More wild weather lately. We've had a series of lows come in off the Pacific bringing furious south easterlies. Not the same amount of rain, but strong wind, gusting to 70km/h again, and leading to wind warnings. There are lots of small branches on the ground, Douglas fir cones and needles.



We're getting more and more weaved into the island social scene. On Sunday night we went over to our friend Brian and Shasta's house for a drum circle and a potluck dinner. These two are serious community builders, a pair after my own heart. It seems that whenever some interesting business gets going, Shasta and Brian are behind it. They are thoughtful stewards of the island community and great musicians. Good cooks too.



We've started to get some dinner invitations too which feels like we are settling in. Once winter descends on this part of the world, people begin to reach out and open their homes, in the hopes that we all can hang on for the wet months.



Speaking of which, it has felt more like fall this week, although yesterday the sun peeked out and illuminated the low clouds clinging to the slopes of Mount Gardiner. A few ravens about, but the flocks of juncos and kinglets have puffed themselves up as if there is both safety and heat in numbers. That's as sure a sign of deep fall as any. The other sure sign is the humming of our little woodstove as it consumes the firewood I bought last month from some enterprising and hard working students. We had some nice dry alder that came with the house, and we still have a lot of it left, but it burns so hot that I've added the newer wood to slow it down a little and keep the stove warm longer. It's taking a while to get the science of wood burning down pat, but I've getting the hang of the variables of wood and stove and now almost ready to try building a top down fire. Seriously!



The Leonids were amazing by the way. The nice weather held long enough for me to go out at 1:30am and spend an hour watching the meteors streak across the sky. They came every few seconds until I got cold and went in. Others who saw them reported busy activity at 5am too. Nice to have a dark sky to see them for a change.