The pumpkin is out front. I think the squirrel's random mess looked better than my attempt to duplicate it. The fake jack o' lantern is out too. I guess that we are more or less ready and it is just a little after noon.

I honestly do not know if I will be able to put the pumpkin out front and if I do how long it will last. The squirrel has already been back to it several times. We were able to catch it in the act once. The quality of the picture is not very good. We took it with a telephoto lens from inside the house through a double pane window. So to make up for the lack of visual quality, I gussied up the picture.

It was just barely light this morning when I looked out to check on the pumpkin. The little fellow had been and gone. It was after the seeds and pulp.

The pumpkin does look scary. If I take it to the front of the house, I wonder if I can artfully enough arrange the shreds, strings, and remaining seeds. I also wonder if I do that, will the squirrels leave it alone? I am going to give this some serious thought because it does appeal to my off-center sense of humor.

If I can pull it off, pictures will follow.

I am still congratulating myself. Yesterday I successfully covered a papier-mâché box with fabric and lined it with decorative paper. This is the first time I have covered a box and feel extremely successful with it. I used a delightfully antique looking fabric print. It was wonderful and to think that was the way it came right off the bolt. Thursday I went to a local art store for some papers. I selected several Italian papers. For this box, I used a design of lemons because the color of the lemons echoes the color of the fabric. I will eventually post a picture of the box. I think I am going to work on the pumpkin first.

It has been a rainy day. One little squirrel has been extremely busy. As I prepared dinner, I looked out to see it sitting on top of one of the pumpkins. We had four pumpkins out on the garden wall; three of them were for us to eat. Fortunately, the squirrel chose the one pumpkin that was not for food. We are not certain what the squirrel was after. It probably did not eat the flesh but shredded it and spit it out. It may have been eating the seeds and pulp but there is still a lot of it there.

When Roger went outside to bring in the three food pumpkins, the squirrel very reluctantly left. After dinner I went out to take a picture of the pumpkin and shreds. By that time it was dark and the squirrel was no where to be seen.

Monday the Qwest lineman did come out. He said that our connectivity level is very low; he also said that a few years back Qwest modified the lines in our area. Apparently the connections are sealed some way to protect them from rain and snow. I guess that Qwest got tired of sending people out to check the lines when they got wet. The bad thing about this is that it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to make changes in the connections.

In our case, apparently the line carrying our DSL goes in and out of several branches. He wanted to give us a more direct line which was supposed to increase our connectivity. If he was not successful, he would have to turn it over to the DSL people; he just does line maintenance. By the time he left he said that he had doubled our level of connectivity but that was still half of what we were supposed to have and that he would turn it over to DSL.

Intermittently, we do have better connectivity but generally, it is the same low previous level. :-( To this point, it appears that no one from DSL has looked into it; certainly, no one has contacted us.

Someone finally replied to a message that we left with EarthLink. A very nice, hopefully helpful woman said that she had been out of her office for a few days. She acknowledged that there have been problems between EarthLink and Qwest and that she would try to check with Qwest about improving our service. We actually have no evidence that anything has happened or improved.

The new modem arrived yesterday. It is still in its box and we are wondering whether or not to open it until the issues between EarthLink and Qwest have been resolved.

Meanwhile, it is Thursday and that means it is time to work on the laundry. I wonder what is going to be sucked into a wormhole today.

Yesterday we went celebrate the 90th birthday of a friend of ours. It was a delightful afternoon. He is looking quite well and seemed to enjoy himself and all the friends and relatives who came. It was also a good opportunity for us to renew some old, very old friendships. It was a powerful reminder to us of how wonderful life is and how many good things are in it.

It seemed especially good to me to walk this morning.

At last we have been able to talk with a person rather than recordings at Qwest, our telephone company. We found out some disturbing information. Because we do not have service via fiber optic cable, our service is being downgraded. At this point, we have no choice; residential DSL service in our area is primarily through standard wire telephone lines. Qwest tells us that our telephone line which is entirely above ground and has been so for 30 years is not the problem. Someone came out to tell us that but did not visually inspect the line. He did say that for some inexplicable reason, at this point, we have a low connectivity level. Qwest will send someone out on Monday to try to find out why that is and maybe repair it. I suspect that Qwest will tell us there is nothing they can do about it because we are far enough out on their main line that they cannot reasonably maintain connectivity levels.

