Burrrrrrrr. Winter has indeed arrived early.
Wasn’t that a really quick change? In a matter of a few days, temperatures went from almost 80 degrees down into the 30s. I think even Mother Nature was surprised because she had just begun the leaf color change. I usually have a yard full of leaves by this time of year. Because of the extended warm weather, however, my trees are still full of green leaves and only a few have settled on the grass.
Just a few more cold, rainy days and the leaves will make the quick color change and begin to fall and blow all over with the winds that are sure to begin to howl. We all know what follows that action — raking.
It seems like in past years at Halloween, evening breezes were cool and trees were just beginning to shed.
When the temps began to fall, I decided to prepare my vehicles for the cold and was very glad I did considering how much colder it has become in just a few days. I have to start planning my trip south which is going to be difficult because my home there has to be rebuilt thanks to Hurricane Irma, which devastated the Florida Keys. The photos we viewed of our home confirms Irma left a large calling card on our property.
We spent a good deal of time trying to decide what to do, but we thought about our friends in the south, some who also suffered extreme damage to their homes. We kept getting calls from many of them and pictures of their damage and how hard they were working to be able to live there as in the past. We just knew we had to try to rebuild and head to the Keys because it is as great as our home we enjoy here in Huron County.
We are blessed to have four daughters who have all been so eager to lend a hand in any way they can. My daughter Lynn and her husband Mike live near Orlando, and they have made several trips to the Keys to secure our home and clean up what is left of it. They will be seeing us soon as they offered to let us move in while our house is being worked on. We secured a willing contractor — which we lucked out finding. They are all in high demand down there because so many homes were damaged.
Our daughter Lucynda, who lives near us here in Michigan has been our housekeeper, chauffeur, cook, nurse, shopper and all else we needed. She also enlisted her husband Scott to make some of those shopping trips. We needed a lot of help to make it through the past summer and she really stepped up.
Daughter Leah, who lives in Connecticut, took time off to fly in and assist during the summer and is flying back to help us drive to Florida.
She and her sister Lori are executives for the companies they work for and have demanding schedules. Lori flew in for 10 days during the summer from Arizona with her husband Dahn and helped out a lot. She will fly back again to help us pack up and get on the road south.
One of the girls asked the other day, “Are you glad you had four daughters?” and I responded, “I sure am, just hope we don’t wear them out.”