Another pleasant Sunday

Today was a beautiful fall day, clear blue sky, warm dry air, the trees splashed with autumn's beautiful reds, golds and oranges.   I didn't even attempt to capture them on my phone's camera, it would be a sacrilege.  I expect the repaired camera to arrive tomorrow, then I'll try to show you how beautiful the colors are.

Dave was released from Dr.'s care this week and now only has to go for physical therapy once a week til we leave.  He's keeping pretty busy puttering around Beluga, taking care of small jobs he hasn't had time to fiddle with.    We're eating our meals on a rickety card table while he refinishes our lovely old oak pedestal table.   You'll remember that my over zealous rubbing with Dawn liquid lifted half of its finish.   I needn't have worried, Mr. David's Woodworking Shop has pick up service and the table is well on its way to health.  A few more coats of clear and it will be back in the kitchen again.

trusty card table pressed into service

Wednesday I met cousin Amy for lunch in Batavia.   She lives on Grand Island (across from the Niagara River and Niagara Falls) so Batavia is about halfway between our two houses.   We lived next door to each other  from the time she was born until we got married and moved away.  Her mom was my mother's sister and one of the most beloved people in my life.
We haven't seen each other often in the last some years, but we always stay in touch and it was wonderful meeting face to face and getting caught up on each other's lives.

Amy sent me this beautiful sunset picture from her porch....see the mist rising off Niagara Falls in the distance?

Later this morning Dave and I went fifth wheel shopping with dear friends Cindy P and Walter.  They've been in the market for a smaller, used rig so they can travel a bit and still enjoy the company of their sweet doxies.   They've been combing the internet for something that would fit the bill and today it was love at first sight!  SOLD!   Its an older, very well made beauty that has been used lightly, and carefully maintained.   We look forward to its arrival in their driveway.

After our busy morning shopping we stopped by  my favorite farm market, Hurd Orchards, to buy some fresh Cortland apples - Dave's favorite.   As we walked into their huge old barn and browsed among the bushels of apples, dried flowers, candles and gourds, we were suddenly overwhelmed by the need for a slice of warm apple pie!    There were tables scattered around the rustic interior of the barn, complete with linen table cloths and pitchers of fall flowers, and the four of us enjoyed wedges of their Northern Spy Apple Pie topped with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.   My my, we were pleased with ourselves...

following a pumpkin trail into the apple barn at Hurd Orchards

lovely flowers on our apple barn table

After our little snack we popped back into the market and bought a few goodies to take home.   I just had to get a whole pie, it tasted just like my mother's used to...Mmmmmm

a pleasant Sunday afternoon

We went to Bob and Barb's beautiful timber frame home Sunday for dinner and football.  They built this home with their own blood, sweat and tears after a very difficult time in their lives.  Its a triumph and a warm, welcoming refuge.

Bob cooked a HUGE prime rib outside and Barb pared it with the bounty of their big vegetable garden and her yummy home made rolls.  Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake with choc./peanut butter frosting completed the meal.    Dave was practically purring with contentment as he ate the fresh tomatoes, corn and, of course, plenty of horseradish on his prime rib!   To top it all off, she sent us home with a large box of the season's last tomatoes (regular and yellow cherry), a small sweet watermelon, rolls, a loaf of her buttermilk honey bread, slices of prime rib, pieces of choc. cake and a bag full of cookies - how lucky can we get!

It was  nice to spend time with them again.   We used to see them quite often, but life has intervened lately so we really reveled in their company.   I got my Golden Retriever fix which is very important!

Barb has the rapt attention of Peggy Sue, Harley and Bella as she eats her cake
Can you say......drool?

The Buffalo Bills (our home town team) football game was on so Dave and Bob were occasionally held speechless in front of the TV....

Today Dave and I enjoyed second cup and cocktail hour in the cool fall sunshine.  Actually, Dave enjoyed a cocktail and I had ice tea (I'm temporarily on a med. that the Dr. warned me would cause "severe vomiting" if I have anything alcoholic), but the setting was lovely and appreciated nonetheless.      Between those two interludes we worked together in the dusty, sneezey garage trying to clear some space to start staging "stuff" to either offer at a garage sale, throw out, or pack up for storage.  Ugh, sneeze, cough, sigh, snarl, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.    In the end a nice sized area of garage floor was uncovered and thats a good start!

My camera is officially listed as "in the shop" on the Nikon repair website, so I'm getting closer to being able to use my flip phone to communicate instead of trying to capture pictures - and thats a good thing.

