this morning

Let's look at the list:
Electrical cords
Breaker box
Unplug jacuzzi
Roberta money
Douglas hot dogs
Johnny coffee
John Henry song
Put away records
Rehang surfboards
Close fireplace dampers
Turn off gas
Wash
Fridge

Tomorrow we can play "What's still on the list?" and
"What's in the truck?"

ozarka!

"Forget the Yellow Brick Road. If you are off to see The Goose, you have to follow the Long and Winding, Yellow, Striped, Road," writes Frank. He sends along this picture of Rt. 160 right before the Thomasville turnoff. Most people in the Ozarks call these stomach-addling ups and downs "whoopdedoos." The sight of the road makes me a little homesick (no, not carsick!), but the Goose is shut down for the winter now. Fortunately, snow is infrequent;  your whoopdeedoo becomes a fine howdeedoo, I'm a tellin' you!

day sail

Thursday is shopping day on Block Island. Or rather, off Block Island. Everybody piles on the 8:15 boat, gets into their cars on the other side, and takes off for doctors' appointments and supplies. We went to the car repair garage, Staples, a window factory, two pet stores, Trader Joe's,  Home Depot, Wal Mart, Belmont gourmet market, Stop 'n' Shop, the Dollar store, the farm stand and the Bluebird Cafe. We took the 5:00 boat home, tossing in strong winds and rain.
   It was 39 degrees, indoors and out last night. And, failing a warming pan, I put the laptop under the covers last night to heat up the bed. I am writing from bed now.  Thank goodness I bought those socks.

tour of hannah's block island rental

OK, so the production values aren't great—what do you want from me and an iPhone? Hannah's video tour of Claudia's is superior to Claudia's video tour of Hannah's, but I had to  shoot the footage before leaving the island: I begin reserving for next year next month. And it begins again.

roll call

It's raining, and the ice cream stores have closed. We're down to a couple of ferries a day.  Last night was what they call the roll call dinner, where everybody sees who's left on the island.
It's an early Thanksgiving dinner. People cook turkeys and all the fixings, and everybody gathers at the Harbor Baptist Church where, for a donation of whatever they want, they can eat themselves silly. The kids from the high school (all seven of the graduating class) replenish the gravy and serve blackberry and pumpkin pies and coffee. It's a chance for the island folks who have ignored one another all summer to socialize. And we did.

Um. And due to this glowing article about me in the Block Island Times, I socialized while hiding out in the corner with friends and relatives. 

second spring

The birds have been going whacko, nesting all over again. This little one hopped out of the nest for the first time yesterday, ran into the window, then flew away. The evidence indicates, however, that the thump in the night was The Cat, and that other fledglings were not so lucky.

big doings in t'ville

Sign at the Goose

 There was a Bear sighting, or rather hearing, over the weekend.  If I want to tell Bear something, I usually have to write him a letter. I wanted to tell him that I was going to have the plumber shut the Goose down for the winter, and I wanted to know whether he had ripped off the well housing and built a new one. So I wrote him a letter. Problem is, he doesn't write back. So I told him to call me using the phone I bought him that he never leaves on. It's a pain in the ass because, for reasons even Wal-Mart doesn't understand, you have to dial the number twice. And you can't use redial.
Anyway, he called. It took several tries to get through, but he did. The new well house (call it a well shack) is half built despite the fact that Bear got a full time job! He is working at a sawmill that will get pretty cold in winter, given that it's open on one side. And he will soon need a reliable ride with gas mileage that won't eat up his salary, but hey, it's steady work.
And then I texted him how to text.
"HI," he wrote.
Then, "firout."
That's "far out," I texted.
"OK."
Another step towards ruining one hillbilly's life.

after the fall

In the autumn, Block Island closes down slowly and deliberately like your computer shutting off—the browser, the mail, the operating system. Blink, blink, blink, black. This weekend, I wonder, what will be next?

you cain't make an. . .

