First off, I want to say I am glad that none of our blogger friends were hurt (that I know of, anyway) in the nastiness that Sandy brought to the east coast. My heart goes out to those who were in harms way and for those involved in the aftermath. I am counting my blessings for sure tonight.
Bet some of you folks know exactly where this is!!
For those who don’t know, this is at AM Solar in Springfield, OR. We went in to have our solar system checked out. It seemed to be discharging faster than it should but the problem most likely lies in the way the charge controller reads out. We are going to have a nice battery monitor installed so we can tell exactly where our charge level is. That should give us some added confidence to maybe try a bit of boondocking – not too much, mind you – just a bit!! I have been following along with Paul and Nina and also RV Sue as they camp around the Alabama Hills in one of my favorite areas of the whole wide world, and I think I might like to do that for a night or two. I do like my creature comforts and we don’t plan to do a lot of off the grid stuff, but having the ability to make that choice is nice. We also replaced four of our interior lights with LED lights, which will also help us conserve energy.
AM Solar sits on a beautiful piece of property and Russ could not help but take a few pictures while we were waiting.
Wouldn’t it be nice to look out of your window at work and see something like this? (If you weren’t retired, that is!)
There were ducks in the pond and two cormorants high up in a tree. The service writer told us they also have a couple of eagles that come around regularly. It’s almost like a mini-vacation to visit AM Solar!!
For lunch we went to a new place in town very close to our house. It’s called Wayback Burgers. Apparently they are a franchise operation but it was one I had never heard of before. Their website shows quite a few locations back east but only one here in the wild west.
The burger was okay but probably nothing I would go back for.
The bacon was only 60 cents extra and that’s about what it was worth! The bun was very good and the fries were okay. Everything is served on metal plates lined with newspaper print waxed paper. Perhaps it is because they are new, but their service was not the best either. Oh well, it was okay and we got to see my sister and her hubby so it was a fun afternoon.
Although we are not “on the road” we haven’t been sitting on our keisters gathering moss either!! We have been doing some nice drives in the country. One day we took off on a road not even knowing where it went. It was great fun and I’ll write about a couple of those trips next time.
Travel safe and stay warm and dry.
In the spirit of the upcoming Halloween holiday, the witch would like to give equal time to the other member of the enclave!
At work…
…at church…
…and at home…
In case you haven’t caught on, we enjoy our holidays. Even though these photos were taken many years ago, I still love to see the kids come to the door, regardless of their age. I figure if they are brave enough to put on a costume and knock on my door, they deserve a piece of candy.
Sometimes we bemoan the fact that our children grow up so fast, but then, when they want to do something childish like go trick or treating, we tell them to grow up. I say let them be children as long as possible. There will be plenty of time for them to grow up and plenty of times when we wish they would slow down.
My views on this have changed over the last number of years. I used to be in that camp that said trick or treating was only for the younger kids. Now I say, let them all come. I told Russ I wanted to make a sign that read, “All Ages Welcome” but then I figured I might get some old geezers with pumpkins on their heads knocking at my door. So we’ll just leave it at that and hope we get at least a few visitors this Wednesday night.
BTW, Russ got his “numbers” today from recent lab work.
glycohemoglobin (A1-c) 6.6 (You fellow diabetics will know that this is pretty good)
HDL 32
LDL 81
Total cholesterol 131
Tricyclerides 90
I’m very proud of Russ but it makes me mad too! No matter what I do, my numbers are never as good as his. Must be a guy thing!!
Yup, I went to work at the bank dressed like this sometime in the mid 90s. Can’t remember the exact date. Some things don’t change much. Russ made my ride. There are big soda bottles near the bottom, painted black and fastened on with black tape. Those were my “rockets.” If only real engines could be fixed so easily.
Not a whole lot going on today so we took Poppy to the lake. That was pretty unremarkable, but, as we were leaving, I spied this little bird at the edge of the lake. I have never seen one like that at the lake so just wondered if anyone could help me identify it?
I have looked and the best I could come up with was a Black-crowned night heron. The coloring is right but the beak is not quite right. I thought it might be some kind of a bittern or a rail but could not find anything that matches. It was a small bird, probably about the size of a fat robin. It appeared to have long legs and it was walking in the water and feeding on something. We weren’t very close as I didn’t want to scare it away so the pictures are pixilated.
It was not far from the buoy – to give a perspective on size.
Location is Eugene, OR.
So, can anyone tell me what this bird is? Thanks.
It was a slow day here but as I looked outside this afternoon, I was in just the right spot to see the rainbow of colors the sun was making on this web. Forgive another web picture, but I had no idea one could capture and hold colors like this. I thought it was quite striking!
And finally, we finished our day with a bowl of beef tortilla soup. When I cook up a batch of shredded beef for Poppy, I usually steal some for us, so I guess you could say it is made with dog food ha-ha!! Whatever, it tasted good.
And that’s The End.
Today started out cold and foggy but it improved from there to sunny and warm. Won’t be too many more days like this so we are enjoying them to the max.
