Happy November to everyone! You wouldn't know it was November here because we are going to get to 80º today!!! Normally it would be in the 50's, so we are really enjoying a warm spell. As I was walking the dogs this morning, I stopped to talk to a neighbor. She has beautiful purple and white bearded iris blooming!!! Some roses too. I also have geraniums that are still going strong, along with a bacopa. I hope I can leave the windows open tonight. It will be the latest date in the year that I have ever been able to do that!!

I am going to take down the Halloween decorations shortly. We had a great night, lots of mostly younger kids though not as many as in years past. It was a lot of fun. The dogs are tired today since they spent 6pm-8pm outside on the porch with me. They love the kids and some of the kids know my dogs and are always happy to see them. I don't know if I posted a picture of my decorations here already if so here it is again. :)

I have to paint my back door and I need to do it soon since I will have to leave it open for awhile for the paint to dry. I did get some cleaning done on Sunday. But with this nice weather, it's a shame to stay indoors.

I sat on the porch this morning and had my coffee. I'm so happy to be able to do this so late in the year. Have a good day everybody.

Good to see you LL Muraysmonm and Eld.

My big news is I got the snow plow mounted to the Polaris Ranger and ready to start plowing when the snow flies. so far only rain but it is not heated in the garage so better to do these things before it gets too cold out side. And I had a sunny afternoon to do it. I only took one small hit to my cheek when the plow blade tried to over take me. I forgot how heavy it was. The bruise is not too bad and no blood or broken glasses.

I do need to rake leaves but that will me another day. I have done enough physical stuff for today.

I turned off all my lights and pulled curtains and locked doors and went to the back of the house with the dog and his out. I do not think any one was coming to trick or treat but I just do not like kids and find it difficult to play this candy hand out game. I was never much into it when I was a kid and less so now. About 10 I surfaced again to do the final evening chores then go to bed. We are the last house out of town and I do not think any one comes up this way. No street light and it is very dark up this end of the street. And NO I did not buy any candy to hand out.

Seems there was some thing else I was going to comment on but now I forget what it might have been. Or if I already posted it on the last Tea thread. I did get my table painted and placed in the dinning room and a nice little cabinet for more mosaic things behind my work table. I moved the hall tree to the bedroom. I tried it in the hallway but I do not like the dark wood in there. So if it were to go into the hallway I will have to paint it white. It would be very pretty painted white.

My tea for today is Orange Zinger. I saw it and since I am a real sucker for Orange flavor I thought I would give it a try. It is very good.

I checked the last two tea threads and no photos from me so here is the new dinning room table and it fits nicely in the space. Lots of room to walk around it. I like how painting it white brightened up the whole space. Those are my grandmothers chairs with it. I had them stored in the loft.

This is the new little cabinet I got for 10.00. I already painted it too since the paint was out and brush dirty and just enough paint left to do the out side of the cabinet. Some day I might paint the inside. I need to make the curtain longer or maybe just leave it as it is. For now I put three little baskets on the top shelf not in the photo. If I do not lengthen the curtain I do need to paint the inside white on the top shelf at least. if this had been one inch wider it would not have fit in that space.

It was so beautiful yesterday that I was looking for things to do outside. I even took the little wagon to town and got air in the tires. Could have done it here but it wouldn't have taken long enough. Snow fence was on my list but darn! didn't get to it ;-) But I think I had better plan on it later this week. I brought the first load of horse feed home and stacked it in the barn. I left enough space between the stacks that the mean kitty can still hunt mice. Last year I had them stacked too close together and she couldn't get them. Lost a few pounds of feed out of the bottom bag.

It's supposed to rain today. Maybe it will/maybe it won't. But I've already decided to work on Germany today. Too bad I don't have any alcohol in the house 'cause I bet I could use it about noon!

I used Mr. Google yesterday with various word combinations and found 2 or 3 new German genealogical sites. I sent 5 queries, got 3 back that probably aren't my line and 2 rejects. I am not so good at keeping my email address up to date on some of the places I've been either but I do still have them. Need to remember to check from time to time the one I don't use any more. One of the men who replied seems willing to help a little. I don't expect him to do the work for me but he's been doing the German research for quite a while evidently. I got a couple of better maps this morning. With all the boundary changes you about have to have one for every year.