Please note that I have said this on Sunday 25 October 2009 before Qwest has "inspected" the problem.

EarthLink says that their modem is not the problem. We took the modem around to all the telephone jacks in the house and told EarthLink that the same problems exist at each one. EarthLink told us to set up the modem on a shorter wire which we did at great difficulty. Service is improved but not as good as promised. They have finally decided that we could have a new modem. I am not certain if we are being charged for it or if it is included in our monthly service charge. We could have paid more than 10 USD to have it shipped and arrive by mid-week next week or use EarthLink's standard shipping option without additional shipping charge and it will arrive at the end of next week.

I am so fed up with both Qwest and EarthLink. At the moment our internet access and connectivity are adequate and I am happy about that.

Yesterday while there was little else to do, I watched the birds with Mooch the cat. We had finished the winter preparatory yardwork with the exception of raking the leaves. The birds and squirrels were having a good time in the yard and garden. We had the usual assortment of birds for this time of year. By now, most of the western hemisphere robins have left our area but some generally will winter over here if they have an adequate food source. We see the occasional robin now and think that it is probably going to winter here. In the afternoon, Ben finished raking up the leaves. I still have to check the gardens to be certain the plants are adequately covered for the winter. For all practical purposes, we have no more yardwork until the winter snow flies and we must shovel.

Do you remember my two missing socks? Today they showed up in the laundry room. I guess that they fell back into their wormholes and found their way back to the laundry room.

I think we finally winterized the gardens. I think we are just waiting for Ben to rake the leaves and put them on the gardens.

We are urged to shop in our local bricks and mortar stores. Well, I would if they made an attempt to carry the things that I want/need. I need a new pair of shoes; I like loafers and I have a favorite brand because that brand's lasts most closely match my feet. Loafers apparently are not to be found here. I went into a store and asked for loafers; the clerk said that everyone works in that store. I guess that there is a low probability they have any loafers. I wear a 6 1/2 wide shoe. The size 6 1/2 is neither a small size nor a large one. Until just recently it was almost impossible to find any wide sizes in Minnesota. There are now more wide sizes but they all seem to be in the larger sizes. Apparently the buyers think people who wear smaller sizes do not need wide. I tell them that when you have paid for a bunion repair you really do not want to wear narrow shoes and risk undoing the corrective surgery. Today I ordered my shoes online.

Today I searched the local places that have papers and scrapbooking supplies for chipboard. I cannot find any. Tomorrow I will search online.

We were with very tenuous internet connection this morning. It seems to be better now. Did EarthLink read my last message and punish me?

Monday my new glasses came in. There were absolutely no adjustment issues when I picked them up. I am astonished at how much I can see now. My electric needle is working too. I seem to be making up for lost time on the stitching front.

Yesterday I finished cutting down the iris and I have the bruises on my legs to prove it. They are all ready now to be covered with leaves for the winter. There is still a little more end of the season work in the gardens but we cannot get out to do it today. It has been raining since before 6:00 a.m. That is not all-together bad because we need moisture so desperately. It is supposed to clear tomorrow; I think I will help Roger finish up the last bits.

Yesterday for some unknown and maybe unknowable reason, our son says the user name and password "fell off the modem" or maybe it was that the modem "fell off" the user name and password. To me it hardly matters because the result was that we did not have internet connection all afternoon.

My intuitive feeling said that our modem needed to be replaced or that EarthLink was having connection trouble. Maybe the modem does need to be replaced. We tried doing that once and got a new one. We could not make it work with EarthLink and EarthLink said that we could not do that. Earthlink indicated that we would have to get a new modem from them and furthermore said that the problem then was not the modem. I still do not completely believe EarthLink.

In any case, we were back dealing with EarthLink customer service again and customer service is contracted out to some place in India. That might work but when we have dealt with India, invariably we have a lot of trouble understanding the customer service rep who has given us his/her name which is Tom, Erick, Theresa - - funny names for Indian nationals. I think that when customer service sees our incoming call, we are shunted to the single person who most needs to practice his/her English.

Customer service told us to go to the computer and key in a specific URL. We said, "How do you think this will help? We have no internet access." India said to just do it. We did and said nothing comes up on the screen. We were given another URL and funny thing, we could not reach it. India does not seem to understand that we have no internet access and what that means.

