Last week of November

We had a great Thanksgiving, good weather and great company. Jake, Em & her dad, Chris spent Thanksgiving with us and Ben & Matt came over on Friday and spent the night. Lots of good food and football this weekend. For once I feel like I didn't over do it. I had plenty of goodies but in lower volume.

On the Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving I had the Carpal Tunnel surgery performed at Mason General and as far as I can tell, everything is progressing normally.

Ben, Matt, Chris & I uncorked my beer I made and surprisingly enough it was very good, a honey wheat beer - that was a fun project.

We put up two Christmas trees this year, we put the second tree up in the loft. It's nice for Chris because its a room she spends a lot of time in.

We got heavy rains on Wednesday which caused local flooding. I found out that we have a blockage in one of our 12" pipes, I'm sure its an accumulation of debris that comes down from lot 11. Chris, Charlie and I tried to get it cleared but had little luck. I need to call a Roto Rooter kind of company to clear that drain.

Since my last entry, Carol & Jeff have left for warmer surroundings, as I write this they are in Bakersfield, CA getting ready to head to Borrego Springs in a couple of days.

It's nice outside but kind of chilly, I plan to do a little work out in the yard, cleaning up some of the annuals that have finally died after the first good frost of the season. I've got a meeting to attend this evening up by the golf course where they are addressing upcoming memberships fees. I need to get together soon with Steve to go over what the heck I should be doing as President of the men's club.

Beautiful Early November Day

Three straight days of blue skies - NICE! Made it out to the golf course today and this past Tuesday and didn't play too bad (86 -85). Cartpath only means humping it out to the balls each shot, I suppose its good for me. Barack Obama was reelected on Tuesday, first time I can remember ever watching most of the evening returns.

I had an appointment Wednesday to get ready for my upcoming carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand. The hospital was thorough, blood draw, EKG, chest x-rays and lots of paper work filled out. I've got one more day of golf planned for tomorrow before I go on the shelf.

I trimmed several plants back and finished the garden shed redo this past weekend. After the surgery on the 20th, I'll need about 3 weeks to heal which will put me well into December. I'm not counting on to many more golf outings based on normal weather patterns before heading south in late Feb.

We had to move the Santee golf trip to April because of hurricane Sandy postponing some meetings for the guys. that should be interesting, the weather in April should be considerably warmer then what we are use to and the days will be longer as well.

Jake, Em & her dad Chris are coming over for Turkey day, that should be fun. might be a little challenge to find a bed for everyone since we only have 2 bedrooms but I know we will make it work.

Since the weather is suppose to be nice, I'm planning on hanging Christmas lights up on Saturday before the surgery.

Chris and I are planning a date night tomorrow - the latest James Bond movie "Skyfall" comes out and we'll go into Olympia to see it and grab Chinese food.

Should have taken before pictures of the garden shed, I'll snap a picture of the finished work and attach it to this posting.

Late addition, shot a 75 today, I have no idea where that came from but it's a great way to end things if I don't play next week and the surgery is the following week.

Will the sun ever come back?

It's only been a few days of rain but the cold damp weather has definitely set in. I made a list of fall and winter projects this morning. It's Saturday and I should be excited about watching the dawgs but the game against the Beavers is on the stupid Pac 12 network and is unavailable.

I only have a couple of weeks until I'll be leaving for South Carolina. I would like to get in some practice time before I go, I hope the weather will cooperate.

I published this blog to mark the official start of the rainy season. Its been really nice weather since mid July, I shouldn't complain but this year there was no gradual transformation, it went from sunny and mid 70's to low 50's and rain overnight.

Some of my end of the year projects (some weather dependent) include; dividing the yard into sections and doing a final weeding, isolating and cutting down the alders as things thin out, moving a half dozen plants in the back yard now that they have grown up, they need better spacing & turning off the water supply to the two sprinkler manifolds (I'm turning the watering over to mother nature).

As I look back on the accomplishments outside, I am quite please where we are after just two summers.
The lawn looks good, we fenced the back, moved the unsightly propane tank out behind the garden shed, created a roadway behind the shop to help gain access to the hillside, completely revamped the stairway leading up from the back yard to the well house, built the fountain outside the front door and planted probably 20 new plants and trees. Plenty more to do including both hillsides on the northwest and southeast sides of our property. I'm sure within a week or two I'll cut down plants and get rid of the annuals as we make way for winter to move in.

Late October

Weather seems to dominate the blog as we are getting cooler, wetter and losing daylight at an alarming rate. Still I got 3 rounds of golf in this week and finished my fall project - the steps leading up to our well house. I also managed to spread 1 & 1/2 loads of 3/4- gravel around the steps, along the side yard and re-graded the driveway!

