long. It was weird.  You never think about needing a place to sit until you don't have one.  They finally came at 3:30pm at about the same time Joel got here from Kansas.  I ran to the carshop and barely got the paperwork signed right before they closed.  They won't start looking at it until Monday, so I'll be worrying about it all weekend.  

 We'll be glamping in sleeping bags until the truck comes with our stuff sometime early next week.  

Quite the Send Off

 We left at dark o'clock to start our journey to New York.  We medicated the cats, loaded up the van, and headed out, but first we went one last time to Grinter's Farm to take pictures in the sunflowers.  We had the extra surprise of hot air balloons!  

BB's a lot taller than the sunflowers this year.

Thank you, Kansas for the extra special send off.  We will miss you.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

The night before Little Man left for college he chose the place to go eat.  He wanted to go to Atomic Cowboy for a good burger.  We then washed it down with Handels ice cream.

It was hard saying goodbye to the kitties and the family. Not only was he saying goodbye to them, but also his home and Kansas.  When he comes "home" for Christmas is will be in New York.  He was sad.  I heard a few sniffles in the back as we drove away.