We explain that we really need to talk to someone in the US or someone who speaks American English because we are having such a difficult time trying to understand what India is saying and India does not seem to understand what we have described as our problem. We are given a telephone number that is supposedly in the US. We call but no one is there and we leave a message. That was yesterday afternoon.

Our son came home and began looking through our files to see how this or a similar problem was previously handled. We had it. We followed the directions and had internet access immediately. Our son thinks that India should have realized what the issue was with our description of what was happening and what happened when it started. If American English speaking person ever returns our call, we need to have a little heart-to-heart talk about how to solve problems.

It is Sunday

It is Sunday and it is almost time for the cats to be fed. We give them special food on Sunday and they seem to know it. I am not certain how long the plants will last. Mooch has already begun tearing the asparagus ferns.

Yesterday we did get into the gardens. I began cutting down the iris so we can cover them. Today is supposed to be nicer than yesterday and yesterday was very good.

When I walked out in the morning yesterday, I could see stars. That was a first in quite a few days. We saw the sun during the day. As I key this in, the sky is beginning to show the colors of dawn.

Lessons From the Cat

What a strange day it was yesterday. We lost electricity for about two hours. Apparently there was a major problem at a nearby substation. A fairly large area was affected. So what do you do on a cold day with no electricity? No lights, no sewing machine, no magnifying light, no computer, no flat press, no television, no DVD player, no oven. But we did have the stove top which is separate from the oven and gas; we did have to light it with a match but that was hardly a problem. We also had the hand powered emergency radio.

I had just cut some fabric but could not fuse the pieces together because I could not use my flat press. It would have made no difference; I could not sew the parts together because I could not use my sewing machine.

Roger and I looked out the window with the cat. There were lots of birds in the backyard, robins, juncos, sparrows, blue jays, chickadees, and a couple downy woodpeckers. The three of us were enchanted by the birds. The picture is not very good because we did not have time to get the telephoto lens out. To make up for the poor quality, I gussied up the picture. :-) It is one of the woodpeckers in the wood shed. It is not pecking at the wood but tearing shreds off the piece on which it is standing. It flung the shreds to the side, you can see a little collection of them piling up on the shelf to the right of the split wood. This is much the same technique Mooch uses to tear brown paper bags. But, Mooch scatters the scraps all over the house.

Mooch had a lot to teach us yesterday about how to enjoy life.

And Here It Is

Yesterday I finished lining this little metal box. I think the inside looks better than the outside. It took a couple days to do primarily to allow the glue to dry. First I glued cotton batting to my forms and then I glued fabric over the batting on the forms. The second day I really wanted to glue the lining into the box right after I glued the fabric to the forms but I was patient and waited until the next day, yesterday, to do that. I really had to be very strict with myself to wait.

We are fervently hoping that the weather forecast for the coming weekend is correct, warmer and at least dry if not sunny. We really have to finish winterizing the gardens and lawn. We just cannot do it if it is damp.

The snow I showed you Tuesday melted Tuesday. Today it is snowing again and will accumulate only on the grass, not on pavement. It will melt before the end of the day. On the weekend it is supposed to warm but this morning it was not exactly cold either. It was raining with snow and very wet to walk even briskly three miles. I had to be absolutely insane to do it.

Yesterday I made some significant progress making an interior lining for a metal box. I think I will get far enough today to be able to show you tomorrow what I am doing. As you can guess, I am very excited about it as it it turning out almost as I have envisioned it.

The temperature remains in the basement. This morning, the temperature was 26° F. I thought that was cold and started to complain. I took a minute to realize that in January I would think 26° F was warm. Yes, our snow and low temperatures are a little early but well within the realm of possibility. Some people think that this means we will have a long, cold winter. Weather statistics going back to the late 1800's indicate that is not necessarily going to happen.

During the day yesterday, the snow melted. Over night, we got a little more snow. If it does not melt today, it will tomorrow. On the weekend, our temperature is supposed to get to the mid 50's F. That will take care of any remnants of snow but I think it will all be gone by then.

We all like the picture of the pumpkins with snow hats. We think that may become the picture on our Christmas letter for 2009. I am certain that we can write something humorous about it in the letter.

Snowing Again

Yes, we have snow again. I will take a picture to show you. I took several pictures. The first two are self-ex- planatory. You might not be able to recognize that the last picture is of our rasp- berries.