I had to turn the TV off this morning. I can't take one more word out of Trump! and there was a police ambush in Des Moines last night. Killed 2 officers at 2 different places. I knew it was a matter of time but still. I don't want to think we're that kind of people. It appears so far that the guy they are looking for got kicked out of a local football game recently. If that is the case, sigh of relief that he's a lone nut case. Days like today I wish I lived farther out in the country than I do.

Crops are all out of the fields around me. Everything is so bare. Food producing crops are out of the garden but some of the flowers are still going strong. When I was poking around yesterday I found a strawberry plant with nice strawberries on it. I must watch it to see if they ripen before they freeze. The potatoes I missed are growing again. I went ahead and cut down the raspberry bushes. They were still producing but it's taking a chance not doing that stuff now. One of these days it will be snow on the ground and a snowmobile suit to do chores. Every day above freezing is a bonus. I thought I would mow the pasture one more time to get the leaves chopped up. It won't take long and I'd rather do that than snow fence!

The "new" machine shed is becoming a catch-all for anything I don't know what to do with. I need to put up more shelves. Still have not caught the skunk but no smell lately either. Maybe he's gone. I can hope. I'm going to leave the traps until it snows. Catching raccoons and possums is a good thing. They both spread disease to farm animals and they foul the grass and anything they get into. They will destroy buildings to make themselves a home.

I had let the old, old cat in this fall but now I find she will pee everywhere so she's living in a crate. I hadn't let her up into the house yet when I made that discovery so that's the good news. I wanted her to go out during the afternoons and lay in the sun outside but she wants back in before long. I think she has gained a few ounces of weight since she's been in. She sleeps 99% of the time. I wish I could afford the high calorie stuff from the vet but not at $2.35 a can. I will cook some chicken and "stuff" that I have here for people food. I haven't seen her eat the dry so maybe she can't. I did soak some in chicken broth from a chicken I had roasted but she didn't eat enough of it to notice. I ordered 2 cat beds but they'll come from China so who knows if they will get here before she dies. Her old bed is really on its last legs but she likes it. I've been going to make a new one for a long time but like a lot of things I'm going to do, it hasn't gotten done.

ImHappy you have quite a list of to doo's going. My neighbor leaves what we call cat runs for his wild kitties in the hay stacks. It gives them nice places to keep warm and also to catch the mice that are always around in a hay barn. UGH skunks. We had FOUR of them come trick or treating . REAL skunks. I was shocked to see them. I do pick up the food but did not bother that night as there were only a few crumbles left in the bowl. Will not be doing this again. It is a good thing I had my lights out for Halloween. The kids might have walked into more they they bargained for. So far they are pretty polite skunks and not bothering the kitties or spraying. They all just walked off when I opened the door foot away from them and asked them to leave.

I plan on taking it easy today and working on my mosaic. Since I had planed to do the snow plow today and it is done I can cut myself some slack. I will probable do the usual vacuum and litter boxes. Otherwise I declare this a play day. Unless it dried up this afternoon then I might rake leaves. right now it is half sun half fog and very wet and drippy out there. i need more leaves for mulch over the dirt in the court yard area to hold down the mud on doggie paws. And if I can get them thick enough the leaf mat will also hold down weeds.

SO big news today for small town folk. The lady I bought the table from husband owns a Crane service and today they are cutting down the National Christmas tree and it will start on it's journey to Washington DC. It is Seid Crane service. He is the brother to the lady that had the yard sale last weekend I got the little shelf from. the Sied family have a lot of land in our valley.

Capitol tree

Wow, that is really neat about the National Christmas tree. What an honor!! And it's very cool that you have a relationship with the people doing the honors!!

It's been so warm here. I did get to have the windows open all night. Such mild weather. I love it. I need to do some more raking. Just a little while ago I saw the leaf mulcher guys come down the street. It isn't even our week this week. I wish I had done my earlier, but I was waiting for some rain to come and bring down the rest of the leaves on the front sugar maple tree. I will get them up soon. But today I took some pictures of the remaining flowers I still have.

Lovely flowers Murraysmom. I was also out raking. Then came in to ask permission to rake and take neighbor across the streets leaves. I need all the free mulch I can get. Laying it down in court yard flower beds and bare areas to help keep down muddy puppy paws. It really works for that and improves the soil later on. I did not get my hoped for load of wood chips from the tree trimmers. Sad about that. the chips last longer than the leaves do. I have a few more of my own leaves to rake for this go round. I am sure there will be another big fall out coming soon on the front tree. I really can not see that much missing out of it even though I raked for well over an hour. the three little front quaken aspen are bald except for a few hangers on at the very bottom. I do not have to rake those leaves up. They fall where they are needed. Just a few swipes for the ones that drifted to the lawn.

