Charmion, it sounds like your family has your back.

Dorothy will you be heading back to Dupont soon? Closing up Beaver for the winter?

The National Arbor Day folks are working with the electric provider in my region to offer up to two trees free. They're intended to offer shade to lower my energy costs, but I intend to plant them at the very back of the yard. They'll be small, the DBH of a pencil, and hopefully I can pot them for over the winter and get them established during the year next year. I had a note they should be arriving this week. I'm planning yard work this (I was going to start today, but I don't need trick-or-treaters possibly staggering around in a darkened newly dug bed on the way to a door that won't be opened if they try to knock.) The dogs and I will hunker down at the back of the house making it look like no one is home. And most years there aren't many trick-or-treaters.