All Hallows 2020

Mom got a new iPad and gave me her old one. So this is the first post I am writing using my new iPad.

Here we are on Halloween and we are not running around getting decorations and flying ghosts ready for the big night...thanks to the Pandemic.

Instead, we are preparing for a small gathering of the folks who come and help us every Halloween. Editor's Note: At this point, the iPad started acting up and not properly displaying what I had written. So I'm not very impressed with posting on the iPad and it's back to using the laptop.

Anyway, we're having this little gathering for se7en of us. We're having chili and assorted snacks and watching, "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

We have one Halloween decoration we are putting out this year.

We figure this will send the message that we are not participating in Halloween.

Okay, I lied about only putting out one decoration. We put a bunch of our craft pumpkins out on the deck.

That made it a little more festive in the kitchen.

Once the sun went down, there were people trolling the park. I have since learned that there were only four house open for Trick or Treating and one house told me they had about 300.

Even with our giant hint out there on the front steps, we had one group that rang the doorbell. We did not respond.

2020 Punkin Carvin'

 Tonight we carved our two pumpkins. I did my usual semi scary pumpkin and Susan did her usual cool cat pumpkin.

They came out just about as you might expect.

And they look pretty cool when lit up.

Halloween Prepping

We are closing in on the scariest day of the year and trying to prepare our one little decoration we are putting out.

Frankly, I happy to not be putting out all our regular decorations this year. With the snow still hanging in the yard, it was going to be even more of a job to set everything up.

This year, we have made a new tombstone that we will put at the top of the steps to the front porch.

Along with the tombstone, we'll put up some Police Tape to further enhance the message that we are not handing out candy this year.

The plan for this year is to invite our regular Halloween friends who come over to help out with crowd control and crowd scaring. Susan is making up some chili and we are going to watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas"...a Halloween Classic.

Beyond that, we have done some minor inside decorating for Halloween. And when I say "We", I mean Susan.

Snow Fall Out

Yesterday's paper said that we set a record for the most snow in a single day for October. The paper also mentioned that we received 3.3 inches of snow last year on October 6th. So this wasn't the earliest snow fall of size, but it was biggest.

There are tree branches all over town that have fallen. We lost several branches off the big maple tree on the west side of the house. Upon further inspection, we have a couple of branches that have snapped but not fallen. They are leaning up on the roof around the area of the chimney.

Above are some pictures of the damage. You can see that the one big branch that snapped off is still up and needs to come down. I'm calling Randy the Insurance Guy tomorrow.

This early snow has really caught me off guard. I haven't shut off the water to the outside faucets although I was smart enough to disconnect the hoses and put the sprinklers away.

I also need to put the rain barrels away for the season. Unfortunately, they seem to full of frozen water and are not likely to be moved anytime soon. I'm hoping we will be having a warming trend in the next couple of weeks that will help me out.

My organizational skills were put to the test today as I attempted to find a cord of heat tape that I wrap around the faucet in the backyard. It took me a while because I did not remember where I stored it and it wasn't in any of the places I looked first. But I found it. That's another 40 minutes I wasted.

By now, I would imagine I've wasted a year of my life looking for stuff that I didn't put away properly.

First Snow

 We have received the first snowfall of the season. It started about 9AM and has been falling all day. It is now almost 5.

The above picture was taken at 10:30.

And this one was taken at 12:30.

At this point, I would say we have about 4 inches on the ground.

A snowfall this early in the season usually doesn't stick around for very long. But we have so much snow on the ground, I'm thinking it may hang around for a while.

We have a fire going which is adding to the ambiance of the wintry scene.

It's 7:00 PM and it's still coming down.

I had to go out and knock snow off the satellite dish. I think this may be the earliest big snow we have ever had. It's certainly the earliest big snow in my quasi-faulty memory.

Post Anniversary Post

A rather non productive day around the house as Autumn is setting it's clutches into the scenery.

I have no idea why that would lead us to be non productive, and in fact, we were a little productive.

Susan continued work on her floor repair project and I worked on the closet door, sanding it smooth and filling the old screw holes. It is almost ready to paint.

It's kind of dangerous to walk up our walkway. The chestnuts have been raining down and they are everywhere.

I just had some kids come by asking to rake leaves. I told them I'm waiting for more to fall before I tackle the yard.

Our marriage turned 16 yesterday. Quite an achievement for both Susan and I. We are celebrating tonight with a night out to our new  place we visited once and liked, the Texas Roadhouse.

It's quite an ordeal to get in there. We call in to get on the Wait List. We want to go about 7 so I'm calling to get on the list at 6. By then it should be a good 45 minutes to an hour wait.

When we arrive after our appointed wait time, we check in at the front door. Then they will tell us to wait in the car until we get a text telling us it's our turn.

We're heading to the Hub first for a pre-anniversary beer.

