Day 14.324: All the colors of the sky

After a stay-at-home day on the day after Thanksgiving, Exile #2 realized early on Saturday afternoon that the weather was great and that there were only a couple of hours of daylight left so we wrapped up and went out for a walk (teenagers could not be persuaded to join us).

At one point, we had bright yellow sky in one direction:

and blue-purple sky in the other:

Exile #2 said the sky reminded her of a certain multi-colored chocolate filling (Fry's 5 Centre Chocolate Cream perhaps? - she can correct me if I'm wrong!)

Day 14.323: Thanksgiving surprise

As we mentioned, we went for a walk between courses on Thanksgiving Day, down to the river. What I glossed over is what we saw there - first this amazing view:

and then, as you can see if you look carefully just left of center, a white line marks something swimming in the river which - to our great surprise, turned and swam directly towards us and under the bridge, allowing us to get an excellent view that it was a beaver:

We've never seen one here before despite many times crossing this bridge, and - of course - I didn't have my camera with me, but it came close enough that even the iPhone photos are pretty respectable.

Day 14.322: Exile #2's Sunday Column #372

Exile #2 writes...

I had read that Christmas trees might be few and far between this year - a reflection on the state of the economy ten years or so back when the trees were being planted. It seemed a little surprising, bearing in mind that Maine largely consists of trees but I thought I’d better take a look and see how our local tree farm was doing. Just as well that I did. It turned out that today was going to be their last day of the season. We jumped out of bed and into the car to see what they had left.

In the end it was a quick trip. We arrived at opening time - about 2 minutes after 9:00, staggered a few yards from the shed where we had checked in, found a pretty good looking tree, paid for it, tossed it in the car, and arrived home before 9:30. It’s not even beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, and the tree, as yet, is bare but it’s smelling wonderful and that, in itself, is lovely!

Day 14.321: First snow

We woke to our first snow of the season today:

Just a dusting this time, but there will be more.

Day 14.320: Rainy day; role play

It was a bit of a dreary wet day, but it is still the Thanksgiving break and we spent a happy afternoon being led through another episode of our D&D campaign by Exile #4. It had been a long time since our first session and we needed a few minutes to recap the scrapes that our characters had got into, but we soon got back into it and were investigating mysteries and fighting goblins with our motley crew of characters.

For those who are not familiar, the computing devices were just for our character sheets and note taking, the real action was not technological in nature.

Day 14.319: Thanksgiving #15

Once again, we celebrated Thanksgiving on our own at home - a wonderful dinner:

followed by a walk:

to make room for pie:

We have much to be thankful for.

Day 14.318: Cold is relative (but which one?)

I will confess that we didn't at first take notice when Exile #3 complained that her room was cold. However, when the perpetually warm Exile #4 joined in with the complaints we discovered that their circuit on the heating (upstairs except for our room) was not working at all.

Fortunately, Exile #2 was able to organize a timely visit for this family member:

who is now pumping heat to all areas of the house.

Day 14.317: Removing leaves in the back yard (again)

...but this time it was this kind of leaf that Exile #2 removed:

- so we could eat them. Some of the last produce from her successful 2021 gardening season.

Day 14.316: Sudden birds

As I was about to head back to work after lunch there were suddenly a lot of birds around - a titmouse or two ...(whatever the plural of titmouse is)... several juncos and even a bluebird:

Day 14.315: Exile #2's Sunday Column #371

Exile #2 writes...

It’s Thanksgiving week this week. The young Exiles only have school and college on Monday and Tuesday, and even Exile #1 has Thursday and Friday off.

I’ve seen numerous memes joking that the beginning of this week is the period when all Americans families are deprived because the food in the fridge is for Thanksgiving and not to be touched because we are NOT going back to the store! I can understand. It does get hectic. But it in no way rivals the pre Christmas rush of a British supermarket!

Editor's note: Not my photo (obviously!) or my meme

Day 14.314: Everybody's doing it

There was a while early this afternoon when it seemed like all the neighbors were out raking or otherwise collecting leaves. We played our part:

Later I got to wish my longest-serving friend a happy (milestone) birthday by crashing his party via Zoom.

Day 14.313: Exotic!

Message left on our answering machine some time during the chaos of this week:

Woman's voice: Hello my name is ...., I'm an exotic..., I received a call from this number...

At a second listen, she appears to say "exotic animal transport" but we're none the wiser as to why she was calling us.

Day 14.312: New roof

Here's the reveal for yesterday's work on the house - sadly not as exciting as yesterday's anonymous commenter's suggestion - but we have a new roof:

The shed was done too and makes for a nice before-and-after:

Day 14.311: Early start

We were more relieved than ever for our not-too-late night when we discovered that this was happening this morning:

A delivery for the workers who arrived a little later as I was heading off to work to do a large job on our house.

Day 14.310: Sofar - not so far

Back in September, I saw that The Collection were coming back to Boston and bought some tickets. It was a strange gig - no venue was announced beyond that it would be somewhere in Boston. We were told that we would hear where the gig was the day before. This weird and wonderful way of doing business is from Sofar Sounds. We were quite relieved when the email came yesterday that our venue was both fairly easy to get to and being in a jazz club in a hotel had parking too, so the logistics worked out very well. We even got home not long after 11.

The main event of the evening was great too - definitely a more sedate gig that the last sweaty night when we saw them in 2019 but no less marvelous for that.

Day 14.309: Fall update

Late last week, most of the oak trees suddenly dropped all their leaves and then the storm at the beginning of the weekend brought most of the stragglers down. After two multi-person sessions of leaf clearing we've got a fairly clear yard again. The one hold-out is an oak that overhangs the back yard - hopefully the wind will kindly blow most of its leaves back under the trees when the time comes.

Day 14.308: Exile #2's Sunday column #370

Exile #2 writes...

This morning we headed out for an outdoor church service. This being Maine and November, we went suitably dressed. I opted for a thermal, long sleeved t shirt, sweater, and fleece lined hoodie, with my big winter coat as an option if I got chilly.

It’s safe to say that by the end of the morning all layers had been deployed and I was very glad to get home and find I had some soup made in the fridge. Exile #1 and our pianist had lost all feeling in their fingers by the end, so I’m not sure how we’re going to make it through the December service. I think we might have to resort to singing a capella - possibly under blankets!

Day 14.307: All work and no photos...

...makes this a dull blog post. Sorry.

We spent a chunk of the day raking some impressive piles of oak leaves - most of which came down on Thursday just before the storm arrived and made them all very wet.

Other chores included a final college application form and some home maintenance decision-making.

We also found some time for some plotting around our newest musical project. Which, although not a terribly photogenic activity looked - in part - something like this:

 

Day 14.306: Stormy again

It was getting quite wild as the afternoon wore on today - it got even wetter later as darkness set in.

All this comes less than 24 hours after all the large oak trees around our neighborhood decided to drop their leaves, so it's going to be an interesting clean-up over the weekend.

Day 14.305: Another night-sky show

Leaving work in thr dark has the benefit of getting me outside to see things like this:

Day 14.304: Post-it messages

Exile #2 recently posted some notes around the house with gentle reminders to the other (mostly teen) members of the household to be good citizens by tidying up after themselves.

One of said teenagers decided to follow suit when discovering something that frustrated them:

Note reads: "Everything in this house is greasy if your hands have grease or jam or whatever wash them!"