Premature Snow

The snow began today, but only in flakes which danced on the wind and instantly evaporated the moment they touched the still-warm ground. It was lovely to watch, unnerving to consider.

Winter is almost here and we are not ready for it. There are still far too many tasks left over from the summer which have not been accomplished. The yard is not ready, the house is not ready, the family is not ready.

Tomorrow is the first Playoff Game, and thoughts of it have consumed my brain because the Pit Crew, of which I am chief constable and organizer, must perform our duties once again. In the cold. In the damp. Expeditiously. In the middle of the day.

Putting these events in the middle of the day is a great inconvenience to those of us with very little interest in sports. The morning is spent in preparation; the evening is spent in recovery; the amount of energy spent in association with the activity precludes any other investiture. The house will be ignored; the yard will be ignored; the cars - oh so desperate for more attention - will suffer from the lack of it. And the day after tomorrow offers no respite. For what is the busiest day of the week if not Sunday, the day when we all "rest" by participating in all-day-long activities focused on our church family?

These are the times when I dread weekends, when there is no time for the activities on which I place the highest personal priority because there are community concerns which outweigh my own. I am, at heart, a selfish beast who would rather play in my shop than sit in a cold and windy stadium watching a game which gives me little pleasure. But one must always remember the Big Picture, especially when there are children involved. And it will soon be over.

Just in time for the serious snow to fall.

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In other news, we had a successful All Hallows E'en.  Adam was out playing games with his friends, James was working on his videos, Deb had a sleepover with a friend, and Mary stayed home and handed out treats while Cheryl and I went out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.

We decided to be weird this year and hand out Icy-Pops as well as candy for our treats, which was highly appropriate given that the air was so frightfully cold this year -- below freezing, with wind chill. My intention was to tell each child as they were handed their treat, that should the Icy-Pop become frozen, it was a sign that the child should immediately go home!  But owing to the fact that Cheryl and I were gone for the duration of the trick-or-treating, I didn't get to do that. But Mary enjoyed handing out the treats, and most of them were gone by the time we got home, so it was successful on its own right.

Anticipatory Disappointment

Winter is breathing down our necks and I'm in a hurry to get everything tied down before the snow starts falling.

Rumor is, the snow starts falling on Friday.

We ordered a "Deck Box" from Home Depot last week and it was delivered to the local store this morning and I got a notification in my email so ran over there after the big status meeting at work and picked up the box containing the "Deck Box" and took it home and put it in the third bay so later on I could enjoy the task of putting it together ... after dinner and homework and all the other routine events of the day had occurred. There was an anticipation of fun and joy that was building up all afternoon as I thought about it and daydreamed about it and then thought about it some more.

(It's sad when your daydreams involve putting together deck boxes made of plastic which inevitably decay in the sun.)

But there was delay after delay after delay, and I didn't get around to finally opening up the box and laying out the parts until nearly nine o'clock tonight, and you can imagine my horror / disgust / emotional upheaval when it was discovered that

... it was broken.

No sign of damage on the box. Just one corner of an end had been (somehow) shattered. But the endcaps won't stay on with all that broken plastic. And the glue won't hold (I know this from experience). Much sadness ensued.

So, since it was purchased on-line, Cheryl contacted the Customer Service folks (or at least their website) and sent them a very nice little email, complete with pictures of the damaged part, in the hope that they would provide us a replacement.

Soon.

Because winter is on its way. And we have a lot of gardening equipment to put into storage until Spring.

And I'm thinking of perhaps getting another storage box to put under the deck to store all the other "outdoorsy" things which I won't need after the snow falls.

Because space is getting to be quite a premium in my little garage.

Rearranging the Puzzle

The garage is still a mess and there's been no time to straighten it out. Most of what has been accomplished -- if that's the right word for it -- is in the vein of deconstruction rather than reorganization. Taking everything out of the shop area and putting it (temporarily) in the second bay until I can figure out where to put everything.

I'm having difficulty with a couple items. One is the old Toyota engine which I'd hoped to "restore" one day. But since I don't have the old '86 Corolla anymore, there's really no point in having it. Craigslist? eBay? It's time to get rid of it. But it won't be easy.