BCA

After reading Lisa and Hans' Metamorphosis blog post for today, I realize how boring our day has actually been!    They are busy hiking over lava flows and alongside  little lakes and hot springs out in beautiful Oregon, sigh....

Today has been one of those Northeast fall days that people don't write about.  No lovely fall colors to ooh and ahh about, no crystal clear blue sky, no smell of burning leaves or pumpkin fields chock full of  plump pumpkins waiting for their new homes.       Today was chilly and the heavy, all day rain  knocked off what few leaves have started to turn.  Sigh....

But, on the bright side, we did see a perfect double rainbow to the east.   I just sent my broken camera away for repair, so all I have to take pictures with is my little old flip phone, Sigh.

  If today was boring, yesterday was a pleasantly busy day.  I'm having new windshield curtains made for Beluga and the seamstress came to collect the old ones for her pattern, then went into Rochester to order new fabric.      It was a lovely, warm day so we were able to enjoy second cup on the patio.   Lewis and Sasha always enjoy it there.   They wait patiently until we're done, then Lew offers his "fish" for Dave to throw.    He brings it back faithfully so Dave will stay interested in the game.    He occasionally loses focus when our across the street neighbor, Fergie, takes up her post behind a tree and stares at Lewis.     She is a beautiful young Siberian Husky and her game is to quietly surprise him as he races past.   She never says a word, never runs.....just lays quietly, half hidden, and stares until he notices.   Usually he absolutely turns inside out trying to get a rise out of her, trying to make her move by barking and running and pawing the ground next to the fence - for naught.   She just stares.

Lewis tries a new tack - staring quietly back at Fergie...Can you see her laying to the right of the row of bushes?

 

Sasha peers around the corner to see what all the fuss is about.  No sense in expending too much energy unless Lew really needs help.

 Later on Tom and Robin brought sub sandwiches down and we had a good lunch outside in the bright sun.  We haven't been able to get together with them since their son's wedding celebration so it was good to just sit and catch up.  The weathermen (women) warned us that Friday was to be one of summer's last hurrahs, so we took full advantage.       Cindy P and Walter brought fish frys for dinner that evening, we ate and visited outside by candle light   They are thinking of buying a travel trailer so you can guess what our dinner conversation centered around....

Tomorrow we're going to Barb and Bob's house for dinner and the Buffalo Bill's game.  We haven't seen them since we've been back, so we're really looking forward to it.   We originally met them at the beginning of our puppy raising career with Guiding Eyes for the Blind.  The four of us had a self appointed mission to try and get Golden Retrievers through the program successfully.     We certainly had a good time trying!  They are down to 3 Goldens of their own now.  Golden Retrievers are like potato chips we used to say, you can't have just one!!!

This and that

Well, my "trusty" camera has finally, completely died.   It had a slight accident at Uncle Mike's fly in breakfast, but it has been inexorably moving in that direction for quite some time.   Sigh.  I hate new things, I don't like to have to learn new things.    I'm trying to get better at accepting change, sometimes I  find myself almost enjoying it.    I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and get another camera because all I have now is my little old flip phone and the Ipad (which is just too big to carry around....).

Another change I've been struggling with is google chrome and how it relates to this blog.   It doesn't!
I've been fooling around almost daily with the d amn thing and it just won't let me post.    Finally I tried the "Firefox" way in and that is how I came to be here tonight!   Shhhh, don't tell Chrome.

Not too much new here at home.   We sold our second jeep in preparation for being a 2 car family, I've been under the weather with divertic problems, Dave's hand is healing nicely and he's progressing through the post op physical therapy course, and the weather has turned downright cold.     We're planning to blow this town the last week of October!

Here are a couple of random phone shots of the last week or so...  The first was taken after a lovely lunch lakeside after attending the Fly-in breakfast Sunday.   No, we didn't eat breakfast AND lunch out, just lunch at the lake.

on the breakwall at Point Breeze (Lake Ontario)

Hurd Orchard's beautiful dried flower ceiling

Hurd's windows are lined with sparkling bottles of infused vinegars

 On our way home that day, we stopped in at a favorite fall place.    Hurd Orchards.   Its a small, family owned, women run orchard that specializes in heirloom apples and all manner of interesting vinegars, preserves, baked good and gifts.   These women are artists, the building shimmers with the light streaming through banks of windows lined with jewel toned bottles of herb and fruit infused vinegars and the ceiling is completely covered with flowers drying.

an injured worker in Mr. David's Woodworking  Shop works on a very personal table leg for Beluga

Ta Da!!!