Before

After

So the result of having fabulous new storage was—stuff had to move around, upstairs and downstairs, from house to house and closet to closet until, hopefully, it settles into a place it feels comfortable and we can all find it again. This has not happened as yet.
  I confess I went to sleep dreaming of—new shelving.

stormy weather

And on a completely different note, but also having to do with photographs, here is Chien-Chi's new video montage about Burma. The credit I receive is undeserved.
Oops, sorry. Link wrong, as Deb pointed out. Corrected now.

another obstacle removed

 Mowing is an art form, but in a place where about the only things we grow well are briars, poison ivy and grass, He Who Mows has a chore. It's a maze out there. He has eliminated a few lawn ornaments such as clumps of fountainy grass, but there's plenty left to dodge. The clump of brambles around the firepit whoozie was pretty close to others, for instance. You voted it out.
  It's gone. The rock was not as big as feared and I rolled it down to another ride-around clump, moved the dirt to a hole in the driveway and sort of leveled the hump.
Takes a lot of doing to make things look natural.

golden

John and Pam have pumpkins and chrysanthemums. There's candy corn on the table. The song Spooky is running through my head, and I've started waking up later and later. Guess the time's going to change soon.

pair of mallards

Evening yesterday, as the weather vacillated between bright and rainy and sometimes both at once. I don't even want to say what I have been doing because it is sooo boring you would fall asleep before you got three items down the list—a screw here, some glue there and etc. Maybe I'll take a nap just thinking about what the day holds. Although there is sun—and 35 mph gusts. The weather is never boring here.
Off to the dump. The dump is never boring either.

flying fish

Or whatever you think. . .

at the old stand

I have returned home to Claudia's, making the long, long trip across the yard, accompanied by the vitamins I'm no longer supposed to take, the frozen lentil soup, the paint-covered overalls, and all the unpaid bills that seem to dog my footsteps. But not, apparently, accompanied reliably by my e mail on either my computer or my iPhone. And the hunt for the Great Gas Leak goes on, more urgently now that I'm the one smelling it in my bedroom.

landscape design challenge

What would you do?
So there's this sort of wood- burning firepit deal that's right in the middle of the yard. Right next to a clump of bushes that is also right in the middle of the yard. A mowing challenge. The metal thing was placed there because there was a large mostly underground rock that we didn't want to run into with the mower.

     Should we dispense with the firepit (seeing as we already have the two fine bbq grills shown here) and attempt to remove the rock that could be the size of a Volkswagen? Or stick with the status quo?

Vote now vote often.

storage

Measuring

Assembling

I am better at jigsaw puzzles than I am at using a jigsaw, sadly, but I only ruined one piece of wood. Figuring out how to do it was harder than the execution, however. And if my skills with the skill saw ran thin, well—there's always molding!
PS I dare you to find a song for this one. . .

oops

Well, I was just fiddling with the blog template this morning and, lo and behold, I applied it by accident and there was no going back to the same old same old. Hope you like the new look! More later. Gotta get to work and finish the thing I've been working on, which I hope comes out more predictably than the new template. But you love it, right?

down and dirty

OK, so it's not rocket science. I just took the thingy off the other thingy and reattached the thingy with picture wire and then reattached the other thingy to the arm thingy. I should probably buy a whole new rubber thingy since the chain thingy had split the thingy's attachment whoozie. But on the other hand, how the hell would I know what to order? Anyway, it works

beauty shots

This concludes the promotional period of our year.
The final renters arrive today, and I will be moving from House A to House B on Monday. The blog will also take a turn for the less scenic as I do not anticipate prospective tenants arriving on it (the blog or the Block) for quite a while. There have been Complaints from our Faithful Readers about the Paucity of informative Blog Posts lately.
I promise, my dears, to get Right Down to the Real Nitty Gritty, Yeah!
Maybe CBA can oblige with the appropriate You Tube link.

slated for destruction

The house next door is going. A flatbed delivered a large storage container, and a group of guys came over to hang out on the porch and look around. I just hope they're done with the heavy moving by next season! Hear tell the plans for the new house look a lot like the one the singer is sitting in.
CBA offers up this appropriate tune, Eve of Destruction.

no photoshopping

I swear, I did not do anything to this picture. This is just the way it looked in front of the house this morning as Kathleen sailed away on the Block Island high speed ferry.

deer in the headlights

Right in the driveway. At midday. They must know that doe season hasn't opened yet. . .

the night boat

When the seven o'clock arrives in Block Island now, it is full dark. Fall is here.