So much happened during the time that I was not posting that I want to try to do a little catch-up for you. 
When we arrived home from the lake cottage on 20 September, I expected that the hummingbirds would have left. 
But - - - They were still hanging around the feeders for the next week.  It was an unexpected pleasure. 
When they finally left, the chickadees started to check out the hummingbird feeders.  I took that as an indication that they wanted their seed.  They sat in the apple tree and watched me hang their feeders.  I hardly had time to turn around before they swooped into the feeders.  They are such messy eaters; seed seemed to fly out of the tray.  The squirrels come in to eat the seed that falls on the ground. 

Speaking of squirrels, they are going to be a great source of entertainment this winter.  This year food was plentiful so there are lots and lots of squirrels. 

After telling you I had not seen Mr. Buck for quite a while, I saw a deer this morning.  It was trotting at quite a pace through the park behind the house.  I could not even see if it had antlers. 

Earlier this month we had confirmation at church.  The youth director thought it would be nice to give each one a fleece blanket with the United Methodist emblem.  The only thing about that was she could not find any such thing. 

She ordered some gorgeous navy blue fleece blankets from Amazon and some United Methodist patches.  A group of us agreed to stitch a patch on a blanket. 

As I stitched each one of these blankets, I thought about figuratively wrapping my arms around each of the confirmants.  The gift of the blanket was intended to remind each student that he/she was wrapped in the arms of the congregation. 

I Am Back

I have been gone so long.  We are closing out our Earthlink account which has five e-mail boxes.  It has been a monster job.  To top it off a couple weeks ago the issuer of our Mastercard called to verify a suspicious charge.  It appeared that someone or people randomly generated Mastercard account numbers one of which was ours.  He/She/It ran a test charge of £1 from some where in London.  As I said, the issuer of our card caught it; declared the account compromised and issued us new cards. 

While we were busy trying to close the Earthlink account, we had to change the automatic charges on the Mastercard account one of which is Earthlink.  We tried very hard to finish closing out Earthlink before having to change the credit account but decided it would be better to go ahead and do it even if it is only for a month. 

I have been spending so much time on the computer sorting through the e-mail boxes and transferring files to the new e-mail boxes that I have had little time to even read the blogs that I follow.  I just want to get away from the computer.  

Now back to those cute pumpkins.  A month ago, I picked them and the squash.  I left one pumpkin vine because it had several cute small pumpkins that were extremely green.  I had hoped to give them a chance to ripen.  Now a month later, the pumpkins are all gorgeous orange; we are still waiting on the small ones.  The vine that I left grew up the grape arbor, up the fence, and up the garden shed.  I later discovered that it grew into the neighbor's yard. 

She came to our house with the cutest little bright green pumpkin.  She was afraid that it might be the only pumpkin so she wanted us to have it.  I just said. "Oh, my goodness, come into the back yard and see what we have."  I told her that the little pumpkin was hers but that it probably would not ripen.  I gave her a couple of the small ones that have a reasonable chance of ripening for her daycare kids to watch. 

Shortly after that as I hung up sheets to dry, I heard the little daycare kids talking about a pumpkin.