Monday Morning

6:50 AM

Good morning!

Man, but it is DARK out there today! Seems exponentially so, but what's up with that? The sunrise couldn't be THAT many minutes later this morning than it was Friday, could it? I'll have to check that out, online, once we have Internet service again. (Update: there was only a 4-minute lag between sunrise's twilight Friday and today, so maybe the overcast skies made the difference.)

So, yes, we are still having problems with our satellite reception. It seems that I can get enough (reception) to receive & send e-mails (as long as they don't have attachments), but using the Internet with any success is fairly futile. And aggravating. Hence, I am writing this post in Outlook this morning . . . hoping I can post it later today.

As I was standing on the back step watching Tom get situated in the car this morning, pretty white flurries were falling around me. It's definitely time for that (occasional snow), but what a weird fall we've had! Due to the warm temperatures, we still have WAY more leaves hanging onto the trees than we normally would this time of year.

A really cool thing happened this morning just as Tom was retrieving his iPod from the garage: a sudden "oooooooOOOOOO" rose from just beyond the chicken yard and sounded like it was located about halfway down the driveway. The dogs and I both whipped our heads in that direction, and I was fully expecting the dogs to raise an alarm saying, "Wolf! Wolf! There's a wolf just over there!" when the sound broke away from the rising howl into some "OOOOh, hoooo, hoo!" sounds and then a babbling little "bbblllloooogh" (or something like that!). It was an owl and, judging by how loud its call was, maybe a HUGE one. 'Course, Murphy's Law & Mother Nature's camouflage being what they are, it was probably a teensy little thing! :) Anyway, instead of the canines responding, Turkey-Durk piped up with a very loud gobble shot back in the general direction of the noise.

Purdy neat, though, that's for sure! :)

The first snow of the year greeted us Saturday morning. SO pretty, as usual. I have pictures, but they'll have to wait until later when I can post them. The HughesNet (our ISP & satellite provider) technician is due to come out tomorrow, but I have some jockeying to do since I'm scheduled to work.

I took advantage of a cozy Sunday morning and was a COMPLETE slug-a-bug yesterday . . . hunkering down on the library's couch to watch all four episodes of my recent Netflix arrival, 'CSI': season 9, episodes 5-8. I did feel a bit guilty since Tom was out in the garage changing the oil & spark plugs in the Onan generator (our backup when the solar panels don't catch enough rays to charge up the batteries). We're going into the highest-use season for the generator since sunshine in these here parts is practically non-existent in the early & mid-winter months.

After that electrical system maintenance, Tom continued on with his get-things-done day and split a BUNCH of cedar kindling for me to have here in the house for the three wood stoves. Then, he spent the rest of the day clearing up the remainder of the felled standing dead (trees) that lay along both sides of the driveway that leads up to the Trapper Cabin. That meant chainsawing, then loading into the truck, then driving down to the woodshed & unloading and stacking.

Once I got my rusty-duster out in the afternoon, I got the Subaru Forester (parked back by the Trapper Cabin since we took the insurance off it a couple of weeks ago) started and hooked it up, via jumper cables, to the Subaru Outback which has been dead in the water for over a year now. It's (the Outback) such a nice car, sob! Fully loaded: all leather interior, heated seats, power everything . . . but it needs a new head gasket. Anyway, fast forward past NOT getting it jumped with the Forester to getting it jumped by the pickup . . . but it died every time we put it into drive, so we ended up towing it.

By now, Tom had taken a break from the wood work and was helping me with the extra vehicles. Our objective was to move the three dead ones to another parking area in the back 40 so that we'd have more space to plow snow by the Trapper Cabin this winter. And, we wanted to make sure the back-up plow truck, the '77 Suburban, was ready to go. Unfortunately, we need to order a new cable for that: the line leading from the gas pedal to the carburetor is frozen up. (Not literally FROZEN but rather immobile.) But, it's good that we know that and can proceed as needed.

So, while Tom fought with the Suburban diagnosis, I cleaned out the Forester (found a nice pair of embroidery scissors in the glove compartment that I'd forgotten about!) and drove it down to the new parking area. Then, we hooked the tow strap up to the '78 Chevy pickup and began towing that down. Unfortunately, a vehicle with power steering & power brakes isn't terribly maneuverable when the steering & brakes are pretty much useless due to the engine not turning over. End result? The truck is nicely parked in its new home, but it has a few more dents and there's a spruce tree along that road with a fresh, sap-oozing wound. Oh, well. It's on its way to the junk yard, anyway . . . just as soon as we get around to it. ;)

With the Forester and the old pickup in place, the Outback was next. Once we got the uncooperative thing out of (P)ark and FINALLY into (N)eutral, that move was uneventful and quick.

And, as usual, a quick "let's move the vehicles" task turned into quite the project, but it's done now and another To Do Before Winter job can be crossed off the list.

Anyway, that's the news for today. How was YOUR weekend?