I could get used to this schedule of not working.  Unfortunately, Eric caught chicken pox and had to be held home from pre-school and the baby-sitters all week so I ended up caring for him- mixed blessings.  It was frustrating as we took him to the doctor’s on Monday, didn’t get the any test results until Friday and still there are uncertainities about his diagnosis – why bother taking him to the doctors.

Tuesday I went for my follow-up meeting with the surgeon who approved my return to normal activities with a gradual build up.

We received measurable snow.  A little on Tuesday night and more during Wednesday afternoon.  When Eric saw the snow squall on Wednesday afternoon he was like a fireman exiting the station for a 4 alarm – he was dressed so fast and out the door to enjoy the snow.  He played outside for a couple hours while I took the cap off the truck in preparation for taking our lawn mower in for winter servicing.

Thursday evening we took a quick walk around the ponds when Kathryn got home from work.  The boys are done trapping muskrats from the pond and Trey found an old dead skunk that he carried up out of the water.  I wonder if the skunk had encountered one of the muskrat traps and been discarded.  Fortunately it didn’t smell much, but at first sight in Trey’s mouth it gave  us a start.

We had our first flock of geese land  on the new pond below our house. The pond was beginning to ice over and the geese didn’t stay long, but gave us a foreboding of flocks to come.

This evening we loaded shovels and rakes and implements of destruction into the back of the pickup truck and went across the road to the far corner of our 40 acres.  Eric and I scratched out an area for a fire and soon we were joined by Kathryn and dogs.  We had a nice fire as it got dark and the temperature plummeted into the lower 30s .  Eric toasted an appetizer of cheese doodles; which by the way, get surprising hot surprisingly quickly. We had hot dogs and marshmallows and sat in lawn chairs watching the fire die down and the stars come out until 6pm. It wasn’t winter camping, but it was nice.