Now this Is neighborly

I am the world's luckiest woman--I have a car mechanic I can trust.

Ron was my next-door neighbor when I first moved to Waterloo.



He was a motor mechanic with a dream to own his own shop and when my car needed servicing he'd drive it to work and return it at the end of the day, work done and bill in hand.

What a perfect arrangement.

Today, Ron owns his own shop in nearby New Hamburg and I wouldn't let anyone else tend my car. Unfortunately now I have to do the driving to the shop, about twenty minutes away in good weather.

He has a dry wit and speaks sparingly and you might be deceived into believing he doesn't get much done. In fact, he is superbly organized and his mind races well ahead of his dialogue.

This is Kathy, Ron's wife. she does all the office work; ordering, picking up supllies,accounting, everything Ron isn't doing. There are two little boys to manage as well.




The station is set back from the highway and there's still lots of country around.





I'd been a city girl before moving out here and Ron was my first introduction to small town kindness.

His tiny office area generally holds one or two visitors, chatting and observing "out-of-towner" like me. I made their day with the picture-taking and describing what a blog is.

I hope he stays put now; I'm not sure the car and I could manage a longer distance.

Its All In The name

The bad news is that in order to stay healthy one must exercise.

I don't know about you but that word conjures up pictures of living rooms cluttered with bulky machines that no one ever uses, or worse still they use them and work up a sweat. In the living room.

If we must nit-pick and apparently I must, that was exercise when I grubbed about in the garden every day last summer. But it was fun. And come to think of it, I did sweat, but that was outdoors so it doesn't count.

Now winter is coming, the garden is tucked away and I don't want to clutter up my living room with nasty machines I won't use anyway.

This calls for a flexible attitude and walking is what I came up with.

This morning I snatched up my radio with the earplugs, camera and warm jacket and mumbled my way into healthy living.

Once the sulking got boring I looked around and the scenery wasn't half bad.



The local contractors must have had their arms twisted and they left us beautiful wooded pathways tucked in here and there.

These hostas are turning a wonderful shade before they fade away for the winter.



I guess I'll think of these as nature walks and forget the dread "E" word.

A winter Preview

Yesterday I went through all the machinations of a woman about to give birth--I got into a tidy-up frenzy.

Clearly my objective was to winterize the yard and it had to be done NOW, this minute.

I wrestled tarps around anything that hinted at summer and soon the air conditioner, tables and chairs were lost to view.

The geraniums were uprooted and stored in the garage, a final suet treat into the feeder and then that will be tucked away to encourage the sparrows to turn into Snow Birds down south.

When I figured I was done, the wind was noticeable and I came inside just in time to watch the first snow squalls of the season and they were nasty.

We generally get a pleasant fall until Hallowe'en but not this year.

The mirror on the front porch took a direct hit.



The tree in front resembled a Christmas scene.



This was the Beech tree a couple of days ago.



And here it is this morning.



I don't think Fall is done yet but this is a detour I could have done without.

Well, a pregnancy at my age would get me into the Guiness Book but I'll settle for spring fever gone astray.

The Boys of Summer

The water is murky but take a look at that big guy. He was smaller than his companions when he moved in a year ago.



This is the last of the hold-outs; they're all tucking in for the winter and I'm collecting seed pods to start indoors in the spring.

Is This Cumulus Or Nimbus?

One look at those clouds yesterday and I was thinking a storm cellar might be a good thing to have.



The blue sky was quickly being elbowed out by those big raging bullies.



When I reached the supermarket parking lot I was adding emergency flashlights and water to my list.



By the time I returned home the blue sky had regained control.



Perhaps it's time to do some serious learning about clouds and their meaning.