Onward

Finally, John is here to stay for the week! He has traveled three weeks in a row and it got a little tiresome for us both. The house seems much less "full" when he's not in it.

The shed is almost complete. All that remains is to shingle the roof and install the skylight. John will add some gutters for the rain barrels and inside he will make some kind of loft for (yet more) storage. The skylight and the two windows will allow us to winter some plants or plant some seedlings in there as well. We still have to figure out what to do with the (really) large mound of dirt left from digging out the area. A small tractor and front loader would be nice about now. Next up, we call the driveway guy and get that done before the really big rains (and snow) arrive.

The kitchen cabinets got their knobs and handles installed. Lesson learned: handles are a lot more tricky than single-hole knobs. It took most of the day to get it all done; 32 knobs and 14 handles. Today I'll stick with sewing chickens, getting a massage, and watching some football. Less is definitely more on the weekend. We attended the annual fundraiser event last night for the Humane Society. Incredibly, we came away without buying anything. But we have a soft spot for this organization and were happy to see them raise over $44,000 for their medical fund. They do good work there.

Our own resident animals are well. John took Zoe to the vet Friday to see why she is shedding three times more fur than ever before (and to discuss her anorexic state). She has lost 4 pounds so a new food was prescribed and she gave it a hearty thumbs up for the first two days. This morning she is holding back, waiting to see what else might be on the menu. The vet also thought her thyroid might be at the root of the shedding problem so a small dose of medication was prescribed to boost her level. We'll see what this month brings. Meanwhile, Roosevelt continues his strict surveillance of the garage for errant mice. So far, with the new audio disruptive devices in place, his security rounds have not turned up any of the small terrorists.

Our weather gave one last shout-out to summer last week with temperatures in the high 70s. That all came crashing down about 3am this morning when, as predicted, the wind came up and a new front came in bringing rain and cooler weather for the week. John rose to the pressure yesterday and mowed all the lawn/meadow/jungle clearing. There can't be many more of those mowing days left in the year. Next weekend we look forward to a visit from both Gareth and Karen and hopefully the weather will behave. Until then, it's business as usual....