Took Chris and Carole to the airport last Saturday, they are in Italy and having a blast. The dogs have been good this week and we can now leave Riley indoors without something getting broke or unexpectedly eaten!

Donna invited Jeff & I over tonight for pot roast dinner so I've got to run. I throw more up on the blog later, here's a couple of snaps tonight.

October 1

Just a few misc thoughts. September was an incredibly nice weather month, little or no rain, I'll try to remember that when the gloomy skies and rain comes. I had an ambitious month planned and I got most of my list accomplished. First, I had a physical complete with blood work and I got very good news back from that. I think we have the thyroid medicine now at a level where it should help me. I've continued to keep the weight off and very slowly taking the lb's off. I had a lot of dental work done including some oral surgery that should keep my teeth healthy. Today I am scheduled to see an orthopedic doctor to examine my right hand where I have had numbness (probably carpol tunnel).

I'm in the middle of my stair project out back, should get some 3/4- today from Kennedy Creek and that will help dress up the first half of the stairs. I've reseeded some of the yellow spots and started the new grass up above on the top of the property - it's coming in good thanks to cool morning and evenings and sunny days.

One of my neighbors nominated me for president of our men's club up at Lake Cushman, it should be interesting for the next couple of years to be more involved in the set up and running of the league. I have met several guys up there and many stay throughout the winter, so if the weather allows us to play, I should have a good opportunity to play golf this fall/winter.

Chris is getting ready for her try to Italy, a couple weeks after she gets back I'll be heading to Santee for  my golf outing with Kerans, Zimmerman and Gilbreath. Riley's leg seems to be getting better, he hurt or strained it chasing a deer. Just took the two dogs in for exams and shots and the vet told me that Riley's 10lbs overweight! We'll work on that this fall.

Trip to Long Beach

Chris & I (and of course the dogs) made our way to the Long Beach peninsula for a couple of days. Weather was typical beach mist and clouds but at least no rain. We had a good time, visited some old shops, had pizza @ Chico's, thoroughly scoured Jacks Country Store, hit the taffy shop, etc. Thursday evening we were invited over to Annie's for dinner, had a good time and it was nice to catch-up, see her new place and especially see my nephew Shad. It was great to see him in such good spirits after all the troubles of his past.

Riley and Carter enjoyed our treks to the beach where they went nuts running in and out of the surf and filling my truck up with that "wet dog smell" and sand.

Back home now and fall has officially started, the leaves are turning, days are shorter and evenings are cooler. I have started my next (and last) big project of the year, building a stairway from our back yard up to the pump house. Nothing fancy, using 16" masonry stones and masonry sand to build the risers. Chris had carved a rough outline earlier this year when he put in the road behind the shop. I'll include a photo tonight.

Should be a fun Monday night, first it's the last couples night at the golf course as the locals are starting to head south and later it's Monday Night Football from the Clink, Packers vs the Seahawks. Seahawks have the best winning percentage of any NFL team on Monday night (probably because they rarely get that invite). I need the  hawks to win but A. Rodgers to do good because he's my fantasy QB and I'm playing my grandson Dillon this week!

Labor Day Weekend

Headlines in the Times ... 40 days without measurable rainfall! August has really been nice. I picked a good month to take a hiatus from all the yard work. Have now shot a couple of rounds in the 70's and my handicap was lowered to 15.6 from 16.9 a pretty significant decline. Riley came back from a romp with Carter a little lame. I hope he has just sprained a muscle in his right front leg, it does seem to be getting slightly better - hard to keep him quiet!

Wilbur and Carolynn from the old neighborhood stopped by on Saturday for a visit, it was nice to see them. I hope I can visit them in their new place in Sun City, AZ this coming Feb - March when I go south. Ben and Matt also came over on Saturday and spent the night. They made dessert for all of us after we returned from Alderbrook (wedding crashing).

Definitely feel fall in the air but this first week of September has projected temps in the 80's. Just came back from a periodontal appointment, I have surgery scheduled for next Tuesday that I'm absolutely not looking forward to.

I'll be attaching a photo of our dogwood - it decided to bloom out this fall and is beautiful. Football season is just starting and I'm excited to see what the Hawks and Huskies can do this year. I thatched, aerated and fertilized the yards this holiday weekend. I plan to seed the new area on top and some of the back yard after the weather returns to "normal". My big fall project is to build a stairway up to our pump house. that should be good for a couple of pounds of weight-loss. I'm please to have kept slowly losing weight this summer, be nice to drop another 10 lbs before my trip down south.

We are reviving our South Carolina golf vacation this November, should be fun and wouldn't be surprised if it's the last time for that.