Heavy rain coming. My great Aunty Fanny’s fanny! We were promised a big rain storm. 20-35 mm of rain they said. Ha! Ha, I say! It was supposed to have been raining heavily since 10pm Thursday night. It is 7:00 pm Friday, and we have not had one drop of rain fall on our property. Not one drop!!! Zero, zilch. We are likely the only people in the province who were looking forward to the deluge and we have had nothing!! Nothing!

I had scheduled an indoor chore day, ’cause you know, rain predicted, so spent the day working on the island newsletter. I have to commit to the arrangements with the printers on Monday so we are up against a deadline. It is today or never for submissions on my last newsletter ever.

Last night we had a huge crowd of sea lions barking under the deck as they travelled by. This bodes well for our winter on the nature channel. We have insane winds right now, though, and the sea life tend to stay below the surface during storms, so I doubt we will get much of a visual of them for a few days.

I was working in the greenhouse yesterday, harvesting my herbs. I cannot tell you how civilized it is to work in a heated greenhouse with running water and lighting, on an off grid island. Luxury! The lettuce and spinach are doing well. The peas are up and there are signs of life in the carrot container. I had found a volunteer tomato plant at the end of the season in the compost. I stuck it in a pot in the greenhouse. It is alive with tiny wee tomatoes on it. They won’t be edible or really worth anything but next summer I will definitely be planting indeterminate tomatoes in pots, which I will then bring into the greenhouse in September. Can you imagine if I can continue to get fresh tomatoes long into the fall?

This is going to be a really quick little post ’cause I need to get back to my work. Editing a newsletter is really just a game of Tetris. I am just trying to get everything to fit together in some sort of logical way. I am fortunate to have a neighbour who is amazing at proof reading so, once I finish mucking about with it, I can trust her to find all of my many mistakes before it goes to the printer.

Then, I can focus on a blissful, stress-free winter, far away from any

responsibilities or obligations