Rick did not go to work today. A state of emergency was declared by the state of New Jersey. We got dumped on royally. Hammered. Slammed with snow. At least it wasn’t heavy, wet snow.

Would someone out there please remind me the next time I want to get more or less snowed in? Would you remind me that sitting by the fire with the snow falling outside and watching Lord of the Rings is a lot of fun and all very nice but the price one has to pay the next day is not as fun? Digging out is hard work! We probably got about 20 inches of snow on the level and drifts that are much higher. The snow on our deck is around 30 inches I think because it blew off the roof and drifted pretty badly.

And the price one pays for having a cute little sports car sitting snug in its little cover in the garage is digging out the poor old Suburban that now lives outside in the driveway. Mia, I hope you realize how good you have it!

I tried to get on the deck from the driveway but I had trouble getting up the stairs so I had been letting the dogs out the basement door since we could not get out the sliding doors to the deck without letting a lot of snow fall inside the house. I let Bella and Hailey out downstairs, then came back upstairs thinking I would let them in in a few minutes. I heard Hailey bark and it sounded like she was down there wanting to come in, so down I went. Bella was happily laying in the snow bank, but no Hailey to be seen. I went back upstairs and it occurred to me that she might have tried coming up on the deck and maybe was stuck. I went to the sliding door and this is what I saw. Hailey. Wanting in.

After seeing that sad face I couldn’t turn her away, so we let her in and dealt with the avalanche of snow that came tumbling into the house with her. At least now there was a path through all that snow! Oh, and by the way, she is standing up!

After I shoveled a bit it looked like this:

Poor Rick looked like the abominable snowman on Johnny with the wind whipping the snow around.

I don’t think we’ll be eating at the table outside on the deck anytime soon.

Or by the pool for that matter!

Bella is probably the only one who is having fun today.

We are as “dug out” as we’re going to be and are now in for the rest of the day! Whew!

Preparations will reach a frenzied peak today as we get ready to leave tomorrow on our big road trip West.

The dogs have been groomed, so they are clean and smell good. I had them booked in at their groomer for yesterday but she called me on Sunday to say that she was very sick with some kind of flu and couldn’t do them. OH NO! Instead of waiting until Monday to call around to see if I could find someone else to groom them, Rick and I pooled our efforts and bathed and blew-dried them all on Sunday afternoon. Of course they are all shedding like crazy. What a mess. But, it’s done.

The fig tree was supposed to go over to my neighbor’s yesterday around early evening but we had a pretty good thunderstorm, so that got delayed until later today. It needs watering every day so Aileen has agreed to care for it. It will stand in her flower bed and should be pretty happy over there.

The dogs know something is up. They were ready to go on Sunday when we cleaned out the Suburban and put their crates in it. At least Alex knows what is coming I think. They are barky and jumpy and they are driving me nuts. The cats will try to hide in the morning and we’ll have to find them, but we know all of eBay’s hiding places and Sam is just too darned big to hide.

Rick caught the cold bug that I had over the weekend and isn’t feeling the greatest. Nothing horrible, just sinus headache and stuffy head, sore throat. It only lasted 48 hours with me, so hopefully he’ll be feeling pretty good tomorrow. I hope so since he is the main driver!

The pool was closed yesterday. Sad, but it was time. Now we don’t have to worry about running the robot all the time just to get up the acorns that have made their way to the bottom. It has its nice cozy winter cover on which should act more like a trampoline for the acorns ... boing!

Mostly I am feeling ready and organized but I know I will have last minute packing anxiety. Not that clothes are hard to figure out at the cabin—nothing fancy required! And no dressing up to go into town either. After all, it is just Laramie.

I will probably blog from the cabin if anyone is interested ...

Bella and Sam ... watching ... waiting ...

Has it really been one whole week since I last blogged? It doesn’t seem that long. I guess I have some catching up to do. It’s going to be a long one, so please bear with me as I wade through the goings-on of the past week +.

We had a good Labor Day weekend and the weather was glorious. We didn’t do much of anything, just some yard work such as emptying the deck flower boxes of their past-their-prime petunias, one of the signs of a winding down of summer.

The petunias may have been done with in the flower boxes but they managed to seat themselves in various places, such as the potted palm that has been spending the summer outside

and also poolside.

The weather has taken a turn since my last post. Nights are cooler and every day we have less sunlight. The sun has a hard time getting above the trees for the better part of the day. The pool deck is covered with bits and pieces of acorns that continually drop from the big oak tree at the far corner, making loud thonks! whenever they hit. Fall is in the air.

Earl completely missed us and all we got was a bit of wind on Saturday. Since he passed by our weather has been just beautiful: blue skies and cool days. Perfect for throwing the windows wide open and letting the breeze blow through the house. I have to admit though that we needed to close up the house on Sunday night because it was too darned cold! 47 degrees F overnight!

The heat wave of last week did allow the pool to recover slightly in temperature (74 F) and we went for what we believe was the last swim on Friday night. With the past few nights dipping down into the 50’s and high 40’s, the temperature has tanked back down to 70 F again. I don’t think it’s going to recover this time.

