Things Falling Into Place

The Ridge

On Saturday, Oct. 17th it was around 7 when I got up and Bill and I sorted the dirty clothes into 2 loads. I wanted to wash the chair quilts too so that made 3. It was going to be weird not cleaning on the same day, weird but great! 

Good morning!
A pretty sky in the west.

Bill drove me in, dropped me at the Mat for 7:30 and he carried on to give Black Beauty her bath, get propane and fill a water bottle. Once the loads were transferred into the dryers, I bundled against the ch-ch-chilly, frosty -1C/31F and walked to the bank to deposit my cash from Sandy.

The ice on the steps was not nice.
It stayed there a lot of the morning
until the day warmed up a bit and
the sun came around that side. 

When I returned, Bill was in the Mat waiting for me and helped fold. We were back home by 9 with more things taken care of. 

It was a matter of time before
the clouds moved off as
forecasted.

I swapped out the sheets that were on the bed, we think they are for a queen size, just barely covering so now the flannelette sheets are king and will be great to crawl into tonight. Then I had my shower.

I enjoyed the short walk from
the Mat to the bank.
Brisk but good.

Gord messaged at 10:30 that he would be over shortly to install our table and Gibbs greeted him traditional 'Gibbs' style. Aside from the Suite being out of 'kilter' for one reason or another, he made the table installation look easy. I guess he knows what he's doing!! 😉

If I didn't know any better,
it looks like he has a supervisor.
🤭

He left before noon to get the cube van with the table top so we had our lunch and before he returned, Bill had his shower and a brief snooze.

The top picture here makes me chuckle.
He is an Ace working with wood but
give them a hanging file frame and
it puzzled them both.
'Are you okay under there Gord?'

Gord was back around 2:30 and made short work of finishing the job. Oh my! We can't say enough about how pleased we are.

A little time for some chit chat
and a drink together before he left.

We had an hour after he left at 3 to get ready for a steak dinner at the Community Centre for the Durham Hospital Foundation, assisted by some Lion's Club members. We didn't volunteer, well, for obvious reasons. The food was awesome but we weren't sitting with anyone we knew so it wasn't very stimulating. 

I knew it would be awesome
and we weren't disappointed.
Thank you Gord!

It was bright and warmer when
we left for town.

Black Beauty is cleaner and ready.
We stopped in town to pick up my
Durham Fair cheque. Finally. LOL

The first entertainment, a single young man, played through dinner for 2 hours and I only knew a couple of his songs and barely understood what he said in between. When he was done, I wasn't hopeful with the 5 piece band finding how young they were. 

This fellow was talented but not my
type of music. I didn't catch his full
name either time he said it because
his speaking words were not clear.

Too bad but their music was too loud and tunes (?) meant for a much younger generation than us. We left at 8 pm rather than stay and get some dancing in. 🤷‍♀️ 

Dinner was really good!
I ate the whole meal and that
was a big steak, perfectly done.

Hugs from Melodie with a nice treat for our morning travel and a hug from Roz made me realize I'l miss them.

Melodie gave us some muffins
for the road and we'll think of
her with each one!
Yum!

I was disappointed with the entertainment part of the night but just as happy to get home early tonight and enjoy our last evening here with Gibbs. We have just a couple, literally, a couple of things to do in the morning and we're On Our Way. 

The moon looking spooky
tonight as we head up the lane.
Good night!

I hope you've had a great day in the sunshine, it didn't turn out badly at all!

Thank you for your visit. See you down the road!

We're on a Countdown!

 The Ridge

On Friday, Oct. 16th I stayed in bed until 7:30. Before I got up, Mr. Gibbs made sure I received my fair share of doggie cuddles and kisses. Yes, I love you too, little bum. 💕 I made my cup of tea and we just 'chilled' until 9:45.

Good morning!
Dreary as it is. 

Yesterday, I'd reported to and heard from Sandy that I could pick up my October earnings from his shop. It is just across the highway from Baptist Church Road and since we were meeting Donna and Gerry for brunch in Hanover at 10:30, we headed there first.

It was a delicious brunch!

