Halloween is here

First snow of the season

Snowed today, sleet and hail too.

St. Vincent de Paul has a new Christmas store on the west side near Weight Watchers and across from Shopko West. Spent a good hour in there getting some outdoor stuff for my south garden. Also signed up to volunteer cause it was such a fun place to be that I hated to leave. They want me to be a cashier, I've never been one but what the heck. Now I have a place to wear my Christmas sweatshirts.

One last thing that I want to mention is that I sent for two coupons for the TV converter boxes and when I checked to see where they are they told me they had already sent them last summer and they have expired and I won't be getting anymore. Suggestions welcome.

School Autumn Festival

We went to the Autumn Festival at Owen's school tonight. Oh my gosh, I think it was the noisiest place I've ever been in. We stayed two hours. They had games, chili supper, crafts, cake walk, drawings and family pictures. It was fun but also I was happy to leave. When we got home we made apple ice cream topping and had that for a late snack. The kids sure enjoyed making it and eating it. Owen was Anakin Skywalker and Hali was a little witch.

Making Applesauce

The apple ready to be peeled, cored and sliced.

The apple about half peeled

The apple ready to come off the peeler

This is my handy dandy apple corer, peeler, slicer.

All cored and sliced the apples on the left go into the cooking pot and the apples on the right go outside for the birds and rabbits and squirrels and chippies. If they decide they don't want any of it I'll put it in the compost.

Once the apples are cored and sliced they are put in the 'pot'

Here is the applesause steaming and bubbling on the stove.

All finished and oh does it smell delicious. I added a little cinnamon and it tastes so good!

Below is a short little video of how the apple peeler works. I got it last year at the local kitchen store. I highly recommend home made apple sauce, a little chunky, a little cinnamon.

Have a great birthday!

I love you, have a super day

Apple picking, a picture story

This is Apple Valley Orchard. There are rows and rows of apple trees just like this one. My grandchildren thought this was wonderful and even I had to stop and catch my breath at the beauty...Put me in mind of the song, For The Beauty Of The Earth. It was wonderful to be there.

Owen and Hali were really impressed that apples were on the trees, they never saw apple trees before, imagine that.

Then they started to pick the apples from the ground and I said no pick them from the trees.

They did get the hang of it after a minute or two and filled up the basket with Cortlands, Honey Crisp, and Delicious Apples to take home.

Here we are riding back from the orchard on the tractor drawn tram.

There were a lot of fun things to do there too, this is the picture pumpkin.

Here is the hay wagon, it was fun climbing on it I'm sure.

This goat especially liked Hali so she scratched his head and fed him some goat food and he was bleating like crazy when Hali walked away.

The Llamas were huge and the biggest one came running by us and did a Llama dance. It was sure fun to see them. I wish I could have had some of their wool for spinning, but I'm sure they'll need it too with winter coming.

Here's old grandpa in the apple house and the worker there said she'd take our picture. That's me there on the left, you can tell I'm having a good day. I loved the fresh country air and the smell of hot apple cider. In addition to the apples, we got apple butter and apple cider. The apple cider was soooo delicious, in fact it's all gone already. I'm looking forward to having the apple butter on my toast in the morning.

Now to the casual bystander that doesn't know this little sweety you would think this was just a happy picture, but her face, especially around her mouth is very swollen from her falling injury. I also added movies to this post but they didn't come in order. This little child climbed a chair back at Subway and it fell on her and she ended up at First Care at St. Mary's. A lot of blood, but no stitches needed and she has a new soft bear to sleep with.

The apples we picked will be pie and applesauce and fresh eating.

Here are the videos, of course they are backwards order.

Here we are at subway, pay special attention to the chair over Owen's shoulder at the end of the video. That's the chair Hali climbed in one tenth of a second and pulled it over on top of herself. We went to St. Mary's FirstCare where I saw a lot of old friends that told me over and over again that I should not let Hali climb on chairs.

My grandchildren chasing a kitty.

This is the train that the kids played on, they sure had fun.

And here we have Owen and Hali picking apples.

Now they know apples grow on tree.

This was our field trip for today and they are asleep snug and warm in their beds and dreaming sweet dreams.

thresher

At 9:18 a.m. on April 10, 1963, sonar operators aboard the U.S. Navy submarine rescue ship Skylark, which was accompanying the nuclear attack submarine Thresher, heard a chilling sound “like air rushing into an air tank,” and Thresher was no more. Its deep-dive trials southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, had come to a cataclysmic end and all 129 men aboard perished in 8,400 feet (2,560 meters) of water.
Five minutes prior to the implosion, Thresher had radioed that it was having minor problems. Skylark received several fragmentary, garbled messages, followed by silence. Moments later the chilling sounds of a submarine breaking apart and imploding were heard.
According to U.S. military reviews of the accident, the most likely explanation is that a piping joint in a sea water system in the engine room gave way. The resulting spray shorted out electronics and forced an automatic shutdown of the nuclear reactor.
Creaking Death
When the accident occurred, Thresher was near its maximum test depth, which, though classified, was probably around 1,300 feet (396 meters). Most submarines are built to survive down to a “crush depth,” which can be 20 to 35 percent greater than their maximum test depth. However, without the reactor, the sub would not have had enough power to stop itself from sinking to the bottom.
As they sank, the men aboard would have heard piping and fittings giving way. They would have listened as the ship’s hull creaked and groaned, until it finally, deafeningly gave way to massive water pressure. All lives were likely extinguished within a matter of seconds.

The reason I am remembering this today is because I happen to run into one of our mutual friends at the time our friend was killed. It was very nice to see him and talk to him again and blab about old times and sweet memories.

The little ones

Here's Owen, letting me take a picture of him with his tree. It's what I planted when he was born four plus years ago. It's a white Magnolia. He's anxious to get back to his football game.

She was a happy girl but then I said no, you cant use the clipper. She sat and pouted for a while to see if I would change my mind but when I didn't ... zoom...she took off to tell her Daddy. LOL

Library Party at the Museum

Yesterday was the party the library gave the kids for reading (or in this case, listening to) books over the summer. They gave little prizes along the way too. Happy Meals, Railroad museum passes, swimming passes, stickers, etc. The kids sure enjoyed it all. Here's a picture of the Wild Thing (a favorite book) that was at the library. They also had a puppet show, half a dozen crafts to make and story telling.

Spent a day outside

It was a rainy day but nevertheless I spent it outside. These pictures are of Abbey Pond and the sky above it. We used to come here quite often as the father of one of my long ago dear friends helped build this area. I stayed a long time and hated to leave but I had 'miles to go before I sleep' so I moved on with sadness.