End of Summer

Goodbye beautiful Summer!  See you again next year. 

Green leaves are still here but it is very quiet on the lake.  There is already a small flock of the usual, overwintering ducks who can be heard sometimes, but not too much.  I am sure more will arrive soon.  “My” sparrows are back in feeders in their full force, as if it was winter. Must check if there is nothing else for them to find in fields and gardens , or are they a bit lazy maybe?  One of them lost his life recently.  I am sure it was Magda, the cat next door who roams my garden as if it was her own, when dogs are inside.  Maybe because it really was her garden once.  People I bought the house from just left her behind and the couple next door adopted her in the role of the usual outdoor cat of East Germany.  She lives in their outbuildings and is fed regularly, but comes to visit here and helps herself to “my” birds sometimes, which is heartbreaking, but that’s life.  Maybe the bird she killed and partially ate was old and not very strong and because of it didn’t manage to get away from her.  I hope his untimely death was quick. Magda is not a shy cat and always ignores me. I found her today relaxing under the tree where birds congregate in the afternoon and when she saw me, she just stared at me lazily. I called Linus again and again, which didn’t bother her and when he finally arrived he turned on his scary tactics of frozen position the evil stare, but both didn’t do much. Magda only got up from the grass and slowly ran away with her tail stiff like a flag pole when Linus started to move towards her.

Flies from my previous post are gone, it was only a few weeks when they materialized inside the house, but with temperatures dropping they suddenly disappeared. Biting mosquitos are gone as well.  There are small males living on my car parked in the garage, but I don’t mind them, they don’t bite.  Everything goes to bed it seems and although I think I love autumn it is a sad part of the year.  Beautiful still.  I do hope we will have a kinder winter this year.  I was thrilled with snow and frost last winter, but it gets boring after few weeks, plus, is very expensive on already expensive heating bills.