Tail of the Dragon

We went to the crafts fair yesterday as noted in my last post. For most of the time, we wandered and looked. I marvel at the creativity of people and their talent. Near the end, we stopped to look in a photographer's booth and found something we didn't know we needed (which is almost always the case when you're "gathering"). We ended up buying this stunning photograph for the wall.

It's called Dragontail Reflections. You can see more of the photographer's work on his Web site. The shot was taken at the Enchantment Lakes near Leavenworth here in Washington. There's a glacier there in the center and to the left is the Dragontail. He had some beautiful work and it was the premiere showing for this new piece. While we were in the booth "sealing the deal", about 5 more people came by and asked about this piece. Very nice...

Just around the corner....

It's cold. Today it is predicted to stay in the 30s for the day. But then I look at Fairbanks, Alaska, where our beloved house/pet sitter just moved and it's -41 degrees. That's "minus" 41 degrees! So, we won't whine about a mere chill in the air. Late November is the wettest time of year up here which means, unfortunately, that next week over the Thanksgiving holiday, it will rain. That being said, most of that rain falls in light showers and needs only a hood on a jacket as you go about daily doings. And that concludes the whining portion of this blog post.

John traveled last week and arrived home on Thursday evening. The hard-headed brown dog and I carried on as usual in his absence, though the absence was noticeable. And Roosevelt found that sleeping on the bed when the house is chilly at night is not such a bad thing after all.

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, and visitors arriving on Tuesday, there are some preparations to prepare this weekend. There are menus to plan and food to buy to actualize them, as well as some general tidying up around here. But we don't live by chores alone, so I will drag John to a huge craft show (Actually, he has offered to accompany me) today or tomorrow. I have forewarned him that this is a "gatherer" event, not a "hunter" event, meaning that I will browse slowly through the hall, not "go in, buy something, and leave". And he will need to do whatever it is that hunters do while waiting on the gatherers to gather.

The fence-fixing folks promise to call sometime next week to arrange a date to do the necessary repairs on the gate. And, depending on the rain, John will continue to work on those pesky gutters for the shed. There's an issue with the sealant and temperature and that's about all I care to know.

Winter is just around the corner. The Olympics are wrapped in a shawl of clouds as snow has begun to cover them. The Cascades have accumulated more snow and the ski resorts are reporting 30 inches for their openings this weekend. There are some colorful  leaves left on some trees and they might last out the month. Fortunately, we will still have the green of the conifers throughout the winter. It's a pretty good place to be...

Crisp Outside, Cozy Inside

Ahh....a busy week has come and gone. We've got the estimate for the gate repair and have accepted the price. Hopefully, this won't be a regular repair and, done properly, it will last more than 3 years. I hope they can get it done quickly as our driveway has seen more traffic in the past two weeks than in the two plus years we have lived here. Granted, it's only been a few and most of them have been delivery trucks, but I have become unused to sudden and unexpected knocks on the door. Seclusion (solitude) seems to agree with me.

The weather has turned to more rain and chillier temperatures, more in keeping with Autumn and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Something about chilly weather seems more in sync with a turkey roasting and football on the television. And one of the reasons to live here was to have more seasonal weather. Speaking of that, today I will put the emergency equipment back into the car. Last year, that sudden snow that caused me to take 4 hours to travel home from work occurred on the 22nd of November. Better safe than sorry, eh? Hopefully, "Snowmageddon" won't happen again this year. Snow is nice, but then it should melt. In any event though, I am more prepared than I was last year. And on the home front, we didn't get an on-demand generator this year, so we'll hope for few and short power outages and manage with the candles and battery-powered lamps when needed.

Chores were the order of the day yesterday. That's the usual agenda for Saturdays. Today I will tackle the garage and try to get the treadmill set up for use. I should be able to move some "stuff" around to make that happen, but the shed is already "off-limits" I am told for any more storage out there. Seems it feels cramped to the resident handyman. I'm sure once we have installed some shelves, a loft, and a workbench, it will be quite spacious. Here's a picture of the shed in its present state.

And here is a picture of the gate (lying in the leaves at the left) just up from the little blue reflector. You can also see the stone post.

And another of the driveway across the road. The leaves have fallen in great quantities this year and the colors have been so vibrant. It's the cozy time of year...

The "Home" Team

Well, the broken gate remains in a broken state but is out of the way, at least. That sympathetic repairman did arrive and he and his helper removed the gate from the bottom hinge and placed it to the side. We're waiting on an estimate to fix it which requires constructing a legitimate post on which to mount it with legitimate metalwork to support it. If we involve a stone mason (because we choose the option to reconstruct it within the stone pillar and have to rebuild the pillar), that will automatically raise the price about $5,500. So...we're going with Plan B where they will construct  posts right behind the pillars, leaving them intact. Like I said, we're waiting for the estimate.

Meanwhile, we have had the gutters cleaned and the driveway regraded as we prepare for winter and rain. So far though, the weather has been pretty nice through October and here we are, in November, and it's still quite pleasant. Temperatures have fallen and we get to the high 40s during the daytime. Chilly, but fresh. The leaves won't stay on the trees much longer.

John has been home the past week and will remain for this week as well as payback for his two consecutive weeks of travel. Finally, he got to experience the "call of the wild" when he took Zoe out for her o'dark thirty duty call this morning. The coyotes were partying and yipping up a storm in the woods. And when some rustling started in the bushes at the edge of the clearing that passes for our lawn, he and the Z-dog retreated to the house. It's an eerie sound they make.

I have a massage scheduled for this morning and then I hope to spend the rest of the day focused on completing a quilted wall hanging. I have the applique done and it's on to adding the borders, building the layers,and then quilting it all together. I'll put some soup on to simmer so dinner will take care of itself later. John is working on putting the gutters on the shed and that will be his project du jour.

It's going to be a busy week at work for me. Having John here will be nice. It has been nice. As you can see from all the "maintenance" that was done, there's a fair amount of householding that is better accomplished when there is someone available to manage that. Harder to do when juggling work/home schedules and demands on my own and remotely. Go Team Grant!