Another is the tea cart I built for Beauty and the Beast back in '11. I've been using it as a kind of workbench, but it's not really designed for it, and I hesitate to tear it apart because that would destroy whatever intrinsic value it had as a prop. And Cheryl did such a nice job on the decorations!

Oh, and there's all those Subaru engine parts, the ones I'm keeping around for spares. Since I bought a used engine to replace the one that went bad in Serenity, the parts are just taking up space. And I won't have any time (or inclination) to do anything with them this winter, so I've got to come up with a place to put them. Or just get rid of them.

I had hoped to rearrange all the items in the attic and the loft this past weekend and find room for all the things that won't be needed over the winter, but didn't have enough time. And here it is, Sunday night and time to think about the upcoming week. Lots of activity this week, not much of it focused on the garage. Mostly concerts (for Cheryl) and last-minute yard/house winter prep (for me). And homework (for the kids).

One little item that was accomplished, was blowing out the irrigation lines. Can't have any pesky water in the lines once the hard freeze comes, unless one is wanting one's irrigation system destroyed! So I pulled out my handy-dandy compressor and pushed 120 pounds of air through the lines and watched the pretty mist steam out of the sprinkler heads. Sadly, the sun was at the wrong angle to get a pretty rainbow.

Oh, well. Maybe next year.

Klackle Orchard and the Fallasburg Covered Bridge

It's the last warm weekend in 2014 for the state of Michigan -- or so we've been told -- which makes it the perfect weekend to take the family out for a drive in the countryside to see the beautiful fall colors and visit a cider mill to pick up some apples and cider and pies and donuts and fudge and all sorts of other wonderful treats.

Of course, it took us a while to get started. Cheryl and I had a Marching Band committee meeting at noon, which went on and on and on and on (as those things tend to do when there are so many things to talk about); by the time we got back to the house to pick up the kids, it was past two o'clock and the sun was on the lower end of the sky. I figured we had three hours to get there and back before it got dark - and it's not next door!

We took Cheryl's car because it needed a nice, long workout. And it rides really smooth. So smooth, in fact, that the kids fell asleep in the back seat!

We arrived at Klackle's in a bit of a stiff wind, but it didn't blow us over too much. We didn't bother with all the kiddie rides (there are lots of 'em) but went straight to the market to look at all the wonderful food. And try the apple samples. And cider samples. And select all kinds of fudge to try. And a dozen donuts of varying kinds (including pumpkin and apple-caramel). And pie: Apple Caramel and Pecan!

(Now if we only had some ice cream ...)

Afterward, we drove on down to Farrasburg to visit the Covered Bridge.

When the boys were (much) smaller, they attended a Boy Scout Jamboree nearby, which I barely remembered, but James did remember. I only remembered it when we drove around the final curve and saw it laid out in front of us.

We spent a few minutes wandering up the road and crossing the bridge and taking pictures and then just as we were about to get back in our car, this lady appeared who had lost her camera -- well, actually, her little daughter had lost her camera -- and she was asking everyone in the little parking lot if they'd seen it. We hadn't, but it made us feel quite sad that someone had lost something so important, with memories inside.

And then, as we were sitting in the car ready to go, the lady, who had crossed to the other side of the little country road to the ditch and scrub-grass beyond, suddenly cried out in joy because she had found the camera.

That made for a very successful conclusion to our visit.

Of course, it wasn't the end to our road trip. We still had miles and miles to go to get home, and then it was time for dinner. So guess what we had for dinner?

Yep. Apple pasta salad with apple slices. And apple donuts!

Deconstruction

It's the end of October, probably the last bit of warm weather we're going to see around here for a very long time, so we're starting to hunker down and plan for the Big Freeze. There's a lot of things that didn't get done this past summer, so it isn't possible to just sit in our cozy, warm house and read books by the firelight (no matter how much I'd like to do that); I'm going to need the shop and the tools and the snow blower and the shovels and all manner of other things in order to fix things around the house when they break down, as they always seem to do when it is least convenient.

But ...

There's Serenity. She's been laid up now for a couple years, waiting for me to get the engine running again, taking up valuable space, and I just don't have the heart to leave her out in the weather again, rusting. I want to get that car fixed. But there's too much going on right now. The priority is the basement, not my car, so she's got to sit around for a few more months waiting for life to slow down a bit, waiting for some attention. And only spot available for her is the third bay. The shop.