We arrived at Stacked on this chilly, heck no, this cold, damp morning. My body is not ready for such a change in temperature. Remember, Tuesday was in the high 20's/low 80's. That's a fast change. We secured a table for 4 and within 5 minutes, my sister and hubby came in.

What a great picture of
Donna & Gerry!

It was a great meal. This restaurant is only open for breakfast and lunch, 7 am to 3 pm but if you can't find anything on the menu, you might have a problem. 🤭 I had one of my favourite breakfast meals, a Peameal Benedict w/spinach. Delicious! We had a nice last visit before snapping a picture and saying goodbye.

And a pretty good one 
of these two. 🤭

On the way home, we stopped at Impact Tire where Lee slipped out and torqued one of Black Beauty's tires for us. Sorry that I (we) missed a final goodbye from Jackie, we headed for home. Bill loaded a few of our 'junk dump' things in the truck and took them into town and then took a trip in to Robin's to drop off an old mower for Andrew to fiddle with over the winter. Like he doesn't have enough to do! 🤣

A funny picture, yes.
But.....it was a spark of sunshine
coming in through the windows.

Back home, I had Madame IP boil all of the eggs we have in the fridge to make egg salad sandwiches for our journey. Then, we went on our laptops and planned the very first few nights' stops. A couple will be Harvest Host destinations which will be fun. Now that we're down to the wire, I'm getting anxious. 

There were still a lot of clouds.
But nice to see some brightness.

Once I confirmed with Bill that we had nothing else going on today, I went upstairs to watch NCIS New York's latest episode. It was good and then I had myself a nap. I'd woken up through the night with a nasty Charly horse in my lower left leg. Yikes, you all know they aren't fun. It passed but interupted my usual 8 hours of beauty sleep!

Bill and Gibbs dozed downstairs at the same time. A cup of tea when I got up held me over until an early supper. We had leftovers of ribs, rice and cauliflower in the fridge plus I baked the last of the questionable freezer foods. 4 small fish 'sticks' disappeared quickly. 

Lots of food.
Still love the baked onions.
(Nancy, baked in some local maple syrup!)

I had 3 withery apples, a similar green pepper and 6 clementines also. I peeled the clementines and will eat them before we leave and the others went in the compost bin. Supper was good, although we didn't clean everything up. Some cauliflower and some rice ended up in the trash. Enough of that.

Just one more serving of
the carrot cake.
Neighbours didn't get any.
Woops!

We did dishes by hand, as we have for the last couple of weeks. Trying to conserve the water that we have in our tanks by not running the dishwasher. Tonight's entertainment started with Sheriff Country and maybe Survivor's latest after that. 

Then it got really pretty

We only reached 13.8C/57F for a high today and dropping to a cold -1.11C/30F. Brrr, hoping the white stuff isn't going to find us on the Ridge. 🫣🥴

Someone north and east of us
might get 'something' tonight.
Good night!

Thank you for coming by!

A Bit of This and That Plus a Heartened Memory

 The Ridge

On Thursday, Oct. 15th, it felt wonderful to realize that I didn't have to go ANYWHERE today! Yes, my cleaning days for this season, and this year, are behind me and it feels good. 

I realized that it was 6 years ago today when Mom passed away. We miss her and so very often I find myself doing things that I know I learned from her. It makes me sad yet proud. I'm who I am because of Mom. ♥️🥰

Good morning!
Miss you Mom

I was awake at 4:50 but soon fell back to sleep. I did hear Bill and Gibbs get up later but stayed right where I was until almost 7:30. 😉 After days of go-go-go, my mind still strays and is thinking 'should I be doing/going something/somewhere?' I made my tea and sat to finish yesterday's blog post.

It was a dry morning although cool with some gusty winds first thing. Bill was busy all morning with one thing or the other, in and out of the Suite and at one point said 'huh, I think I've done 95% of what needs to be done' and he started listing completed things. 😀 I love that we are ahead of the game this year.

Bill brings the Starlink down
I hold my breath whenever he goes
up on the ladder.

He brought our Starlink down off the roof as well as the weather station and when he saw me getting the vacuum out, brought Black Beauty over to the door so he could use it when I was finished. I slowly got myself washed and dressed to start at some projects too. 

