Indian summer

It was a beautiful Indian summer day as I headed south on Thurs morning.  Signs of autumn were everywhere all weekend long.  Cars had to share the 4 lane highway with combines, tractors and wagons.  Piles of corn outside just about every elevator I passed pointed to an abundant harvest.  While I didn't get home in time to make a round or two in the combine before the men finished up, I did get the harvest report.  Yields were very good and Dad had never seen corn that was so dry coming out of the field.  That made for a quick harvest and it's very rare that harvest is finished by Oct 21.  I guess that is to make up for last year when they finished on Dec 4 in the snow.  But besides harvest, there was apples and caramel, apple crisp, Hawkeye football and several pickups full to overflowing with leaves headed for the city dump. 

The record-setting rainfall this summer not only resulted in good yields but also many flooded basements.  The water that seeped into my parents' basement didn't qualify as a flood but it still took over six weeks for the work to be completed so everything could be put back.   An inch of rain fell on Saturday night and confirmed that the 2nd sump pup will help keep the basement dry.  My brothers spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon carrying some of the bigger items down from the garage.  I'm sure Dad is glad to have his office out of their bedroom and back in the basement and I know Mom is glad to have her living room back.  The upheaval is resulting in the rearranging of the furniture in several different rooms.  Maybe I'll actually be able to park my car in the garage when I go for Thanksgiving.

Did you know there are 206 bones in the body and approximately 700 muscles?  Thankfully I didn't have to learn very many of either to make it through this week's tests.  If I can manage to remember some of the new ones I learned, I'll have a head start on that chapter in Anatomy next fall.