Unfortunately, the layout of the shop is not convenient for that purpose. Over the past few years, it's been built up quite a bit to be suitable for a shop, but not suitable for a place to park a car. Cars take up a lot of room. Subarus require 65 inches in width, 185 inches in length, and 60 inches in height. The shop is essentially a large box inside the garage, complete with doors and a ceiling; it's long enough and wide enough to handle the car -- except for all those pesky workbenches and shelves and table saws and welders and hammers and saws and other fix-it paraphernalia which clutters up a shop after a few years and a few trips to the hardware store.

So tonight I'm going to rip it all down to the bone and start over again. Somehow I have to find room for a shop and a car.

Hey! Miracles happen, don't they?

Trash Night

There was supposed to be great accomplishment today, Thursday, the day I can work from home without interruption and focus without distraction. Except for the interruptions and distractions. And plain ol' lack of motivation. Ever have one of those days? In Washington, it was every day when the sun shone bright. "Hey, this might never happen again!" And so the day is spent enjoying the good weather, doing outside things. Just like today. Except it wasn't outside things so much as it was not doing anything at all.

The day started out oddly. Someone (who shall remain nameless) left the car door open on Ruby (the red Subaru) and when I went outside to scrape the ice (yes, ice!) off the windows of the cars in preparation for ring-around-the-driveway, it was glowing like a crystal chandelier. Oops. Naturally, when I tried to start it up, the battery laughed at me, sputtered, and then died. Good thing no one needed to drive it today!

But I was prepared with my 75-amp cranking charger, so got the car started up in short order (only took ten minutes to charge it up enough to turn over and catch) and it was good as gold. Except for the oily burning smell from the oil dripping on the exhaust pipe. Hmmm. Gotta get that fixed.

Got the van de-iced by letting it run for ten minutes with the defroster running full-blast.  Too lazy to actually scrape the ice of the windows.

Same thing for my green one. Ten minutes of spewing noxious gases into the environment and the windows were clear enough to drive to work. Because I got called into a meeting on short notice, that's why!

But the day's news wasn't all bad -- Staples called to say that my wireless trackball had arrived, so I could go in and get it. And while I was at it, I stopped by Costco for the "usual suspects" (milk, mostly). And something for dinner, because tonight was ... tonight was ...

Busy. Cheryl had to run up north to deliver a "package" to its destination, I had to run over to the school for Robotics, James had to attend band practice. Adam was at school til late.

Then there was Jane Austen, Bones, and Grace Point. Then it was time to put out the trash. Goodness! Look at the time! I need to get to bed.

I didn't really get a chance to play with my new trackball.  But that's OK, because, as the reindeer sings, "There's always tomorrow ..."

Maybe something will get accomplished then.

Minor Accomplishments

So far this week, I have managed to accomplish two things: replacing the fuel pump in the Red Subaru, and installing the new in-sink disposal unit!  Yay, me!

In other news, Cheryl is still enjoying her new car, Adam is still in college, James is working lots of overtime and enjoying all the toys his money can buy, Deb is practicing her flute like crazy and getting ready for the playoff game¹ where she gets to wear a costume, and Mary is ... Mary is ... what on earth is Mary doing? Mostly she's reading, reading, reading.

That reminds me -- I need to start subscribing to The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post. There's entirely too much young adult-oriented reading material in this house which does not meet my standards of grammatical correctness and plot development. We need to expand some horizons around here!

In the old days, I subscribed to Analog, Asimov, and Alfred Hitchcock, but then found myself frustrated when it took only a day to finish all three magazines. Scientific American used to be lots of fun, too, but they moved so much of their content to the web that it takes only a few minutes to read through that one. Such short-lived pleasures for those who resist the siren call of the Internet!

How are people supposed to know what good, intellectually-stimulating reading material is all about these days? The web is inundated with so much content, it is difficult to filter out all the bad to find the good. And who takes time to read when so much time is spent being simply entertained?

I'm thinking of taking the winter "off" and just reading eight hours a day. Then writing for the other eight. And sleeping for the remainder.

Oh, wait, there's that basement to finish. Hmmmm.  Maybe I can get some audio books and listen to them while I work on the basement.

Any suggestions for really good mentally stimulating books?

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¹Yes, we made the playoffs. So Marching Band gets to perform at any home games. And we thought it was all over ...!