The first of the leaves are falling - I spent my first morning of the season raking/shredding leaves on Saturday.  AJ helped with the raking, but the shredding is a one person job (though he did change the cutting line in the shredder for me.)  I'll be spending the next few weekend raking and shredding....and green-waste runs.  At least the shredding keeps the number of runs down. Saturday's leaves weren't even close to a full trailer, so maybe next week - depending on how many leaves fall.  Without shredding, it would have been a full trailer.

Ripley was helping though - she was keeping an eye out for intruders and any rabid squirrels....

 

A couple more pictures from my walk with Ripley.  She enjoyed the McCloud River:

Lots of sniffs on the trails:

And she spotted a squirrel....

Ripley was on guard while I was working in the yard....

And I'm on vacation - leaving, on a jet plane...well, tomorrow at least.  Today is a morning kayak with Cindy M, house and yard prep work (laundry, shopping, packing, etc.) and tomorrow I take off for Georgia and Kentucky!  A weekend visit with Margene and then up to Ronna's for the week - including a trip to the Mammoth Caves - and then back down to Georgia, flying back out of Atlanta on Sunday.  It's been a whirlwind to get all the pieces together - round the clock care for Alli, rescheduling my flights (United cancelled half of my trip home, not sure how they thought I could keep just the flight from LAX to Redding.....that's a bit of a walk from Atlanta), etc.  It will be worth it though!