Yesterday was sunny but cool. Today there is no sun showing and it is snowing. It is supposed to accumulate on the grass but not on pavement because it will not get very cold. I hope the prediction is correct because if it is not, we will have to go to our church to shovel the walks, especially so if the pre-school is in session. It might not be as this is Columbus Day and some businesses are closed but some are open, likewise with schools.

Yesterday lots of birds were picking over all the seeds that we scattered as we prepared the gardens for winter. There were a pair of mourning doves, sparrows, junkos, a chickadee, and a cardinal. The cardinal was camouflaged in the apple tree. A squirrel was running in and out of the garden and across the lawn, back and forth for quite a while. We think it was hiding food for the winter. The other day a squirrel, maybe the same one but I have know way to know, was digging up and reburying tidbits. I wonder if it was refreshing its memory of where its stash was.

Does this help explain?

In Minnesota, weather consists of extremes. We are in the middle of a large continent and do not have an ocean to moderate our weather. The general weather pattern is from the west to the east. We do get weather from the north and northwest. Guess what that is like; yes, generally cold. In January we frequently call it a Siberian Express or Polar Express. We can get hot, humid weather from the south in the summer; it seems to follow the Mississippi River north.

During the night Friday, we had rain and the temperature dropped turning the rain to snow. The snow is gone now. During the coming week we may get more snow but it will probably not last long. Not only will the sun come out to melt it but the ground is not yet frozen so it will contribute to the melting. The lakes and streams are still not frozen; we need colder temperatures for a more extended period of time to freeze the ground and water. We are hoping for more rain as it will be infinitely better for the ground to freeze with moisture in it. If the topsoil is dry, the soil will be dusty and may blow away. It is also good for spring planting if the soil froze with moisture in it.

The tomato and pepper plants are frozen now. Actually, so is everything else. Over night, a few trees dropped all of their leaves in a circle under the tree. Right now, we are pulling all of the annual plants out of the gardens and cutting back all of the annual ones. Some of our plantings must be covered for the winter so we will rake the leaves off the lawn to do that. A rather large branch in one of the apple trees died during the summer. We have marked it and will cut it off during the winter.

It snowed during the night

This morning, not only was there frost on the pumpkins but there was also snow. In the snow behind the pumpkins were some cute mouse tracks.

Is this early for snow? Yes. Is this the earliest snow has come? No.

It is still a little cold today but it is supposed to warm and melt the snow. It looks like the sun is beginning to come out. Daylight continues to come later in the mornings. It is just beginning to come out at the time we get back home from the health club. The sun is setting noticeably earlier in the evenings.

Wednesday I saw the eye doctor. My eye is healing well; it will take a long time for the visual disturbances to clear. He suggested that I have new lenses ground and made some changes in the bifocal to make it easier for me to see my stitching. I ordered the glasses yesterday so I should know how well this will work in a little less than twoweeks.

It has been extremely difficult for me to sit down to write. This is primarily because there seems to be so little that might be noteworthy going on in my daily life but secondarily because I do not seem to have the time to devote to even making a brief note.

Yesterday our church put on a fundraising dinner. I had the responsibility for the coffee. Can you believe that? Just about the only person who hardly drinks coffee and even less frequently makes it was supposed to make coffee for a large and I do mean large community dinner. When I need to make coffee at home, I do not even have a percolator; I make egg coffee in a large enamel pot.

On another somewhat ironic note, I do have an espresso machine. But - - - that is nothing like perking coffee.

I did not follow the directions exactly. I used less coffee than the directions from last year stated. Last I heard, we received compliments on our good coffee.

On our way to church to set up the coffee making process, my son and I stopped at Burger King for lunch. As we were eating, a friend of mine whose name is also Linda, went through the drive through. I wanted so desperately to run out to give her a hug or reach through the glass and touch her hand but all I could do was smile and wave. She smiled and waved back. She has had some very dramatic life changing events. Her husband was in a very serious accident in January and is still recovering from serious brain trauma. He will be recovering for months to come.

This afternoon a cardinal perched on the drying hollyhock stems and ate the seeds. It was a pleasure to see it.

I still have not had an opportunity to become acquainted with our new camera lens. I am going to have all together too little free time this week. What little I had is going to be employed in the task of preparing a baptismal banner for next Sunday. I am just feeling fortunate that I remembered it yesterday.

