Saturday 10.24.2009

I slept pretty good last night, overall, waking about 10 o'clock again. I realized where I was and smiled. Thank you God. Even though it's only 64 degrees in the house. Diane and I each tried at separate times to go through the lighting instructions. Once, the pilot lit, and stayed lit for 20 minutes or so, but the fan didn't come on. So, I don't know what's wrong with it. The pilot won't stay on any more without holding the button down.

We breakfasted, fooled around with the furnace, then decided to make a scarecrow. We had a cardboard tube from a rug that was about 4 feet long, a small lampshade for a head, a soft cloth hat, t-shirt, a wire hangar, and lots of grocery bags to stuff it with. (about 20) We straightened out the hook of the hangar and taped it onto one end of the tube. The lightbulb clip on the lampshade held right onto the top of the tube. Then we went into a shoebox in a drawer that was Germaine's (Dan's Mother) sewing box and found lots of interesting little craft pieces and fun surprises. An hour later, this is what we had.

Diane chose the name Larry Long Lake, or Long Lake Larry, or LLL. We took LLL over to meet the neighbors, Evelyn and Bob. We could see in the side window that Bob was sitting with his back to the window. I put LLL's head up into the window, looking this way and that, tapped on the window, and we heard Bob guffaw and call for Evelyn. She came out and laughed and exclaimed, too. We had a lot of fun, walking around B & E's yard, as we're getting turned around for winter. They have yet to get the dock out, but all else is done. Looking good.

We went inside for a bit to warm up, then went across the street to Mary's. LLL knocked on the door, but Mary had been out in that porch area reading, waiting for company, so she kind of saw us coming. But she laughed with us, hugged us, and we visited ever so briefly before her visitors arrived. We hugged again and the 3 of us left.


Back at the JC, we took pictures of the three of us. Diane went inside to fix her lunch; I stayed outside and raked/moved some of the piles of wet leaves so they will either dry a little or blow away. I checked the inside of the shed. Looks like there might be a leak on that roof. Bummer. I picked up some things off of the floor, hanging them up, then went into the garage and put away some things that had been left out when we were here last time. That done, I went back to the leaves, that had now drained and dried a little, moving those. Good till next time. Back in the garage I put the rakes, then went inside myself. Diane was ready to go outside, so she went out on the front deck and swept that off and the side cement. I have a tree that has no leaves left, and another that the other half are about ready to drop. So there are quite a few leaves down.

Now that our chores were done, and there was still daylight, we drove into Hale, going around Little Long Lake. We enjoyed looking at the thinning foliage, and at what it's revealing. It's a whole different view.

Into Hale, there are many scarecrows tied to the benches and street signs and poles. When there wasn't any traffic we could go slow and look at them, but there were a few blocks we missed, so...we went back and looked again. I'm glad we did, it was fun.

Diane cooked up taco stuff, and we had a yummy dinner. We cleaned up the kitchen, then went out for a flashlight walk.

The clouds were breaking up, and the stars and the half moon was glowing through the foggy clumps of clouds. It was a totally awesome walk. It's getting cold--we both had on winter coats, hats, gloves, and boots. The water is really clear at the shore. The rocks and vegetation are pretty easy to see. I didn't see anything exciting really, other that how the vegetation is establishing itself in a different area of new rocks. We went inside for the night.

Diane had brought with her a photo compilation/slide show with unintended but beautiful background music of Sue and Dave's wedding of August 15, 2009. It was very nice, and we were able to talk about the pictures as they were scrolling through. It was almost 50 minutes long. Very beautiful, Sue, and Congratulations to Sue and Dave.

We visited and enjoyed each other's company. Diane finally wandered off to bed about 11; I wrote here after then, and am off to bed soon.

Tomorrow we'll clean up and go. The goal is 1pm.

44 degrees today, windy, spitty rain that finally stopped. The lake is kind of quiet right now.

Thank you for reading. Hugs.