So much for autumn.

So here it is on the first day of autumn and we're breaking yet another temperature record here in Portland with a high of 97. Sigh.

At least that means it's warm sunny weather for all our outdoorsyness today. We had a trillion errands and now I've got to do some gardening this afternoon, and finish painting our chicken coop. (Shyeah. Like I'll ever be done with this chicken coop project. Doubtful!)

The day started with a trip to the vet for my mamakitty, Roxy, who has gained an astonishing amount of weight. For those who are new, back in March we adopted a homeless pregnant kitty who still looked like a kitten herself. On April 4 she birthed six kittens, including a tiny runt who couldn't push past her brothers and sisters to nurse and had to be bottle-fed by us. We kept Roxy, the runt (Fry), and a boy kitten named Davey. Roxy lost all her babyweight quickly and reverted to a very small, svelte 7.5 pounds. Since weaning her kittens, being spayed, and moving to the house, she has ballooned to almost 10 pounds and has a rather alarming matronly look about her. So as of today, she's on a diet, poor gal. And Davey has to be on probiotics, and Fry still needs extra food, so it looks like we're going to have to start feeding all three of our cats separately. You know, just because life isn't complex or demanding enough around here.

And speaking of feeding animals, our hens have outgrown their little chick feeders and they keep knocking them over. We now need to install large hanging feeders on the underside of the coop, so we went to the Urban Farm Store (my favorite store!) and bought them. I can't figure out how to get the lid on the feeder, because I'm an idiot, and the water regulator isn't working so it just overflows gallons of water all over the chicken run. Our afternoon agenda now demands that we resolve this problem.

We also bought some asparagus starts at the UFS so I can start our asparagus patch in the front yard. Yay! We won't be able to harvest any asparagus until 2011 but it should be worth the wait. And in the meantime, next year, it'll look pretty... and the important thing is that it's another patch of grass GONE in our Quest To Eliminate the Lawn.

Further continuing the quest today, we dropped by the Portland Nursery to spend some of a gift card we got as a housewarming present. We got a handy-dandy little weeding tool and some completely frivolous iris and crocus bulbs - no, we can't eat them, but dammit I want pretty flowers in the spring. And anyway they attract bees. Bees are important, right? *innocent look*

We also got an obscene quantity of garlic to plant, which knowing us is still not going to be enough garlic. We were going for more vegetable starts but we decided to come back later and spend the rest of the gift card once the first raised bed is built. And that's going to have to wait until the next job comes through for both of us as funds are getting tight.

So it's a day of drama and melodrama and hard work. Tonight I really need to put up some pumpkin seed pesto sauce, pumpkin butter, and pumpkin gnocchi. My list of "preserves to can" on the fridge is getting ridiculously long but I haven't gotten around to it for awhile. Maybe when winter comes I'll be able to sleep in once or twice and lounge about reading... but there's no sign of winter today.