November has seen a change in the weather. And with it:  pipes (to the cabin), Bob's fence-busting beefalo, escaping horses, garden produce all but ended (except some chard and other greens), and ladybugs invading the cottage and cabin in plague proportions. They are expecting to hibernate but when we turn on the heat they think its spring and reappear inside and out in huge numbers. Paying guests at the cottage just cancelled the whole month on arrival day and left. They are not the pretty things we English call ladybirds, but a more aggressive 'Asian' variety that will dive-bomb and bite, and have a nasty smelling yellow blood. They still eat aphids, but we're out of aphids right now. I used insecticidal bombs in desperation. They died in genocidal numbers, and then came back.

In the last weeks we have had four wwoofers. Nikki (from North Carolina, with cats Timmy and Asia), Eric and Rebecca (from California), and Calum (from England). We have been rotating cooking, and eating like kings. Shambhala now has a clean floor, and a retaining wall behind. I'm searching for a glass dome.The garden is clean and tidy, with a rye cover crop. The basement has been cleared and re-organised. And the Peace Circle's Awakening Words has now been revealed. Some parallel with Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty re-emerging when the water level dropped. Art as EVENT!! A fire-pit is happening on the runway towards the white tree. Terry is making a custom front door, probably in red oak.

Calum mowed around Lily's last sculpture (four blue balls nesting in a recumbent osage orange tree). 

See photos on her website @
http://lilyerbsculpture.tumblr.com/


Nudging DeeAnn to feed her horses hay and trim their hooves. Horse ownership ain't cheap.
Red (Houdini) escaped a few times until Eric and Rebecca and I fixed three real holes in the back fence. Got to meet my neighbors. Bad fences can make closer neighbors! Reminds me of the Chinese good luck story which starts out with horses escaping. Bad luck. But then the army recruiters come by and the son is off chasing the horses. Good luck! And so on.

Thanksgiving. Going with Hathaway to Gabby's (with Calum), and then to Chris and Heather in Nashville. Should leave a snack for our wild turkeys.