OH Hahahaha just looked out the window and the wind has come up and leaves are flying like snow out front. So glad I raked. NOT

I'm trying to make myself go out and put in steel posts for snow fence. There is no excuse. It's warm. The sun is shining. Or should I wait until I need a snowmobile suit and heavy gloves. There would be the north wind, too.

Good morning everyone. I changed my name; actually, I had to create a new ID because I had already changed my name and couldn't do it again. Since we are no longer bound for missouri, I decided I'd better let that name go and find another. And since I am not very original, and didn't want a really long name, I settled on heybarn (since we are going to build a barn in the middle of a hay field). At least I hope we are. Things are not going well with that at the moment.

LL, I didn't know you had publishing deadlines when you self-published. Did that change? I've been reading your books out of order I'm afraid so I'm a bit confused, but I mistakenly downloaded only the last one to my kindle and it was the only thing I hadn't read on my last trip, so I went ahead and read it first. lol

murraysmom, we've been unseasonably warm too. Finally cooled today, though rain came with it and that wasn't what we needed right now. I would like to open our windows at night too, but it's just not safe enough where we live now. I like your Halloween decorations. More fun to put up than take down though isn't it? In our old house, we hadn't had trick-or-treaters for years. Moved over to a suburb with lots of kids and were told to expect tons of kids. So I bought tons of candy. Nope. We only had about 4 or 5 groups. I think parents take their kids to church festivals now instead of trick or treating, for safety. I love your flowers. I can't imagine an iris blooming right now, but it has been an odd fall, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Eld, sounds like an enjoyable day running errands. I always wish I could do things with other people so we could stop and eat at a restaurant for lunch. I feel too odd eating at an inside restaurant by myself. I'm not lucky getting parking spaces or hitting green lights.

Shades, sorry about your leaves. I haven't raked leaves in years but I remember it wasn't easy. I don't know how you picked up the plow to attach it to the Polaris. Good thing you didn't break anything! I like your dining room. Did you put glass tile directly on the window? I really like that. I didn't know the D.C. Christmas tree came from your area. How neat, especially if you get to see it first.

Imhappy, do you ever put your horse feed in barrels? You probably have too much of it to do that though. What size is your barn? We've been trying to figure out what size we need. Dh thinks 20x20 will be enough, but I said no less than 20x30. Most people around here don't put round bales in their barn, but I think it would be good to have a dry one in there for rainy days. It will be a year or more before we have any livestock though. Mainly, it will be for storing the tractor and implements.

I'd like to talk more with you about doing German research. My dad's family came from Germany, but they (or someone) changed their name when they got here and I've never tried to figure how to find info there. An uncle went to Germany years ago to see what he could find, but he didn't speak the language and didn't find anything.

I haven't been watching the major tv channels or reading facebook for the last couple of weeks because of the political stuff. What a mess. Next Tuesday can't be over soon enough for me. I do turn to the major channels for the evening news and heard about that shooting. I told dh, that was Iowa! That kind of stuff doesn't happen in Iowa!

Did you know that possums eat mice, rats, and snakes? And their body temperature is too low to get rabies. I'd rather have them around than a stray cat. I can't say that too loud at home though, our current housecat was a stray cat.

I sympathize with both of you and your skunk problems. We had one or two at our old house. Never could find where they were coming from, but I suspect the neighbor's shed.

No internet service at our temporary home here, so I am hotspotting from my phone. I have to watch my time though since dd and I share a data plan. It rained all night and more on the way so I'd best be on my way to the P.O. before it starts up again.

Haybarn. I LOVE IT!!! Thinking on size my garage inside is 30 by 30 and that is not all that big. There is a carport on one side 12 by 30. adding under cover storage space. But I have taken it over for my new shaded patio area to be. Right now it is only a vision with the table and chairs and glider moved over there and a couple planters to be sitting empty.

