The fall rains have returned to mark the jumps between mild weather and slightly cool days with frosty nights. Today it is already above 60 degrees F before noon with rain occasionally, but another cold front may drop the night low to below freezing in two nights. We are switching between air conditioning and heating, trying to save energy on both by gambling on whether or not to use them but needing to keep the humidity in check to thwart the mold. We do this dance with the thermostat twice a year at about the same time as we waltz with the clocks for the daylight savings time change.

The days have lost summer's fierce clarity, softened to a dulled haziness. The leaves have assumed muted tones, the perennials tiredly decked in darker greens amid the damp fallen leaves scattered on the lawn. The roses are still sporting a few pink blooms, confused by the unusually warm fall temperatures into trying to bloom instead of settling down for the winter.

The cats are sleeping indoors this morning. The soggy leaves on the soaked yard don't make for inviting hunts, especially since their prey is largely gone. Their favorite hidey holes are too wet for sleeping outdoors. The garden mulch is packed down in lumpy sheets. They grumpily complain to their cat servants that the management is lax in maintaining their resort. Mom opens more cans of tuna and consoles them into wintertime obesity.

I finally picked the first tomato, an orangey fruit that I couldn't resist. There is another orangey one waiting to ripen further, and the rest are still light green but plump enough to show some promise if the frost doesn't get them. The snap beans have clumps of lavender blooms setting beans, racing with the frosts to make a harvest.

I finished the third sweater and have gotten more than halfway up the body section of another one. There was enough yarn for a three color striped pattern sweater. I'll have to see if I can squeeze out another small solid color sweater after that. I've got about enough done to send another box, and the yarn for Mom's Christmas present is waiting.

I've got the organizer backlog down to about two weeks. Most of the caught-up entries are now looming on their proper upcoming days. I need to get more mulch shredded and on the yard as well as emptying the tumblers and starting new loads again. The first gardening entries for the next season are already lurking in about a month for the cabbages and broccoli to be started indoors.

I haven't even coped with the traditional Thanksgiving iceberg-sized frozen turkey (20.88 pounds this year, brought home in gleeful triumph this morning at 39 cents a pound) or the Christmas shopping rush, and it is already nearly time to resist the gardening catalog temptations for 2006. It isn't helping the confusion that the retailers got the Christmas stuff out before Halloween. I've been strolling past displays with Christmas music for several weeks now. I think they want me to buy something decorative to gather dust festively instead of by the usual mundane housekeeping sloth. I'm still trying to figure out how the glittering white musical Ferris wheel is supposed to enhance Christmas.