Time is marching along. This morning, I could see my breath in the air as I was walking even though the temperature was supposed to be above 40° F. Our garden did not have frost on it either. We are continuing to prepare it for winter. We are supposed to have rain beginning this afternoon so we are taking advantage of the fact that at the moment we do not have mud in the garden.

Sunrise is coming later each day. This morning I stood in the pink light of dawn as I hung the pillows out on the line to air. Because we are supposed to have rain this afternoon, I will be drying my sheets in the drier.

The only good thing about this is that once we pass 21 December, we will soon begin to have more daylight.

Yesterday was an extremely busy day. I had things organized to do but my day was completely rearranged for me. Roger was going to take the car out to have its 5,000 mile check which would give me a little time to take care of some little chores at home. Following that, I planned to sew. I had already cut out the pieces so this was going to be simple, straight sewing.

I began to check my e-mail but never finished. Roger showed me an advert that our favorite camera shop had. They were featuring Canon cameras and accessories. We want a new lens so Roger said that if I came with him when he took the car in, we would be about half way to the camera shop. If I came along, we could check out new lenses. We found a beautiful macro with a minute discount. But, it does all the things we were looking for. I think it is on its way to becoming our default lens. It has higher quality optics than our until now default lens. We need to learn how to use it and become familiar with it and its capabilities. I can tell that it is definitely different from our other lens.

I uploaded two pictures I took with the new lens yesterday. I will have to learn how to deal with it and light requirements. The closer the lens is to the object, the more it blocks the light. By and large, I will have to use a tripod because of light and speed. The picture of the needle work is of an area that is approximately 1 1/4" x 7/8". I did not resize the picture to make it more difficult for some one to count out the pattern because it is such a small portion of the entire design.

Roger tells me that this is my birthday gift and Christmas gift; both are in December so I have very little to look forward to on that score. Maybe I can talk him into some moderately priced stash later on. I really like to open gifts.

On the way home from the camera shop, we stopped at a very nice grocery store because I knew it had lower than usual prices on bruschetta topping. I especially like it so now we have four jars of it. We then stopped at home to drop off our purchases before we continued on. We did two things at one stop. I returned some books and DVD's to the library and Roger stopped in the bank for some information about interest rates. Then we decided to stop at a new-to-us restaurant, an Oriental buffet. Among the selections was kimchee which I happen to like and is generally difficult to find in non-Korean restaurants. The food was extremely delicious and it was a lot of fun to go out for lunch together.

We were both pleased to discover yesterday that the Olympics will be coming to South America, in general, and Brazil in particular. For the benefit of our follower from Brazil, I hope that he is pleased with the decision.

It happened again, the second time in two weeks. I counted the stockings I put in the washer, 10 the first week and 12 the second. I counted the stockings when I took them out of the washer, 9 and 11, respectively. I went through everything that I took out of the washer; I shook everything out. Both weeks, the missing stocking did not fall out onto the floor. Where did they go? It is almost as if they went down the drain. I took it a little further today and looked in places the missing stockings could have fallen. I found nothing but dust bunnies and I doubt that they will coalesce to form a single stocking. I am scratching my head and keeping the mateless stockings with the hope the missing ones will eventually show up.

That happened to me once. Some friends of ours traveled to Russia as part of an agricultural aid team. Because I have Russian ancestry, they brought me a small Orthodox icon. I kept it where I could easily see it. In 1992, I when I went to the hospital for treatment, I took my icon with me as a familiar reminder of home. It fulfilled its function very well. I carefully packed it in my suitcase when it was time to go home. When I unpacked my suitcase and put everything away, I could not find my icon. I searched in the folds and pockets of everything. I even looked between the floor boards in the attic where I took the suitcase to store it until the next time I needed it. Periodically during the coming months I would search for the missing icon and eventually came to the conclusion it was gone and that I was mistaken in that I never brought it home with me.

During the following years, once in a while, I would look in a drawer where I might have put the icon without success. Then earlier this year, it was just there on the coffee table with my sewing things. During the past 17 years, I cannot begin to tell you how many times I took everything off the coffee table to put them away and tidy the room. I cannot tell you how many times I changed the magazines on the coffee table. I cannot tell you how many times I put away and took out again the fabrics and threads on the coffee table.

It was just as if on that specific day an angel put my little icon squarely on the table where I could not miss it even if I was look actively looking for it.

So I keep my little mateless stockings with the hope their mates will show up some day.