Ew! I don't do this often enough
obviously.

Much better

I noticed that 3 of our floor registers in the living room were quite dust-filled. Woops! Now, maybe that is something most of you pay close attention to and take care of on a regular basis. Um, well, us, not so much so it wasn't surprising to be sucking up probably last Christmas's peanut. 🤭🤔

Bill took the vacuum out and got BB ready for the trip and then proceeded to take one of the passenger side wheels off the Suite. His tire monitor gauge was not getting a reading so he wanted to take the tire in to Impact Tire for a look-see. The would need a couple of hours so when he returned, we had lunch.

Sitting on the leaves,
these Dahlias were pretty tall!

 Time for me to get to work now. I pulled the 2 packages of ribs out of the freezer and because there was a lot, I wondered if Robin would be around for sharing a meal with us. She drives most days for the Mennonites and is often home quite late. 

And quite a few big bulbs,
making it a challenge to dig them
with my small trowel.

We were happy to hear she accepted as we wanted one more visit with her before we left. Her spouse, Andrew, was still away over Thanksgiving so who knows what kind of celebratory meal she had while we all pigged out on turkey etc. 🤷‍♀️ We don't have potatoes so our staple will be rice tonight.

I brought the flowers inside
for the last couple days of their life.

I was dressed in a double layer, fit for crawling around outside to cut and dig up my Dahlias. I need to take the bulbs to Donna tomorrow. Man, there are so many! 

I will put them back here next year,
they seemed to love it.

I cut the remaining blooms to bring inside for the lasting enjoyment until we pull out.

We had a very sprawly small tree
in the back field that Bill cut a few
days ago. This will make cutting
grass much easier without having 
to duck his head.

With that done, I went up and after first thinking I wasn't going to worry about the berm garden, cleaned it up after all.

My Sedum is lovely!
It does not get cut back.

Supervised, of course.

Bill brought our tire back from town, reinstalled it and tested out the generator. He usually runs it monthly but has missed a couple this summer. You just never know when you'll need it. 

Again sitting on the ground,
the berm garden is a mess.

Gibbs has been doing a great job supervising both of us. He's been in and out more often than a cuckoo bird. Such a little character.

The boss approves.
I'm glad I got at this after all,
the hosta leaves are slimy in the spring. 
Ew!

Bill was done outside by 2:45 and I had already put my garden gloves and tools away. The clouds are still heavy today but no rain is expected until later. Last night, we caught up on the latest episodes of NCIS and NCIS Origins. I'll watch NCIS New York at another time. Bill isn't as keen.

A few die-hard Corabelles left

And one branch with lilacs.

I prepared supper as much as I could ahead of time. Since we have 4 large sweet onions and they cannot be taken across the border, (and I love cooked onions) I found a way to bake them in the oven. The recipe makes them sound really good so I got them ready and popped into the oven early. 

While supper was cooking,
I emptied the Bunky freezer of
the 4 items left there and turned it off.
Gibbs and I walked up to examine
the newly acquired mushrooms
on the berm.
First year we've had them.

The ribs are spiced and ready for Madame IP once the onions are done. That is just my timer, so to speak, not ready to cook them in the oven yet....not with company coming! 😉🫣 Bill and Gibbs settled in his recliner for their snooze and I made my afternoon tea, All is well and on schedule!

I think supper was perfect.
Those onions were delicious!
Robin agreed. 😃

Robin and Mildred arrived just before 6 so I turned the rice on to cook (thanks Erma). Everything else, my onions and the ribs, was ready so they were staying warm in the oven. I cooked corn as well once the rice was done. The meal was good!

We tried to get a selfie in our
crammed space and it worked!

Mildred and Gibbs had their little 'tete a tete' with a few growls and groans at each other too and finally settled into being in the same room together. Tolerance is the word with an icing of jealousy mixed up in there too. 🐶🐶🤭 We all had a piece of carrot cake for dessert, cleaned up the dishes and chatted until 9.

You've all seen Mildred before,
(she's posing, Gibbs is watching her)
but this is your first meet with Robin.
She's a lovely lady in every way and
we very much enjoyed their visit.