When I used to have to watch my internet usage I would go online and get all the scoop quickly then go off line and answer my emails and any forum comments I wanted to make. Then back on line to send and post comments Saved a lot of online time and I could write my email answers and forum comments at leisure. I would now be lost with out my always on internet. Since I gave up the DISH TV I only get TV through the internet or watch movies from the library. Eventually the library will run out of movies I have not seen. Very happy to have a gift of Prime through Amazon to watch even more movies. The weather is still too good to be inside watching much TV but that snow is coming.

This morning my front tree leaves are all covering the ground again. I will finish neighbors leaves because her trees are leafless. Mine still have a long way to go. It was 31 degrees this morning so I am in no hurry to get out there to start raking. Everything is also very wet from the early fog which is gone now but left it's wet behind.

The glass on the window is actually glass on a window hanging in front of the dinning room window. It blocks the glare from the white garage roof just across from the house. I was considering putting glass directly on the smaller panes of the laundry room door. I have a lace curtain there now. This door window looks directly into the guest bathroom and since I do not usually shut the door to the laundry room some one coming to the out side door could catch me sitting on the toilet. OOPS. It has happened. I will only be able to use smaller light weight glass dishes and a lot of textured glass. I do not want to block any light or as little as possible but I want to create privacy. Add this to my list of projects. PLUS 4 more valance like glass on windows to hang in the living room windows. My brain never quits.

My brain never quits

it sure doesn't, I get tired reading about all you do and plan to do... lol! ok, that's my excuse now. I'm tired because you do so much!

Shades, I just discovered the library has TV series on DVD too! I am going to start The Closer from the beginning. They have lots of shows to choose from.

LOL Steph.

thanks Murraysmom I will check to see if our library has them or now. I bet the Closer would be great to watch from the beginning. I saw a few of them not all and not usually all of one show.

I need to do that Shades. I had thought of composing new posts in word and then copy/paste them online. I dont know if I can remember everything by the time I'd get offline to compose replies. I can turn off the hotspot and leave the webpage up though.

Hi Everybody...

I'm here, but too stressed and busy to even make a cup of tea today! I'm still sorting MIL stuff, and working on my back-log of filing and purging. I will be back on-line soon.

It's unseasonably warm, sunny, and mild here. I think this global warming needs to stop, now!

Shades, you could always sign up for Hulu for a month and then cxl. I did that this past summer. you get a wk or so free. I found a CSI show I wanted to watch from the beginning, so I went ahead and paid for a month - 7.95. I got a lot of things to watch that month for only 7.95! lots of series to watch and movies out there. I cxl'd after I watched the CSI series.

The guy I talked to didn't think there was a problem if I used the 1 free wk once a year (maybe twice? a yr) to see if there's stuff out there I really want to watch. I told him I didn't mind splurging on myself for a week or 2 but that I really don't watch tv that much. There are maybe 5-6 series type shows I watch.

I guess I do watch it more than a lot of people but then, it isn't always a series or movies. I don't watch many movies - except at Christmas time.

Hey Barn I don't think I can message you now with a new name?? Can't figure it out. I've got lots of opinions about barn size! 20x30 might be big enough if you aren't going to put much in there. I don't know what mine is. I can measure it. It's not too big! But I have other buildings that I can overflow into. If I was going to feed round bales I'd want them inside. Cows don't care if their hay gets wet but horses are a whole other thing. What kind of livestock do you have in mind? I have my small squares inside with a feed room and about 1/3 of it for the horses. It's not crowded but I wouldn't want it any smaller. I could do garbage cans for feed depending on how much I got at a time. I want enough on hand by Thanksgiving to last until mid March. Weather is too unpredictable. Even at that, March can be a real PITA.

Depending on how many motorized vehicles you plan to store, space goes in a hurry. My machine shed is old - meaning doors are small and short. Modern machinery won't fit in it. I'll have 2 boats and a hay rack in it this winter. But since it's been remodeled and doors eliminated, the space isn't as usable as it was before. I think it's 40 something by 36. I can measure it.

Possums harbor the virus that causes EPM in horses. I won't allow one here. I know they pass through and the thought of my horses eating the grass they've peed on or even walked over scares me to death. I had one horse die from it and I'm not too sure a 2nd one didn't. Plus wildlife in outbuildings is just plain problematic.

missouribound, I was able to message you at your old ID but I don't know if you can retrieve it.

Imhappy, within the past month my good friend just lost a wonderful horse to EPM. Possums are big trouble. It was so sad. Such a stupid loss.