 I picked a wonderfully twisted lilac branch from one of our very very old bushes and Mr. David turned it into a wonky table leg for the curly maple chair side table in Beluga.  Nice to carry  a piece of the homestead with us wherever we go.






 Our son has had a very "exciting" time this past week.    He just relocated from Eugene, Oregon to - Boulder, Colorado.   I guess you know where this is going.....     He's renting a room there while he attends Univ. of Colorado.   Luckily the house he's in is on a ridge, above all the terrible flooding but it has been a trying time to say the least.   School has been closed, backing up work and the roads are almost non-existent.     To put the icing on the cake, one of the bedrooms above him started on fire last night, with its occupant soundly sleeping.    Another roomie got the woman out and Jesse managed to douse the fire, but not before he took on way too much smoke and the fire damaged way too much of the room.   Phew!

Uncle Mike

Sunday Dave and I drove about 50 miles northwest to Pine Hill Airport to attend a fly in breakfast.   Dave's brother, Uncle Mike, belongs to a radio control flying club and their home base airport was hosting a breakfast for the community.    We've been to these kinds of affairs in the past but there would be demonstrations of radio control flying (rc) as well as sky diving exhibitions and a host of private planes to check out at this day.     The morning was beautiful and sunny.

the wind was pretty fresh

one corner of an impressive display of radio controlled aircraft in the hangar

Uncle Mike smiles in front of his custom built rc plane hauler

Bank boys pause to watch a Piper getting ready for take off

Uncle Mike's plane's complicated control box

Mike explains, Dave listens.....

model beneath its big brother!

Finger's crossed that this post publishes.   Lots of troubles with google right now.....

Its hot!

I've been having trouble trying to post new entries, google god must be angry with me again....and don't even ask about the camera....oh my.

The weather here in the east has been taking us on a roller coaster ride lately.   Yesterday and today (Tuesday and Wednesday) the temps have been in the high 90's with matching humidity.  Everyone in this house is miserable - except Dave.   He'll take heat anywhere, anytime!    Our upstairs bedroom looks like a fan museum as I've drug every one we've ever had out and aimed it at my side of the bed!   Sasha has moved over in front of them also but still complains loudly all night long.  Puff, puff, pant, pant, pant.

 The afternoon temperature on Friday will struggle to get out of the 50's!   We won't be happy then either I suppose.  Sigh.

a rare shot of Lewis sitting still

garden art - we call them "Dave and Sue" for obvious reasons!

its so hot even the bugs are laying low

Lewis stands guard

chasing balls trumps staying cool in Lewis' world

Ahhhhh, this is the way to beat the heat

A pleasant evening and....a warning

Since Dave's hand is still out of commission, we've just been doing little jobs that require brain power instead of brawn.   That gets tiring after awhile, so we steal away for rides and relaxation.  

This afternoon we drove about 30 minutes to Silver Lake, one of the "little" Finger Lakes in Western New York.    Dave spent a good deal of his youth at his uncle's cottage there so we took a ride along its shores to see how it has changed.   The answer is - not much!   The lake is small and the cottages surrounding it are mostly small and old.   Some have been lovingly maintained and some have not.

sweet boat houses march along the shoreline

On the east side of the lake is a great restaurant and drive in movie theater.   The Charcoal Corral has everything a family could want for a fun summer outing.   A hot dog/hamburger restaurant with home made root beer, a pretty decent pizza shop and an old fashioned ice cream parlor serving my personal favorite ice cream - Perry's.  Next to the restaurant is an extensive miniature golf course, and behind it is a twin screen, first run drive in movie.  

Thursday night is "Cruise Night" at the Charcoal Corral, so after we ate our delicious, albeit sinful, dinner we walked around among the local hot rods.   It wasn't much of a show, but considering this is a very small town and it was very cold and windy, not a bad turn out.  Everyone was proud of their entry.

This one, however, was something very special.
1962 completely original fuel injected corvette - Dave guessed it is worth 6 figures...

We spent many hours at drive ins  in our youth (no comments please), but we didn't stay to see tonight's feature, "Planes".    Maybe next week.

                                                       

WARNING
Do not use full strength Dawn dishwashing liquid to spot clean a wood table.

I did and it completely lifted the finish off the area,,,nice.   Not a good look for my kitchen table.