Gibbs was asleep in no time on Bill's lap as I'm sure Mildred was too. She was fun to watch with Gibbs' toys and food - of which he had no problem. Cute little cuddlebums. 

They tired themselves out.
Gibbs was very good, sharing his food,
Mildred took one little piece at a time,
and even he allowed her to pick and chew
on his stuffies.
💕

This was a great day, getting even more things done and the list is getting shorter and shorter. I hope you've enjoyed your day too!

Thank you for stopping by.

Still Running but Closer to Home

The Ridge

On Wednesday, Oct. 14th I was in no hurry to get up since we didn't have to be anywhere today. I did have to clean the Mat but I had other things to do in town as well that didn't open until 9:30 or 10. So, I didn't get out of bed until 7.

Good morning!
It was dull and drizzly all day.

I had my tea and stayed put until almost 8:30. It was quite a change in the overnight temperatures, cooling off in the Suite very noticeably. Bill didn't have to be anywhere either, which I'm sure Gibbs appreciated more than we know! 

Looks like some hope
but no, we were not fooled.
😂

I drove straight to the Mat and proceeded to do the big dryers and then the normal cleaning. It wasn't too busy, just 3 or 4 customers that didn't hang around inside while the cycles ran through. That helps, if there are no feet in the way when mopping and washing floors.

My boys are planning their
day. Well, Bill is.
Gibbs is watching out for goblins.

When I left, it was after 9:30 so I drove to the Beer Store to drop off my empty bottles and cans (98% from the bnb). That $2.30 may as well be in my pocket rather in the recycle bin. From there, a stop to see Mark at Battery Pro for a bottle refill and chat. Nice to get a chance to say goodbye.

Driving to town.
Look at that heavy sky blanket.

Then I drove to the bank and deposited my work cash and rolled coins before swinging around to Pat's to drop my 2 containers of craft paint at her house. Unfortunately, I missed her (both times I stopped) but she left Bill and I nice birthday cards and gifts. I love my shirt! ♥️

On the way home, I stopped at Eckhardt's to cash in a free lotto ticket and buy another. Our last opportunity for that big win here in Ontario. Wouldn't that be sweet? 💰💲Bill was at home, a bit disgusted with the miserable weather. He had things he wanted to do outside but it was a no-go.

I'm pretty sure someone is happy
Mom and Daddy are home today.
Little cuddlebum.

Robin had messaged around 6:30 asking if by any chance was I available to clean today. It was a runaround kind of day but I knew I could squeeze it in - for her. Her guests last night were 2 permanent renters from her Manitoba Belmont home so it would be left in good shape.

Isn't the bnb pretty in its
autumn dress?

I had a quick bite to eat and at 10:45 headed to Williamsford. Lisa and Lorne were still there when I arrived but she was just finishing up vacuuming! All sheets and towels were washed, put away and beds made. Wow! I only had to do a couple of things, empty the dehumidifier, a bit of dust up and wash floors so it only took about 40 minutes today.

I drove into Durham, messaged Bill that I was at the gas station to fuel Ptooties up (again). He met me at Murray's where she was going for her winter hibernation too. I usually take a picture of her sad face but she seemed quite happy to have a warm place to stay inside his barn. 😊

Our Catch the Ace ticket sales
have been saving money for the
Xray machine at our hospital.
Another $25,000 was presented tonight
from the Lion's club.

Back home, we rested with Gibbs until 5:15 when we drove back into town for our last Lion's club meeting and dinner. It was a long one with a guest speaker (Lol) but the meal was delicious. We said goodbye to a few people and will see others at the steak dinner on Saturday night. Our last Ontario event this year.

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy
carrots, coleslaw and a roll with
garlic butter.
Can you say YUMMY?
A pumpkin tart for dessert.

What a busy day! We got things done and with tomorrow forecasted to be a dry day, we'll finish up around the property. We had a cool windy day of only 11.6C/53F and a low 7C/45F overnight. Oh well, all the more reason to move south.😉 

Good night Ptooties!
Last year's picture.

Thank you for staying tuned!