Great weekends, great dart games, displaced birds and functioning Antisnow generators.

Great things are happening. The American populace is beginning to awake to the GOP’s assault on the middle class, pervasive ineptitude, and mean spirited corruption as well as general greed motivated corruption. Satan (Carl Rove) and his henchman BeezelScooterBub are being baked and people are starting to realize that this isn’t representative of “Family Values”. Quick chant: 911 – 911 – September 11th – Its gonna take hard work – terrorists – prayer in school – stop the flag burning – 911! Henh Henh Henh! CARL 54 Where are you??????

Just got back from a great weekend at Hogfish Jim’s (and Val of course) where we had the great pleasure of watching a truly talented musician at work (Eric) and see Love Janice. We got to play some darts and watch the Steelers beat the Bungles. The food was delightful the beer and great conversation plentiful. Hogfish also gave us a bunch of tomatoes! Happy Birthday Hogfish too!

I am installing two natural gas room heaters to combat the impending onslaught of high gas prices. The one in the kitchen is in place and it works beautifully – maintaining a temperature of 78F in the kitchen (at a low setting) while the living room is at 65F as set by the thermostat. I will be installing the living room heater soon. That installation will require some furniture rearrangement and a little more plumbing in the cellar.

Speaking of being in the cellar I did the fall tune-up on the vaunted Antisnow Generator and was pleasantly surprised to hear from an awakened HAL that everything was functioning normally and aside from some minor adjustments to the singularity containment field it was ready to function at full power. Its a good thing too -because we narrowly averted a dusting of the white stuff on monday!

As I was leaving the cellar and retrieving my plumbing and singularity containment field adjustment tools I heard the familiar song! A white throated sparrow (the famed “Canada Bird”) was serenading me in the rain! He must be waiting for hurricane season to end and has the good sense to stay near the Antisnow Generator in the meantime. I conversed with him briefly – It was delightful even in the dreary rain!

Happy Halloween – any interesting costumes this year? I know the scariest is the W mask – AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Early Wednesday morning Harvey called in this bull moose toward Bob, but Bob was unable to get a good shot. The unlucky moose kept walking in Harvey’s direction and when he was within 20 feet Harvey shot him. The bullet went in one side and out the other. Mr. Moose staggered into Slim Lake and then back out again and collapsed nearby. Although this moose is not as big as the moose Tom killed last year, Bob estimates that he will get over 200 pounds of meat. Yum, Yum.

Harvey and Bob (and recently,Tom) have been hunting here for the past ten years and they have killed eight moose. That is one hell of a success rate for this area. Way to go guys!

Of northwestern Pennsylvania!

I was in the Meadville area yesterday on business and decided to pay a surprise visit on Joan, Emily and Ryan. I had forgotten my cell phone – hence the surprise. The purpose of the visit was to finalize plans (as much as is possible with out the scheduling POOOOOBAH – Janeeto – Evil One, nee of planet Janetron) for our fall Pennsylvania winery tour and to see the new tile floors. After discussing dates for the tour and recovering from the “bare knuckle excitement” of seeing a tile floor we decided to take a walk around the yard and feed some grasshoppers to the fish in the pond. Whilst pulling some bark off of a downed tree and collecting more beetles for the fish Joan exclaimed “Hey I have a cane pole that I paid 2$ (American for you Sportsmen’s Camp Store shoppers) for in the garage – it’s brand new!”

So our northwestern Pennsylvania flats fishing trip began. Beetles and a a katydid were collected in a cup and we trekked to the backcountry! After rigging the pole and deciding what sound effect to use to simulate fish taking line from the drag, (there was no reel on the pole) we baited the hook and let fly! BAM! An immediate strike from a freshwater permit (blue gill for the noncogniscenti) but he wasn’t hooked well and was lost on the first screaming (Joan was at least) 100 yd run! The rod was passed and the next several freshwater permit were landed after a great fight! The bait was running low so it was decided to move on to artificial lures. Natural dry flies: goldenrod, white aster and purple aster patterns were procured from our surroundings. The was no let up from the action and several more freshwater permit were caught as well as two freshwater tarpon (large mouth bass). By this time it was getting dark and the intrepid flats fishermen decided to trek back.

It was a delightful evening of fishing and today I have nearly recovered from the excitement of seeing the tile floor!

I will be going back to camp this weekend to begin closing summer is indeed over!

Dweezil March 2002 – October 2005

Dweezil died monday. She had feline leukemia.

She was a good kitty and we miss her. Kirby has been looking for her so he can knock her over and bite her belly and Rudy… well, Rudy never believed she ever existed. Bye, bye Dwee-Dwee.