Several soggy days

Today is my last day in Toledo. There will be a few days at the Cleveland Clinic with a relative who's having surgery, but then it's back to Parkersburg, where a new semester will soon begin. I have so fallen in love with the ecosystem variety of northwest Ohio that I feared leaving it would be a wrench, but the universe has made the transition easier by sending several days of cold rain, possibly my least favorite weather. A colleague who taught in Maumee decades ago had issued dire warnings about Lucas County, assuring us that we would hate the permanently gray skies (this colleague seems to have missed the summers entirely), and a native of the area last week responded to my asking "What's the percentage of gray days in winter?" with "about ninety percent." Given that the first snow is predicted for tomorrow night, I seem to be heading south just in time.

However, even gray days have their amusements. When we forgot to fill the squirrel feeder, one of the neighborhood rodents quickly solved the problem.

I do rather hope that fox squirrels find their way to West Virginia.