Keeping the Home Fires Burning

I used to love burning leaves back East with my family in the Fall--before burning was banned there. Leaves were so much more funb than pine needles. You could pile them head high and ride your bike through them or just jump and play hide-n-go-seek in them. Pine needles are just a hot dirty chore...though initially they smell good. If you do your burning right, there's very little smoke--that's when the fire is the hottest and you have a gentle breeze to feed the fire with oxygen.

Anyway, we've cleared our lawn for the second weekend in a row and cleared up the backlog when left over when the burn season closed early last spring. Now it's just a matter of clearing up in the woods before the rain or snow flies.

At least it got us outdoors and enjoying the sun and warm Fall temperatures. Time to take a walk and see how the rest of our neighbors are doing.

Can You Say Rocks!

Cellular Biology

Who'da thunk biology could be delicious and fun! This was Doug's idea 100%.

Snow is in the Air

Old Man Winter is begging to get back into the action. We've had two straight days of flurries in the air--it's way too early! On top of that, the kids are off today--teacher training day, and we're getting caught up on all that quality time stuff, each person is in front of their own screen at the moment. Well, I guess I'm being a little facetious. Anyway, the squabbles up 'til three seconds ago were short lived and everyone was in their own world of bliss. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty to do today, like help set up the Book Fair at school and possibly attend a trail building seminar at the Brewery tonight. The changing seasons are always alittle unsettling and it seems like there's too much to do before winter sets in.

I finally signed up for the "How to Start Your Own Business" course taught locally by the community college. I don't see many downsides to not starting it (minimal start-up costs--it's a personal service) and I'm not ready to cave in and fit myself back into a corporate setting working long hours. Fortunately, my lady is patient with me and economic times as bad as they are, we are surviving. Guess that's the impeteus, we're used to more than surviving, and we want to get back to that lifestyle as soon as we can--just complimented with work we enjoy doing.

Have a great Columbus Day Weekend!

Survival of the Fittest

The cute little guy above is a recent orphan and probably won't survive...how sad. Yesterday I was getting wood from the stack and he comes hopping up to me. I didn't know what was going on, was he being fed by a neighbor? Or was this a sick animal to stay away from. I called the little girl of the house out to take some pictures and then we followed him around the yard for a while. On the way home from church we had seen a large squirrel that had been recently killed by a car--might have been Momma.

But wait, the story gets worse. Under our deck is another little guy. This one is either very sick or catatonic (turned out he was dying) and he is curled into a little ball but still moving when gently probed. His little brother or sister stayed under the deck with him for the rest of the afternoon--until I want out for more wood. Then the survivor follows me about 20 yards back down to the wood pile and climbs a tree, and that's where he stayed the night. Haven't seen him this morning, but we're not to sure he's a good forager. We laid the other guy to rest.

In other news, Pippin the Wonderdog just has a mild case of Kennel Cough. Yup, he caught it his first (and only) day at Doggie Daycare, despite their strict vaccine policy. It's good news because it's relatively easy to treat (Julia was envisioning dangerous and expensive surgery to remove a Lego from his trachea.)

Volunteering gets Complicated

Pippin at Doggie Daycare.

Can you say, American Legion, School Site Committee, Garden Club, Book Fair, Walkathon, Local Option Committee, etc. Guess we're getting immersed and those are just some fun things we're involved in. I thought we'd put our planners away, but it looks like that was just a pause.

In other news, the working one received a raise (oh yeah!) and the other guy subbed at school for the secretary and librarian for several days last week. The kids seem to be taking it all in stride and are busy developing huge Christmas lists--guess they think Santa is not affected by all the bad economic news.

Not to leave Pippin out of the discussion, we're off to the Vet today--he's got something making him choke every 5 or 10 minutes--made sleep near impossible for us. I suspect they won't find anything and we'll just have to tough it out until whatever passes.