We’ve been waiting for a plumber to show up for a couple of days and he finally came this morning. Now we have hot water in our bathroom again. Woo-Hoo!! Yesterday, all we did was wait and Poppy was not happy about it. She has it in her mind that she needs to go somewhere every single day. If she doesn’t get her ride, she gets pushy. She will tell anyone who will listen how abused she is.
So while we waited for the plumber who never showed up yesterday, we played a couple of rounds of Go Poppy, Go! This game consists of me standing on the deck and clapping my hands and yelling “GO, Poppy, GO!” Poppy’s role is to run out the sliding glass door, onto the deck, down the steps (without going headlong into the pool), thru the pool gate, across the lawn, in through the pet door, through the house and back out to the deck! She loves this game and I am so happy to see her feeling well enough to participate. It helps keep her happy when we can’t go out for a ride.
You can tell we (and she) are easily entertained!! In fact this morning we were entertained by spider webs. The fog we have been getting each morning causes heavy dew to collect in the spider webs. Since it is so close to Halloween, it looks kinda neat.
This one in the front yard looks like that phony stuff you stretch over your yard to scare little children. It isn’t – it’s the real deal.
And I thought this one from the backyard looks like a lace pattern one might find on a child's pinafore.
This one was high overhead in a tree in the park.
See, I told you we were easily entertained. Our final entertainment for the day will be watching the Ducks take on the AZ. Sun Devils at 6 p.m. tonight. They are playing in Tempe and we have had a few problems there in the past. My Sis and her hubby are there to cheer on the Ducks so hopefully we will have something to cheer about. GO DUCKS!!
Now if you all would like some nice entertainment, hop on over to Barbara’s blog at Me and My Dog. Barbara has been posting some of her favorite pictures from the past to celebrate her 200,000 page views. She has some fine ones. Also, Weavers, did a great post on their last year of full time travel. Al and Kelly are anxious to hit the road but Kelly has been sick. Now Al is down too!! Daggone it. John has a new car but he hasn’t gone very far in it yet. And Rick is on his own for a few days…apparently without any cookies. Hey Rick, look in your computer. I always find cookies there!! And RV Sue and Nina and Paul are both in a favorite area of mine around the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine and Bishop, CA.
I know a lot of you snowbirds are getting ready to hit the road or at least are making plans that way. I hope you all have safe journeys and a whole lotta sunshine.
It’s been a busy week since we we got home from our fall trip. Therapy visited the repair shop and it was indeed rodent damage that was causing the problems with the air conditioning. Seems one of those “oh so cute” ground squirrels chewed a hole in a vacuum hose causing the malfunction. Had they put the hose in its original location, the cost would have been over $500. Re-routing the whole thing saved us around $300 so I was happy about that. Squirrel stew, anyone?
Lots of little chores were taken care of and then we had a couple of grandgirls spend the weekend. Love the cooler weather as we can bake cookies without worrying about the kitchen getting all heated up. I finally found a recipe where the sugar cookies actually taste good!!
Emmie is getting into the spirit of the season.
Cailin is very precise with her cookies – and yes, she did dye her hair red! I think she looks cute!
Saturday morning started with our traditional waffle breakfast. Cailin loves them with strawberries and whipped cream piled high.
While Emmie just wants the whipped cream (with a little peanut butter underneath).
Then we took them out to the farm just for fun. OH BOY!! You can sure tell when there is no Duck game, (it was a bye week for the Ducks) as the 56,000 who are usually at Autzen Stadium all day, were running around all over town. A good portion of them were at the farm. This is the first time I have seen parking attendants there! But we still had a good time.
The girls found some fancy gourds and each got an old fashioned piece of stick candy and I got some raspberries so I was happy.
Of course, the fall colors were everywhere.
And farm faces too.
I think they should put the cu
t outs in front of this fence so these kids could poke their heads through the holes. They sure know how to beg for pellets.
Who could resist this face?
We took the girls to Costco and it was packed out too. Don’t these people have anywhere to go, like a football game?? Oh, I guess not…
Cailin has informed me that my keyboard is not big enough for her to play on anymore. Since I always ask for songs from both girls, I may have to buy one that doesn’t run out of keys. That was our reason for going to Costco, to get some advice from Cailin and Emmie on keyboards. Cailin pronounced this 76 key instrument sufficient but I think I may wait until they come on sale and go ahead and get a full 88 keys. Here’s a short 15 second clip of Cailin showing an arrangement of FÜR ELISE that you probably haven’t heard before. She’s just learning the piece and had some trouble since she could barely reach the keys and she didn’t have her music, but it was fun anyway.
The girls have gone home now 
and we are taking it easy today. Last night, as I was sitting in my chair reading, I noticed a glow out the living room windows. Had to go out and get this shot of what was a prettier sunset than the picture shows.
May all your sunsets be pretty ones and all your sunrises be bright. Take care all you snowbirds who are getting ready to travel south and stop in and see us if you go down I –5.
