October 5, 2011



2nd day - 2nd rattler!



Jesse - completely exhausted after
2 rattlers in 2 days!



Two days - two rattlers.  Amazing that we have seen two of them after the weather has turned cool and only one the whole summer.  Jesse found this second one on our evening walk on  Monday.  It was on the south ridge, just pulling its head out of a ground squirrel hole right on the side of the trail.  He was 4 or 5 inches longer and a lot wider that the snake the previous day.  Once again I just put my walking stick on his head and skewered him.  And, once again, I neglected to take a photo first.  Much larger and longer rattle.  Even yesterday evening as we went on our walk, Jesse wouldn't go near where he had found it.  He literally ran past the spot!

JB drove Down There on Monday to go to his annual Medicare benefits meeting.  Also ran some errands and did a little shopping.  I gathered up our summer clothes and unpacked our winter ones.  I keep our out-of-season clothes in one of my Dad's Marine Corps locker boxes.  Unfortunately it is at the bottom of a big stack of "stuff."  After everything was put away in their respective places, I worked on rearranging the storage area of the loft to make room for the last items we brought up from storage.  So when JB returned home, the eight boxes that had been sitting just inside the door were all gone.  The only things I haven't found space for are my two boxes of candy molds.  They may have to go into plastic containers in the shop (but I won't tell JB just yet).

We started Tuesday morning nice and slow, reading all the mail, magazines and catalogues that JB brought back with him on Monday.  He also had a stack of brochures from his Medicare meeting that he started reading Monday night and most of Tuesday morning.  He will probably stick with the insurance he has even though the premiums have gone up.  I'll be covered under Medicare after my birthday next May; save $225 per month on health insurance premiums; and have better coverage.

When we finally got going, I cut and stacked two loads of wood for the woodshed.  JB worked in his shop and built his first little fire his the wood stove.  No, he couldn't wait to put in the stove pipe that takes the smoke out.  He just made a very little fire with very little smoke, and just enough heat to keep his coffee warm.  After lunch I cut another two loads of wood - one for the wood shed and one for the splitter - which finished all the wood we had stacked to be cut with the chain saw.  I split the one load and stacked it in the wood shed.  JB was working on getting the 12 ft rail up for his sliding shop door.  That is one heavy piece of metal.  I helped him slide it into the the rail hangers, now all he needs to do is build the door.

It is pouring as I write this, our first rain storm of the season.  The dogs don't like to go out when it's really coming down, so they didn't wake me up.  Guess I'll have to set my alarm on blogging mornings, just in case.

I was looking through a box of my Dad's personal items and came across a picture of the girlfriend he had when he met my Mom.  Behind the her picture were two poems she had copied and given to him.  One is following.  Both she, Dad and my Mom were in the Marine Corps.  He had previously spent more than a year in the Pacific with Roosevelt's Raiders.  Here's to you, Dad.

                    The Eminent Quest

Here let me be alone with poetry

Tonight.  Today was too much.  Let me be

Intoxicated with the ecstasy

Of imagination; something wide, free,

Something perfect, something to bury the pain,

Something greater than disappointment or

The cause  of disappointment.  Let the rain

Fall then, if it must; let any door

Close, if it can.  Once I have been alone

With poetry, the silence will tell

Where heaven is and where the unbeknown

Of God and beauty awaits; where true thoughts dwell

Unborn and where there's something greater than

The small things that can happen to a man.

                                                        C. Faye Bennett