I'm back from PT and a trip to the post office. Plus I did some leaf raking. The leaves are all coming off the maples en mass now.

It's windy and warm in the low 80s. Since it feels summery one of the mockingbirds broke out into his elaborate summer song of bird mimickry. Yesterday there was a male hairy woodpecker on the peanut feeder. He might be resting and refueling for the rest of his journey down south. Not as many woodpeckers stay during the winter. A lot head south, but a few of them will remain though and hang out with the chickadees and titmice who decide to stay with us all winter. Most of the robins have left already. You only see an occasional one now.

With the winds picking up again and the drought we have a red flag high fire danger warning in effect until tomorrow night. Hopefully we'll get some showers tomorrow when the cold front comes through. We desperately need the rain. We're about 7 inches below normal for this point in the year. It's worse in parts of South Jersey where they're already looking at water use restrictions.

So I got my paperwork from the HMO. My knee gel injections got turned down because the doctor didn't explain why I need them. Nor did he explain it would be three shots per knee, given every six months. Absolutely nothing was said about me having aggressive knee arthritis with pain, stiffness, and mobility issues. A dumb mistake on their part. I see this knee orthopedist in two weeks so I need to talk to him about this. Unhelpful since I still have a nasty flare up with my knees, especially in the right knee which has the really big bone spurs and my lower leg is out of alignment.

I don't understand why the doctors and staff associated with this large medical group continue to do such a lousy job at filling out paperwork to get approval for tests and treatments. They should know by now HMOs want lot of details about what the medical issues are that require such tests and treatments.

My sister who lives here in town is supposed to drop by tomorrow after she does the early voting over at the library. She's the last one of us out east to vote this time. My sister from Virginia has already voted. Of our relatives who live out west, only the ones living in Salt Lake City vote. Utah residents all vote by mail. But our Nevada relatives don't bother voting, unfortunately. I've tried talking my nephew and my youngest niece into registering to vote but they don't care. This picked up this attitude from their dad, my brother-in-law who is not very bright. He thinks it's a waste of time and no one should bother. (sigh)