We’ve had this visitor several times in the front yard. Eating acorns I’m thinking since it is always in the same spot: under the oak tree.

The only thing really left blooming in my yard is the overgrown morning glory vine that is threatening to take over the deck and Rick’s weather station. It got a late start this year.

Another sad thing on the winding down side of things is that we had to euthanize our old kitty, Vincent van “Goatee” last week. He was our little “Frenchman” kitty that came with us when we moved back from France. He was 18 1/2 years old and failing in health. It was hard to make the decision to let him go but when friend Carolyn visited and she sat down and talked to him, the end result was that she agreed it was time. Over the past year we’ve known that he probably had cancer from the results of his blood test and he had to live in an x-large doggie airline crate because of his lack of bathroom habits. He stopped taking care of his fur and it became matted, fell out and never regrew. We nursed him along but his quality of life confined to a crate was poor.

Over the past month or so he started looking very gaunt and was really nothing but skin and bones. With our three week vacation looming, we knew we could not leave him with a cat sitter coming in once a day, and feared that he would pass while we were gone. Here he is with eBay in better days, and getting a treat on Christmas three years ago. It’s hard to remember that he ever looked that good; he’d been failing for so long. Sleep well, sweet Vinnie.

And the gearing up, you ask? Well, I was gifted this gorgeous fig tree by a neighbor.

It came complete with instructions for its care.

And figs!!!!

Some of which we’ve already harvested and eaten!

And the biggest “gearing up” is of course for our westward trek to our cabin back in Colorado. Next week this time we’ll be somewhere in Indiana! Lists are being made. Piles of things to take are starting to accumulate in the spare bedroom.  Recipes are being poured over and rated (or not) as cabin meal candidates. The Suburban got washed and awaits its interior cleaning this weekend and the donning of its roof rack and storage pod. Soon, I tell the dogs. Soon you’ll be running free over the high prairie—and Bella—you’ll be swimming in the beaver pond. And your Dad and I will be sitting on the screened-in porch after dinner listening to the coyotes sing.

Very soon.

Thanks for slogging through this week with me!

Unlike that old 60’s song that goes ...
Hey 98.6, it’s good to have you back again…

It’s NOT good to have you back. Again. Just when you think summer is over (like last week with all the rain and temps in the 60’s) it comes back to slap you right in the face. WHACK! Not over yet, thank you very much. ouch. That hurts. I am so done with summer. Especially since the pool has not gone above 71 degrees in spite of the hot temperatures. Not fair! Look at yesterday’s weather stats taken from our weather station.

Maybe Earl will have something to say about that this weekend. Will he impact us or or not?

And for those of you who are too young to remember the song, go here to hear it. For some reason I am having trouble inbedding videos into my blog.

I leave you today with a few early morning shots of Green Turtle pond from our Sunday canoe paddle-around.

The mist was still rising from the surface when we first go there.

After the mist cleared the surface was like a piece of glass.

Last night just as we were preparing dinner, Hailey started barking and looking out the sliding screen door in the sun room. We looked out and didn’t see anything and told her to be quiet. A few minutes later she was barking again. This time I stepped outside on the deck to take a look. Sure enough, I saw a big black object down by the back fence in the woods. I went to get the binoculars to take a better look and when I got back the object had moved. Yes, for sure: a bear. A big one. It was on the inside of the fence, in our yard and seemed very intent on eating or digging something up. It must have heard us talking, but didn’t even raise its head.

Rick pulled out the grill and we continued with our dinner plans, all the while having a bear in our woodsy yard munching away on his dinner. Life here is so weird sometimes and what is even stranger is that it doesn’t seem all that strange to us to have it include bears at close range.

Today would have been my mom’s 84th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom wherever you are. We still miss you like crazy. It hardly seems possible you’ve been gone from us for three years now.

Bella, sweet Bella, turned two years old yesterday. She got toys and bones. She was like a little kid going from one to the other.

My friend Carolyn arrives later today to spend the weekend with us. Included in our plans are the Renaissance Faire tomorrow (so I am airing out my wench costume), canoeing on Green Turtle Pond, attending our neighborhood block party for a while on Sunday and hopefully taking a dip in the pool since it’s supposed to be hot again. A full and fun weekend!

We’ve had four days of rain in a row this week with yesterday finally clearing up and being lovely and should continue to be so through most of next week. It’s supposed to be back in the mid 80’s again. The difference is that instead of getting in to the high 60’s at night, it now dips down to the 50’s. The pool does not like 50 degree nights. No sireee. It didn’t like all that lovely rain either. So, it remains to be seen if we are brave enough (and hot enough) to get into 72 degree water; a full ten degrees off from where it was.

I’m starting to think about what we need to take with us to the cabin and gathering stuff up and putting it in the spare bedroom. Trying to decide what our meal will be. We’re looking forward to it! If you want to read the cabin blog entries from past years, I’ve now created a category called “Cabin” over on the right hand side of the blog. Clicking on that link will bring them all up. Enjoy!