Kite Flying

Today was a perfect day for flying a kite...breezy, warm and sunny. Of course, the best place to fly kites around here is Grandpa's football field...no trees, no overhead wires, no obstacles of any kind.

Autumn activities

Autumn, glorious autumn in New England!

Toad Stools Extrodinaire...at least in our parts!

As I've mentioned before, August has been a wet month around here; the first 3 weeks saw daily thunderstorms with over 1" of rain every day....some days with in excess of 2". Consequently, we're seeing some 'humungous' fungi growing on stumps and in woody yard areas. This is one, on an old stump of an elm tree. This specimen measures nearly 8" high and just as wide. I've been told that there are more larger ones in our woods, but I've not been there to explore, yet.

I went to the Woodstock Fair today with the Andersons. We visited the various agriculture buildings, and a junior exhibit building that gave us the idea that the children in our family should enter some of their creations next year.

We took advantage of church food booths for lunch and, of course, no fall fair is complete without midway rides and cotton candy. The weather was ideal...warm and a little breezy.

Baby animals are like magnets...

Fun house slides are to 'do again'! And sisters climbing the wall together complete a wonderful day full of memories.

Later in the afternoon, I helped Lynn can some of her surplus tomatoes. She found out that this is really not so difficult a task as she thought. She's on a roll, now, and ready to can and dry more produce, since I left her with my canner and de-hydrator.

Reminiscing

Today I was cleaning out a drawer in my desk and found a neat stack of letters tied with a pretty ribbon. Of course, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to undo that ribbon and find out what was in it. In it were several letters written by Beth years ago...I'll not mention the year. She was, however, about 16 and visiting my sister in California for a few weeks during a summer. One letter described their adventure to Disneyland.
"The whole thing was just great. They had that "America on Parade but I didn't get to see it. I was looking for Randy while it was going on. I took Randy on the Matterhorn. The line was really long and we had a long wait. Well, Randy was a couple of people ahead of me, but I didn't pay much attention, then the next time I looked he was gone. I saw him way up ahead in a different line. Just as I was getting ready to get on, I saw him getting off. There was no way I could get out of line. I finally found Auntie Isabelle and Karen, and Auntie found Randy at the Lost Child Center."
Do any of you, Karen, Randy, Isabelle, or Beth, remember this incident?
Some of the other letters were sent from college...remember those pre-e-mail days???? We didn't have daily contact...no cell phones, either. How did we manage?????

Weekly update

Thunder storms galore! We've had severe ones nearly every day for the past week. Plenty of localized street-flooding, some wind damage, lots of loud thunder, hail, we've had it all. One day, as we were heading toward Putnam, we could see a wall of water in front of us that looked like Niagara Falls. We drove into it and instantly no visibility...even high-speed wipers couldn't keep window clear enough to see the road. On Thursday, coming back from Putnam, we again ran into torrential rain in the State Forest. Huge puddles over the hubcaps of cars at every dip in the road. We pulled over into a gas station in Douglas when again rain, wind and hail made visibility non-existent. The road there was again flooded over the hub-caps. Unfortunately, you can't see whether there is a wash-out beneath the water, so traveling along is treacherous. We waited until the storm abated, then followed some other cars into the deep water to continue our trip. A few feet further along, the road rose and we thought we were fine for the rest of the trip home. However, a mile or so later, the skies opened up again. We crept along until we reached Nena's new house and paid them a couple of hours visit until we were certain the storms had passed.
Last night, (at least we were home this time) we had another of those same kinds of rain storms. Wind, heavy (torrential) rain and heavy lightening/thunder. Tony should have been here this week for his fill of Good Old New England summer weather. You know that the gardens (weeds) and lawns LOVE this.
Other than the rain, the temps have been comfortable...in the high 70s during the days, low 50s during the nights. Wonderful sleeping weather. Those temps are predicted to stay at least for another week. So far this summer, we've not had to use the AC more than 3 or 4 nights. (We were in New Brunswick when these parts had their week-long 90s in July.)
Cars were in garage yesterday for inspection, oil changes, headlight replacement, slow tire leak, etc. We had both done at the same time...now good until winter, we hope.
3 birthdays (Jason, Beth, Mark) and 3 anniversaries (Beth & Mark -26th; Steve & Lynn and Chris and David - each 9th) all this month. Happy Birthdays and Happy Anniversaries to all!

Annual Visit

They're gone! Such a short week! Our North Carolinian clan (sans 3) was here for 9 days and we had a grand visit. The children played with neighbors daily, got in a swim or two, visited the cafe twice, did a Higgin's Armory excursion, spent a day with cousins, a morning at Southwick's Zoo, and generally had a busy week. Chris had Beth and Amanda baking carrot cakes, and she wants them to move north and become permanent staff in her kitchen (no chance of that!).

Southwick's Zoo had grown immensely. They have at least 3 more habitats than they had last year, and are adding an aerial tramway that Isak says may be opened for the 2009 season (Isak works there, as well as at the Ecotarium this summer). The weather was perfect for a zoo visit...temps in the low 80s, dry and sunny. We always end our zoo visit with an sno-cone from the concession stand. We are fortunate that this zoo, the largest in New England, is a little more than 1 mile from our home.

Now it's clean-up time...we've already found 2 things that need to go into the box to be mailed, but I'm sure there will be more. 2 loads of laundry (towels and bedding) are on line, and we have a lonely granddaughter who needs to have a play companion. Grandpa has been enlisted for a game of badminton.