Totally unexpected, wholly, unreservedly welcome; we're back once again into Indian Summer. A previous week of above-normal warm temperatures for this time of year briefly interrupted by icy cold, only to be returned to even warmer temperatures in the last few days. A lovely interlude between autumn and winter.

Courteously giving of Mother Nature. Enabling us to complete all the outdoor winterizing in comparatively mild weather, unlike our usual rush to get all these things done, with frozen fingers. Giving my husband the opportunity to disassemble the glider on the deck, the furniture, and the overhead canopy, to take it all apart and store it over-winter in the garden shed.

The air conditioner was securely covered, and the gas-fired barbecue as well; put aside and carefully wrapped to endure the cold and the ice for their so-prolonged sojourn into winter; ensuring in the process that the family of tiny mice that have nested at the bottom of the barbecue, too will be warm and secure.

And to rake up another pile of pine needles from our very maturing pine, as well as the thick piles of leaves freshly fallen from our weeping mulberries, the ornamental crab trees and our hugely growing saucer magnolia trees. Getting everything ship-shape for the coming months when our entire landscape will be encased in snow and ice.