The Geese have returned.

I woke quite early yesterday - Sunday - and looking out at The Lake the first thing that I saw was the two big Swans flying across The Lake. As I watched them they turned and flew by again, and again, they seemed to be circling The Lake, looking for a suitable landing site? Which they soon found almost directly across from us. I got up and made my first cup of coffee, opened the chickens and fed the cats. As I stood on the deck watching the sun do its amazing thing with the sky and the water and the clouds right outside my house - people pay huge dollars to see this kind of thing on "The Big Screen", but here it was right in front of me "For Free". Well sort of free, Anne Arundel County has seen to it that it is not free! At almost a thousand dollars a month for taxes and insurance, it is far from free!
Anyway as I watched this show, here came the Canada Geese. Seventeen of them came gliding in and landed right in front of me. I took Julia her morning cup of tea and we watched them together, fascinated. A few more landed a little later on.
Today, Monday I returned from work and sat out on the deck again - can you believe we are halfway through November and still we are getting beautiful sunny days with temperatures in the 60's and even 70's? Yesterday it reached 72 and today 67 - enjoying the sun and the view of The Lake. The Canada Geese came sailing into view soon after we sat down and we counted the groups as they arrived. First were four ducks, then eight geese, then twelve more geese and finally another ten geese. Their numbers are building, but they seem to come and go, I wonder if the weather is confusing them.
The garden has still not had a frost so we are still picking produce, the last Zucchini's were picked a few days ago. I am still picking beans, peas, tomatoes, Swiss chard and lettuce. Not a lot mind you, but it is nice to have even a few fresh veg. We even had some raspberries last week! I'll keep on picking as long as it stays above freezing. When we get our first frost warning I'll pick all the tomatoes and beans that are still out there, the others will survive a light freeze and last a while longer.
The tomatoes I wrap in news paper and put in a box in a dark cool area. They will ripen all the way up to Christmas and maybe even longer. Just wrap each tomato in a separate piece of newspaper and place them carefully in layers in the dark, a set of drawers is ideal, otherwise a cardboard box works just as well. Every week unwrap each one enough to see if is ripe. If not put it back - carefully - and use the ripe ones. My experience is that very very few will go bad. the rest ripen gradually over a period of several weeks. Any that don't - fried green tomatoes!