Mud Season

In just a few days, mud season has descended upon New Hampshire! How do I know this? Perhaps it is because when I went out with the puppies today to walk them around the yard (in a vein attempt to encourage potty training!) I squished and sunk into the lawn.

So my last venture out tonight with the two babies I wore my ugly, heavy duty, rubber boots! These boots are so big, and so ugly and weigh so much that I sank even deeper into the mire! But my feet were dry and the puppies slogged along with me until little Anneliese stopped. She sniffed. She moved around and then sniffed again! Then…..well, I will let you fill in the blank here, but let’s just say I was thrilled with her little gift!

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I praised her, like a puppy has never been praised before! I broke out the cookies and presented her with one. What a good girl! We came back into the house and I undid their leashes, and then sat to remove my boots and put my slippers back on. I also have these wonderful fuzzy socks that I have been wearing and what does my little lovely do? She grabbed my nice fuzzy sock, and ran as quickly as she could under the sofa!

I finally got my sock back, played with the two of the puppies for a while before finally putting them to bed. Ah yes, I just love warm, dry feet and puppies who are working at becoming house broken!

A Shocking October Night

Friday scared the dickens out of me. Yes, it did, and it wasn’t even Friday the 13th. However, the weather, and the events, proved to me that perhaps any October that has a Friday the 13th in it is a month that should be avoided.

The day started dark and wet. I’d expected rain because the night before our fearless weatherman had forecast this and he is only wrong 75% of the time. So, I figured this was his day to be right.

By the middle of the afternoon the winds had picked up a little, as expected, and I was feeling as if life were going along normally.

Then shortly after 4 PM the rain started coming down in buckets. Even Fritz and Greta didn’t want to go out in that mess. We all hunkered down, dry and warm inside, that is, all but Hubby, who decided he should go out and clear the ditch on the side of our driveway.

I was killing time on the laptop computer when I heard a low, distant rumbling. It was thunder! I quickly went to the office and shut down the computers in there, came back to the family room and shut down the satellite dish. I was just turning to take care of a few more things when….. BOOM!!!!!

I jumped out of my skin! The lightning bolt had apparently hit quite close. I raced down the stairs to the garage so I could drive the car up the hill to get Hubby, but when I opened the door to the garage he was standing there sopping wet! Again I was startled!

We came back upstairs and watched and listened to the storm as it passed over us. What a brutal, violent storm it was. We could hear the wind roaring, and see the lake disappear from view due to the heavy rain.

Eventually the storm passed by. we ate dinner and then settled down to work on our computers. However, neither one of us could get online. I called tech support for our ISP and spoke with them. They could see that the cable modem was working correctly, but they couldn’t see the router! My brand new router!!! Fried! Gone in the prime of it’s young life! I had quickly shut down the computers and forgotten to turn off the router! I still had my old router so I connected that and got the system back up and running.

Hubby called our neighbor and found out that the lightening had hit their house! They’d had balls of fire running across the ceiling and a broken widow from the event! I knew it was close their house is only 100 feet away!

By 8 PM, the wind was really blowing hard. We have an anemometer, so we can read the wind speed here on our end of the lake. The wind was blowing so hard it sounded like a freight train was going through the family room. The peak gust recorded at 63 miles an hour!

It was just about this time that I started to work on Princess, and Hubby went into the office to work on his computer, when the lights went out!

Of course the laptop stayed on and gave me enough light to find a match and light a candle. Hubby got out his camping lamp and when we decided that the lights weren’t coming back on any time soon, we got the generator out and Hubby got it running. This gave us heat, water, and lights in our family room and bedroom. So while all of our area sat in darkness, we were able to watch TV.

In the light of day today, we picked up the apples off the grass where they had been blown off the trees. There are the remains of a wooden dock now resting at the town beach below us, and there are more brightly colored leaves on my patio than there are left on the trees. We also heard that another house in town was hit by lightning, and that three people were injured as a result of this strike.

This morning we removed all the window air conditioners, which means that summer is really over for us here. Tonight Mr. Weatherman announced we will get some snow on Monday!

So much for global warming!

