What a week

The trees have started turning color and are just beautiful.   I love this time of year with all the brilliant colors.  It is starting to get cool at night, we actually had to turn on the heat a few nights ago.  The days are not too bad but I have had to resort to long sleaves on my shirts.  It is taking me a little longer in the mornings to be able to shake out the creaks in the old joints.   But I am still able to hold my own at the end of a shovel. :) Over the weekend we had a 3" water main spring a leak. The hardest part was digging the hole to get to the leak. Thank god for Tom, It took Tom and I about an hour and a half to get the hole dug so we could even find the problem.  Everything here is build on decomposing granite.  Mix it with a little mud and you basically have a hard sticky mess to try to dig through.  I almost think it would of been easier digging through concrete.  All in all it took us about 9 hours to get the leak dug out and repaired.  What a mess.  I was sort of surprised the following morning when I could actually move.  I figured the arthritis would be hollering at me but I actually felt pretty good.  Tom was a bit more on the sore side than I was.  Guess I am not as out of shape as I thought I was. :)  Makes me feel pretty good to think I can still keep up with a kid 12 years younger.
  We have a mess on the yard right now.  For some reason the skunk that has been a part of this complex for the last 7 plus years has decided to tear up the lawn for some reason.  This is the first time he has done anything like this.  As far as we can tell he is after worms and grubs.  Sure has made a mess of the lawn though.   We are having more bear sightings down in the valleys.  The game wardens have said that they are coming down to get as much food as they can because they know it is going to be a "cold" winter.  I heard that not to far from here an old man was heading to town and hit a 400 lb bear in the road.   And several of them have been sighted around Ashland. About 45 miles from here.  By all the signs that mother nature is giving it might be an interesting winter here.   Anyone for shoveling snow?