Nov 10 - basically ready to go

Yes, the boat is put away, the motor winterized, the docks pulled into their winter resting place, the oil changed on the 3-wheeler again, the tires rotated on the SUV, thermometer hung in the window, the snow blower run for a bit just for good luck, the generator likewise, trigger locks on the guns and in their cases ready for transport, Sandy's kayak away, computers synchronized (music, pictures, downloaded files, web), etc. etc.

What remains to be done ? -- No much really -- I need to pack clothes, misc stuff, do a final synchronization late today of "My Documents" (Quicken, Outlook, Bookmarks, Cookies), go into town to pick up mail & another jerry can of gas, partially load the car, waiting for tomorrow a.m. to do the final house close-up and car load. This time of year the house close-up involves draining the water but not anti-freeze -- when we leave in January I'll put anti-freeze in the drains and toilets just in case there is an extended power outage or the furnace fails. One of these years I'll setup a downstairs heat source -- electric -- so that if the temperature goes below the furnace setting the electric heat would kick in. It wouldn't take much to ensure that water does not freeze in the remaining non-treated areas in appliances like the fridge water dispenser, the washing machine and the dishwasher,

So I got to thinking, what would I do with myself if we were not heading to Florida ? Would I be bored ? Of course I have a list ...

-- I'd still be deer hunting this week
-- I would have mixed up some chemicals and be doing some more darkroom work, eg. paper printing
-- I have computer projects that I've postponed for Florida, eg. Linux software upgrades and copying all those DVD's that I've created from my Dad's tapes
-- I would cut some more wood
-- nope, I don't think that I'd be fishing ...
-- and of course I'd find a number of miscellaneous projects to do around here which would include pulling the painted baseboard at the foot of the stairs to replace with stained baseboard, paint and attach the baseboard in the darkroom, put a ceiling on the darkroom !,
-- etc.

I think that even if we didn't have the place in Florida we would take off for a couple of weeks at this time of year. It's a good time to travel (US Thanksgiving weekend excepted of course), and go visiting.

Sandy did some more cleaning yesterday and Bonnie came over around 4:30 for a drink and dinner. Pork loin, oven roasted sweet potato fries and stir-fried zucchini, cherry tomatoes and olives kept us from starving, not that there was any chance of that !

I gave Bonnie a hand with some computer-related things (she brought her laptop) -- there was a strange problem with Kaspersky anti-virus where it wasn't downloading updates. I tried it here and was getting the same thing, basically a time-out. After a couple of tries I disabled the update of the engine, which is not critical anyway, and it proceeded to update the virus database. Since it had been a couple of months since the last update it ran about 20mb and took a while even at satellite speed -- at 19.2 speed at Bonnie's it would have taken all week ! Bonnie also needed to practice saving pictures from email and then copying them onto a camera SD card. Her daughter Pauline in the U.K. sends lots of pictures and when they are copied onto the SD card they can be displayed in one of those picture frames.

Bonnie called after she got to her place to tell us that Jim had gotten a deer that day. I'm going to have to get better at this but am consoled by the fact that he hunted last week too and didn't get anything. I'm seriously thinking about getting a crossbow so that I can have a longer (starts sooner) hunting season and so that I can be hunting without all the crowds in the bush.

It's getting light out but the sky looks forbidding. We did get more snow yesterday, more than the 1cm that was predicted, but that soon melted. The lake is calm; a slight breeze creating ripples but not waves. The leaves are all down of course but the dense pine/hemlock/cedar coverage makes the opposite shore look much the same as it does in the summer. Red sky in morning ... but luckily I'm not going to be going sailing. It was about -4C this morning -- at least according to the internet, but it was warmer than that here by the lake. Once it freezes the lake looses its moderating influence. The gazebo is wrapped in its dark brown tarp which does not stand out, just makes it look dark. That's a good thing. The Christmas lights hanging around the gazebo make it look cheery at night, darkness notwithstanding.

I should probably leave some of the LED Christmas lights hung in the gazebo during the summer -- those would be fun to put on when we're out there, supplying a pleasant soft light. If I hung them inside they would be permanent and could even run along the top of the beam so that you would not see them unless lit. Oh well, that's a spring project.

Onward ... it's a travel day tomorrow and we'll be leaving around 6am. That should get us down to Philly by 6pm, but you never know with traffic and the border crossing. I might be persuaded to stop in Oakville at Stef's so that Abby can visit with Mya. By the time we get back in December they will be in their new house and they'll have a spare bedroom albeit without furniture.

I'll probably do a quick blog update tomorrow morning but don't be surprised if I'm short on time and/or short on words ! Of course short on words might be a welcome thing, right ?? Soon I'll be providing updates on biking and you'll be bored with that !