Autumn In New Hampshire

It was just an amazing day for pictures of the lake. When we got up, Hubby noticed the reflections hitting the water. He encouraged me to get dressed and go out to take a few pictures. I jumped into my clothes, and shoes and headed out the door.

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It was so quiet and cool and calm. Just as I got to the shoreline the sun poked through some clouds and hit the hillside across the lake. A birds flew overhead and I was in awe of the nature around me.

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I looked back up the hill to see our home sitting there. How pretty, I thought, up on the hill overlooking all of this. How lucky we are to have this home, and how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.

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I was stopped from my tranquil reverie by the barks of Fritz, the wonder dog, who was watching me from out front windows. So, climbing back up the hill to our house, I was once again enveloped in the golden glow of Autumn in New Hampshire, and I smiled.

Leaf Peeping, Anyone?

Monday we took some friends from Florida out to show them the Lakes area of New Hampshire. This kind of trip, done at this time of year is called “Leaf Peeping”.

It was a perfect day for it. We had bright blue skies, a warm sun and temperatures in the upper 50’s! We drove the back roads with the bright leaves all around us and just soaked up Autumn in all it’s finest!

leaf peeping

We also stopped off and had a luscious meal at a local restaurant (not Canoe). I had a very unique meal of eggplant stuffed with boursin cheese! Oh my goodness, it was a sheer delight.

We stopped at a real country store and I got some incredible cheddar cheese. It’s aged to perfection and just melts in your mouth!

We arrived back at home and said our good bye’s as they needed to go off to see other friends and family in the area. We were so happy that they stopped in though because it is always wonderful to spend time with old and good friends.

And So It Goes

What a beautiful Saturday we had here. Bright sunshine that warmed you, despite a temperature that never got above 58 degrees all day long. After doing a little housework and cleaning out a closet, I took Greta outside on her leash and decided to plant some bulbs. I figured I could get it all done, lickity split, and Greta could get a little fresh air. Ha! I did get six bulbs planted, but then she wanted to play and run around and I’m afraid my bulb planting stopped. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow.

I wanted Hubby to take a picture of my hair to show a few people, and we were all set to go when a hot flash hit. My glasses steamed and then fogged up and when I saw the picture I had to laugh! I’m calling this picture: What A Hot Flash Looks Like!

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My issue if “Der Dachshund” arrived today from Germany. It is the monthly magazine from the DTK. It is written in German, and tells about all the different titles that the German dachshunds have attained as well as upcoming events. It also had my name and kennel application in it. It was so thrilling to see it there in black and white and know that it’s official!

I think the colors are past peak now. It was a quick Autumn. We still have plenty of leaves, there just not at the height of color. I do love Autumn, so I hope that the leaves that are left will stay for a while.

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A Perfect Indian Summer Day

Oh what a beautiful Monday we had. In the upper 70’s and just delightful. Our day was spent waiting for Bernie to arrive for his last visit, and working on a puzzle of Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria.

Emily arrive at 9 AM and she spent the day. It was a lot of fun doing the puzzle, playing with the dogs and putting on press on nails. We also made cream of broccoli soup for our lunch!

Em was busy taking pictures too. She is getting to be very good at this.

Here is one of Fritz.

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Greta.

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And Bernie and Greta.

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Everything went spectacularly with Greta and Bernie and now we must wait about three weeks to learn if she is pregnant! I sure hope she is. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Fly In

I’ve written before that Hubby was an airline pilot. He’s been retired now for several years, as there is mandatory retirement for commercial pilots at the age of 60.

Yesterday we went to a “Fly In”. It’s a barbecue at a small airport nearby, where old “fly boys” meet to talk about the old days. Some flew in, in their small private planes,

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others, like us, drove in.

There was a good group this year, as the day was bright, sunny and warm. Many people brought their grandchildren and stood next to the runway watching the planes land or take off.

Our friend, George, flew up from southern New Hampshire in his 1950 Cessna 170.

Cessna 170 1950

There were also two Piper cubs.

piper cubs

A Russian plane that flew passengers in Lithuania.

Flew passengers in Lithuania

A Waco.

Waco

And several RV’s. These small planes are built from kits and fly like the wind!

RV Kit
Rvs
RV Paint

We had a great time, talking about the old days, and really enjoyed the sunshine.