During October, my favorite photos centered around birds, flowers, spending time with my younger daughter at college, and spending time with my sister doing genealogical "field trips."
In early October, I saw a white-throated sparrow. I like the little yellow spot on its forehead.
The cardinals are now coming back to the feeders. During the fall and winter, they spend more time near our home and at the feeders. They remind me of my parents who were equally overjoyed when a cardinal - or a pair - would show up at their home.
A new type of bird showed up at our farm - a red-breasted nuthatch. Normally, we see the white-breasted nuthatches. So, this is a pleasant surprise.
The flowers have been blooming well into October which is unusual. This one surprised me when I looked closer at it after downloading it to my laptop: the center of the flower is heart-shaped!
On warm days during October, the sparrows love playing in the birdbath.
By the middle of the month, the bird feeders were getting lots of "customers." It's always a bit bittersweet when the goldfinches' vibrant yellow feathers change to a tannish-gray color.
After spending a weekend at home, I brought Olivia back to college. She is on the video/tech team and enjoys it. She took me around the auditorium. This is one of the catwalks. I found out that she is tethered when she moves across the wooden pieces to her right. What isn't quite visible in the photo is that there is a gap between each piece. She needs to re-tether herself as she moves along them to adjust the lights.
This is another catwalk that has a lot of stage lights. Below are the first six rows of the auditorium.
As we stood on the catwalk, this was the view down. She also works at the soundboard which is the table in the middle section.
On the third weekend, my sister and I went to a cemetery in Minneapolis where our grandparents on our mom's side are buried. We cleaned the graves and got the grass back from them. We didn't have a lot of water. So, after the next rain, the gravestones should be a lot brighter.
At the same cemetery, we visited our great-grandparents on my maternal father's side. I had never been to this marker or the graves before, so this was something new. We saw that there were three additional gravestones - two belonging to their unmarried adult children and one belonging to a married adult child. Again we cleaned off each of the gravestones which was a big task. I don't think anyone in the family had been there in decades to do that.
While we were in the area, we stopped by the church where our parents got married in 1964. At that time, all of the portraits were in black and white. Needless to say, the church was beautiful with its stained-glass windows. We were even lucky enough to be able to see a quinceanera. The young lady looked beautiful in her pink gown with the bouquets of pink flowers lining the aisle.
Around that neighborhood, which was considered a "Tier 2" area during the riots after George Floyd's death, there are a lot of murals. This one caught my eye.
This one did too...for a more humorous reason.
Our last stop of the day was at the home where my grandma and grandpa (on my mom's side) and my mom lived starting in 1942. Our grandpa died in 1951, my mom got married and moved out to her first home with our dad in 1964, and our grandma died in 1982. So, the home was in the family for 40 years.
We were simply going to take some photos outside of the home. After we did that and were in the car, we noticed a woman peering out behind the door. I went back and introduced myself, and told her the purpose of taking photos.
To make a long story short, she invited us in and we were able to see the home 40 years after we last saw it! A highlight was seeing the beautiful stained glass window still at the landing on the staircase. It was such a gift that the current homeowner gave us by letting us see the home. What was so touching was the care they are taking to preserve and restore the home. All the original woodwork - since 1904 - is there.
Our last stop of the day was seeing a duplex that my grandparents and mom lived in from 1938-1942. My mom would have been 8-12 years old at the time. I'm not sure if they lived on the first or second floor.
Interestingly, we have passed by this home hundreds (probably thousands) of times. It wasn't until my sister and I started doing genealogical research that we were able to get the addresses of some of the homes where our ancestors lived.
After that, I became pretty sick and have been dealing on and off with laryngitis, fever, a respiratory infection, persistent cough, and sinus issues. Lots of children at the school where I work are sick now - over 5% with the flu alone (which they need to report to the Minnesota Department of Health). So, there are no more photos from the third week of October through the end of the month.
