helluva fine weekend
Autumn can trigger a melange of emotions in me. My best guess is because it symbolizes
the transition from fertility to fallowness, underscoring my own mortality as each of my
days dim and fade into the increasingly longer night.
Then again, I’m not a trained professional, and I had a helluva fine weekend.
It started early Friday afternoon. I was working on the greenhouse, rueing the reality that
my beloved San Francisco Giants were one loss away from being eliminated from the play-
offs by the Cardinals.
Even when you’re stark in the middle of nature, you can block it out with earthly concerns.
Slinkee started barking for no apparent reason. I paid no attention at first. She’s been known
to bark at our vehicles when they’re parked where they’re usually not.
She kept barking but didn’t move, like she would if she were after an adversary real or imagined.
So I looked up and saw this:
The camera didn’t pick up the second arc. That’s what I get from buying the cheapest Kodak
at Staples.
Through the complex lack of rational thought that any sincere sports fan harbours, I was
immediately and immensely heartened by this obvious sign that the Giants would pull
back from the brink of the Abyss. Sure ’nuff, they did, winning 5 – 0 as Barry Zito finally
earned his salary with six innings of shutout ball.
Saturday Jude and I visited our friends Ruth and George. Ruth suggested we have a
Canadian moment and check out the chum migration in the nearby creeks. Chum are
the Yugo of the salmon family. They have little commercial value.
Somehow, though, their unpopularity doesn’t stop them from spawning. They come
in from the ocean and head for our lakes as soon as the fall rains return and swell the
streams.
We’ve just had our heavy precipitation back a week now. The creeks we visited were still
quite shallow. In some spots the chum — most of whom were at least a foot long — had to
turn on their sides to continue upstream.
I wish I had brought my cheap Kodak camera, but I doubt if the fish would have photo-
graphed well. It was an overcast day. The chum had changed from their ocean colour of
silvery blue-green to blotchy purple. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to attract females.
Plus, spawning males usually grow a long snout with big teeth, giving them a Mortimer
Snerd look. Despite all that, they carry on. The creeks were teeming with thrashing
couples.
Sunday we were finally able to burn the huge brush pile we’d been building through the
dry months. Our friend Lee, who had come by to install a new alternator in our F-150,
started it for us. It took six hours of tending. What started as this . . .
. . . ended as this:
I knocked off at 5 p.m. to watch the Giants stave off elimination yet again with a 6 – 1 win.
Jude prepped the blueberry grove for winter until dark, then fixed us some fantastic
burgers and caught the end of the game with me.
Tonight the Giants and Cards go at it one last time to see who plays Detroit in the World
Series. I’m heading outside until then to weed in the grove and search for more good
omens.
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Anchor Struck 
Great to hear that you had a wonderful weekend. The rainbow was as awesom as the bonfire. I did not do much this weekend. I took advantage of just hanging around the house. But next weekend will be much different. My family is hosting a Haunted Trail for Halloween and so it will be great. I am going to be a Fortune Teller. I can’t wait. I bought new batteries for my camera and plan to take lots of pictures.
Take care.
A Haunted Trail? Tell me more.
Oh it is going to be so much fun. My sister and her husband has about 10 acres of land and they have cleared out a path that is much like a horse shoe from her front gate to the back and around coming up on her daughters property. It is wooded and very spooky at night.
They host a Halloween party every year for their grandkids and friends and family and it all ends with a big party.
When the kids get to me, I will tell them to beware of the woods, not to go into the woods. They will have tasks to complete before they get to hear their fortune. A large bowl of spaghetti will be one task. The person is blindfolded and has to stick their hands into the bowl of spaghetti and will be told that it is the guts from the Zombie lurking in the woods.
Blindfolded that spaghettie does feel gooey and squishy.
Some one will be dressed like a zombie and will cart the kid off into the woods where they will meet up with the rest of the kids roasting marshmallows and making smores, their will be food and fun.
From the entrance their will be all kinds of things, dracula, ghosts, goblins, and lots of fog and eerie music…. All of this for the kids.
But I have a feeling the growups will get a big kick out of it too.
That sounds like a hoot. Will you be posting photos on your blog?
i just had a good night watching obama kick myths ass all over the place..
We just watched the debates when we weren’t watching the ballgame. Whenever we did, Romney was stammering and repeating stale talking points. I love the nickname “myth”. It suits him perfectly.
Looks like a busy and productive day, to say the least!! The debate was so funny – romney abandoning all his REAL positions to clasp Obama’s – bet the far right were screaming at the tv screens – ha! Voters aren’t fooled, though – – – OBAMA ALL THE WAY!!!
But what are Romney’s real positions? He’s all over the political map. He’s now embracing his choices as governor of Massachusetts, even his innovative health care plan. Like Jon Stewart just observed, “Oh, my God! Romney is now leaning Obama!”
this election has me sick with worry.. if obama does not win i think i will go mad… after 8 yrs of bush and these last 4 with the republicans being total dickwad assholes i have just about had it.. if romney was black and obama white obama would be ahead by 20 points at least. it makes me sick.
I’m hoping that this election will mark the beginning of a move back to the center. This bitter partisanship the GOP has encouraged will cost them dearly in the near future.