Seasons

Northern Peacefulness

"No matter what your age, there is a time when you turn on the gas to your brain and the pilot light is out."           Erma Bombeck

"What happened?"  The WT's are wondering.  "Wasn't it just spring three days ago?"  We're holding our picnic baskets wondering where the next picnic will be.  School buses are driving by and the fall sports are full steam ahead.  We have not noticed any robins lately and the geese have been spotted gathering together discussing who the flight leader will be.  At least they don't have to tolerate politicians ad nauseum on T.V.  

Mary is busy teaching seminars and we are enjoying viewing her new apron cut out fabrics.  Lorraine is having the outside of her house painted in the midst of company for a granddaughter's wedding and dust rising up from street construction.  Naomi, Elsie and Nancy are cutting back on their gardening.  Deer have developed a gourmet appetite and are munching on favorite plants of the gardeners.  

WT's are looking forward to the Pumpkin Fest in a few weeks.  There is a run/walk race, crafts, a quilt show, food and pumpkin pie.  The local Evergreen Company is advertising for flat needle balsam branches and taking applications for employees.  The annual All Slav Fall Festival is coming up.  The florist tells us that fall decorating time is here.  Fisherman are reminded that it's time to winterize their boats--they dare to use the word, winter.  We may complain now and then but we do like the change of seasons--good for the mind, body and soul.

   

Progress

Progress is noisy, dusty and interesting.  Shovels are crawling along piles of loose dirt, tipping precariously, there is constant beeping of equipment backing up, houses vibrate when the work is nearby.  Young men are working hard, taking off their shirts and hanging them on trees at 46 degrees, steam rising from their bodies.  They are polite and accommodating.  The holes are dug and filled up faster than anything can be put into them.  We are hoping for tarred streets by October. 

The WT's thought that this was a very "cute" machine.  When it zips around, it looks like a little robot, a man can barely fit into it.  The WT gardeners would find this to be handy. 

 

 We had five WT's at coffee this morning, on a misty, rainy day, a touch of cold in the air.  Not much on our agendas, a day for catching up in the house.  The road workers aren't out in the rain today.  Mary presented a program about her apron collection on Saturday and Lorraine attended a fund raiser spaghetti dinner and learned that she had many shirt-tail relatives she had never met. 

Our town is experiencing many changes.  We were happy to have a new asissted living facility and two dollar stores in town.  But, we are saddened to have our drugstore going out of business, our dentist retired and the floral shop is for sale.  We are hoping for better times.  

 Our Shopper is full of fall events:  a Corn Feed at the Baptist church, sports sign up, an all Slav fall dinner, firewood for sale and a last round of various community picnics.  Church activities will increase--quilting, etc.  We will try to keep up. 

Obstacle course

 

The monsters are waiting to devour the neighborhood.

The WT's have been in short supply, lately.  There are often 2-3 of us out for morning coffee.  Summer has everyone scattered about and we have to plan ahead to get out of our neighborhood. There is major construction going on--digging up rusty pipes that are decades old and hauling in 

mountains of gravel, etc.  Sometimes, we have to check with a worker, hoping we won't be trapped in our driveway for the day.  

Since we are having a decent summer, weather-wise, we now have something else to converse about.

Our water supply is coming from water hydrants, through hoses into our outside water faucets.  Seems rather backwards.  Otherwise, the WT's are hanging in there.  Lorraine has two grandchild weddings this summer and celebrated an aunt's 100th. birthday.  Mary is very busy with seminars.  Tee makes a weekly trip to visit with her husband in a nursing home, Sharon's husband is doing well.

We had a wonderful opera during the Northern Lights Festival--"The Merry Widow".