8:35PM: We have returned from the Texas Roadhouse. We waited all of five minutes before we were seated. I find my opinion is not the same as last time. My steak was okay but not rare as requested. The other thing I noticed is that their food is really salty. The mushrooms they served with my steak were heavily salted. The Baked Potato skin is waaaay to salty and so I didn't eat that.

The salad was really good though.

Mulling Over the Boiler Game

I am thinking that the Boiler Game will end tonight. 

It was a little on the nippy side in the house last night. We had the space heater going in the kitchen and it kept us comfortable but I think we are getting to the point where we need the extra boost. Of course, turning on the boiler is quite a boost to our Avista bill as well.

I just checked our bill on line and we have a $32.00 credit. That bodes well for starting off a new season of consuming mass quantities of natural gas.

I'll have to talk to Susan tonight to see what she thinks. The longer we hold off, the more money we save.

6:00PM: The Boiler Game is over! It ended at 5:38 PM today. 

I talked to Susan about it when I got home and we decided it was time. I took her downstairs with me because I don't think she has ever seen how to restart the gas and turn on the furnace. Everything went smoothly and almost all of the radiators heated up. I have two that don't seem to warm up. There was no leaking.

For the eighth year in row, the winner of the Boiler Game was Hugh G. Rection of Altoona, PA. Mr. Rection's guess was September 2nd at 12 midnight. That's not very close to the actual date and time but as in years past, Mr. Rection was the only person to enter.

Boiler Game Update

 It's getting very close to the end of the Boiler Game. The mornings are quite chilly. I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out.

For some reason, October 13th hangs in my mind as a day of significance concerning the boiler game.

I just checked the archives and the date to beat is October 21st. That record was set back in 2011.

Other information I discovered while looking back, it's been three years since we had the new garage door installed and we have been catless for over a year now, losing Oscar last October 5th.

So now the race is on to see if I can wait eight days to tie the record. It does not look promising for a new record. The forecast calls for highs in the 50's and a good chance of rain. Plus, today there is a wind advisory for this afternoon with possible gusts up to 60 mph.

Stand by!

A Sunday in Autumn

Since I announced the end of Summer in the last post, I decided it was time to do some end of Summer yard work. I didn't rake any leaves. I don't see the point yet. Besides, the rain made them wet and heavy. More rain is coming and will probably knock down a bunch more leaves.

I concentrated on the hops and the grape vines. I cut the grape vines waaaaaay back and pulled down the hops.

I also started cutting the trim for the front window in the TV Room. I have three of five strips prepped. I had to stop because Lou came over to help with the door.

First he used his door planers to even up the strip of wood we glued to the door.

Then he clamped a board on the door to use as a guide for making a nice clean cut on the edge.

It took a couple of cuts but we (Lou) made it fit.

I'm quite happy to have salvaged this mistake. Obviously, we still have some work to do. Sanding, painting and filling some holes.

Susan cannot give up on the floor we damaged when we reinstalled the radiator. She just worked on this little strip and I can't say she dramatically improved it.

The improvement that made a difference was painting the crown molding.

All the little imperfections have disappeared with a fresh coat of paint. Nice job, Susan.

Fall Arrives, Halloween is Killed and a Rookie Mistake

 Autumn has officially arrived as of this morning. The newspaper reported we are into the third warmest October on record. The rain that fell over the night and into the afternoon breaks a 99 day dry spell that has not been equaled since 1917.

I'm continuing to work on the door but I'm taking a different approach. I'm including a professional person in my repair. My neighbor, Lou came over yesterday and we glued this strip of wood onto the door and let it dry over night.

The next step is to use a door planer on it. Since I have no experience with that, I shall wait for Lou. In the meantime, I moved the door out of the rain and removed the clamps. I'm going to return them to Lou right now.

Susan is decorating the inside of the house for Halloween. We are not decorating outside as Covid has killed Halloween 2020. At least as far as we are concerned.

We decided not to participate in Halloween this year because I can't justify handing out candy to throngs of people (mostly kids) who cannot keep a six foot distance. They just pack in too tight.

Here's are a couple of reminders of how thick it can get.

It's just after 3:00PM and we are waiting for a woman to come by who has some grapes to crush. She drove down to Benton City this morning, picked up her grapes and is returning here for a crushing.

After we bought our Crusher, I put up a flyer at Jim's Home Brew and have gotten a few calls from it. I'm going to have to give Jim's a commission.

This is the first time we've used the crusher in two years. We couldn't get any grapes last year because of an early freeze that took out a lot of acreage.

We're not even sure we will be able to get grapes this year.

4:47PM: The lady showed up and we crushed about 90 pounds of Cabernet grapes. They were very sweet. I did a really dumb move though. 

She had three bins of grapes that were approximately 30 pounds per bin. The receptacle she had for the crushed grapes didn't look very big so after we crushed the first bin, I suggested running the grapes through again. I totally forgot about the juice we already had in the can and when I poured it through, we lost a bunch of juice. Stupid! We didn't loose too much but it was a rookie mistake of colossal proportions.

Fortunately, she was nice about it.