Getting There

I still have the ears, tail, and topknot to trim.

Although Ember rocks the ponytail,

it does interfere with sleeping upside down.

Ruff Day

at least for Ember it has been.

It started out really nice with an extra walk in the afternoon.

Little did she realize mom's ulterior motive was to get her insides as empty as possible for the activities that were to follow.

First a good brushing, then an ear cleaning, followed by a short break for mom's wrestling muscles to rest before the next activity.

If you guessed a bath, you were correct.

All dogs are different, Chloe once she was "all done" and released from the torture chamber that contains the evil bathtub would bolt from the room and run around the house shaking and celebrating her freedom.  Ember once she is told that the bath is "all done" will step from the bathroom momentarily and then turn around and walk right back in again and demand a hug.  I haven't quite decided if it is because she is grateful that she feels so much better when she is clean or if she is cold and wet and wants to share the experience with the person who bathed her.  After she dries, a haircut will follow, if not later tonight then tomorrow.

"But mom, not a haircut, I don't really need a haircut too, do I?"

Can you see out of your right eye at the moment?

Did you see any of the squirrels on your afternoon walk, or did you only notice them once you smelled them?

Sorry Ember, yes you do really need a haircut.

Sometimes, Seeing Light

can be a bad thing.

Especially when it is through the bottom of a favorite large, enamel, vented roasting pan.  Farewell to the large LISK vented roasting pan.  They don't make them like that anymore.

Mom bought it for me at a thrift store a long time ago, when she still had all her marbles.  It has served us well through roasting many thanksgiving turkeys, cooking pumpkins, baking lasagna with Swiss Chard, and just as a good parking place for tomatoes when a big bowl wasn't big enough.  It will be missed.

We do still have the small LISK roasting pan,

but as you can see it isn't quite big enough for a turkey and some vegetables, unless someone gets really creative about where the vegetables go.

A replacement large, vented roasting pan has been found.

It is even stainless steel so it is unlikely that it will rust through.  I like the classic enamel steel, but none of the ones today have the self basting concave lid and vents that the LISK had.

We'll have to see how the new stainless steel one works; the design is different because it has a domed lid, so that it won't be self-basting.  I don't understand why someone can't just make a new one with the same design as the LISK; the original patent must be expired by now.

Pumpkins Picked

Temperatures at night are dropping to freezing now.

This is likely also the last home picked bouquet that mom will get until spring.  The sunflowers are pretty, but a couple sheets of paper towel have to be put under the jar in her room to catch all the pollen that falls during the week.  I stopped taking real vases, because stepfather managed to misplace the last one.  It's in that building somewhere, but only God knows where because stepfather has forgotten.  In the scheme of things it isn't a big issue; the assisted living takes care of making sure he doesn't get lost, which is the important part.  No problem, I have a few canning jars that are acquiring the Not For Canning label as they have proven unable to hold a seal, one of the hazards of "inheriting" lots of jars.

It isn't the greatest harvest of pumpkins, but what can be expected when the pumpkins basically planted themselves this year, in the old compost pile location, on the north side of the garage - a less than ideal location.  I let them run amok just to see what would happen.

It makes a big difference here in WI where pumpkins are planted.  Last year I planted them at dad's house on the south side, next to the brick foundation, adjoining the neighbors blacktop driveway, translation full sun in the hottest spot of the garden. All those factors added together to make a huge harvest.  This is what last year's harvest looked like.  I actually had difficulty finding enough places to park them all while they finished ripening.

Next year's planting location will be determined by how many pumpkins I really want to have, and that will depend on how much pumpkin we manage to eat this winter.

Time to finish the repairs on the pellet stove.  The boiler works fine for heating the house, but feeding the roaring dragon in the basement gets expensive, and the BTU output of the boiler is overkill unless it gets really cold outside.

Well At Least

It isn't snowing.

We're still getting a bit tired of all this rain.  The air conditioners are actually running right now, mostly to reduce the humidity.

Of course when the sky does clear, the temperatures at night will drop like a rock.  Thursday night might be a bit too cold for the pumpkins, but it is still too far out to know for sure.  Those pumpkins are always a bit of a gamble, because the growing season here is so much shorter than in France where the Musquee de Provence variety originated.

Complaining about the rain hardly seems right when the gulf coast is getting ready for hurricane Michael.  Who thought it was a good idea to name a hurricane after an archangel?  Hopefully Michael isn't too wrathful.

On the maintenance front, it looks like the pellet stove needs a new "brain".  When we started it up this week it tripped the GFCI in the circuit, which tells us that the potentiometer that controls the stove temp might be leaking some current to places it should not.  (Replacing the worn outlets in the circuit didn't fix the problem, unfortunately.)  It is still preferable to buy a new circuit board than to pay almost twice as much for a replacement stove.  But the biggest argument against replacing it is that the sucker is cast iron, and we remember what it took to install it in the first place 13 years ago.  After this, there will only be two components that we haven't replaced, the ignitor and the vacuum/seal sensor.  The auger motor was first to go.  Then the combustion blower went.  Then the distribution blower went.  All in all it hasn't been too bad, considering we bought a floor demonstrator model for a $1000 discount.  I'm pretty sure we haven't spent all of that discount in replacement parts yet; that said we installed them ourselves eliminating labor charges.  Even with all the repairs, the pellet stove is still more reliable than some of the new high efficiency furnaces that have a bad habit of cracking heat exchangers every five years or so.  Thank God for the short cold snap to let us know that there was a problem.

Update:  maybe the ignitor is having problems too.  Time to do a manual start and see if removing the ignitor from the equation fixes the problem.

Warm Weather

came back for a day.  It was a beautiful warm, sunny day.

Too bad I was busy checking with the banks and re-paying some bills because the US Postal Service managed to misplace all the mail that was sent Sept. 2nd through Sept. 4th.  So USPS closed the sorting office in Oshkosh, because they could be more efficient in Milwaukee?  It appears that isn't working so well.

It should be interesting when/if USPS manages to deliver the original mail.  Thankfully it was only payment for three bills.  Obviously, our internet provider was feeling generous, because they hadn't shut down our connection, yet.

Tomorrow the temperatures will likely return to normal for this time of year (mid 50's).  Hopefully the rain will hold off so that we can get some outside chores done.