Arrival of Autumn

September slips away
melting in the rain.
October frost awakens
vibrant fall colors.
It's time to replace garments
coats, gloves, scarves.
Tis the season of soups,
squashes, pumpkins,
football and soccer.

There is a time for everything, 
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. (Eccelsiastes 3)

And here is our week:

Saturday and Sunday Mike was gone to a ceramics workshop.
LightRider Ministries celebrated 25 years of service with a grand open house, which we both missed.
Here is Jillian's contribution, a clay replica of the double decker bus. (It was her vision that led to having a Pottery studio at the Red Barn.)

We are often at the three-barn complex. Mike involved in the pottery studio, Leah helping some days; Skye hanging out with his friends at the Red Barn most days; and I exercising with other seniors at the Gray Barn a couple times a week and a weekly painting class.

One highlight of the week was the German-English translation session with friend and former colleague Win Corduan, to better understand Leah's adoption-related documents.

Win, retired philosophy prof, born in Germany

The German language presents interesting challenges: like searching a lengthy paragraph to locate the verb, which turns out to be the very last word; taking apart looooooooooooooooooooooong words to bring out meaning; rearranging structures. These are not the only complications for our English-thinking minds, history and culture play significant roles.Win was far more helpful in this area than a dictionary or online translation program could ever have been.

Work at the house continues steadily, but now the progress is not as outwardly visible, nonetheless absolutely essential--the plumbing, A/C, heating! Mike spends every spare moment on the latter, which is proving more and more necessary as the weather has changed so drastically. He works many hours with Jimmy.

Jimmy's expertly built air duct boxes

Our Friday tandem breakfast date was fun even though it rained lightly on the way back.


Another sighting this week--a very unusual Garfield found in Argentina and drinking mate!

Garfield as gaucho and Argentine soccer fan

He was at the very bottom of one of the five boxes of books I cleaned, restored or threw away this week. After de-laminating him, he came through quite well, at least okay for this photo. He reminds me of one of my trips back to the home country and the little boy who was selling laminated prints for a peso each.
What does it mean, you ask? I think the expression means, "Hang in there, Argentina!" However, aguantar is a verb that can have many interpretations. Anybody have a better translation?

My goal for the week was to get through all the books brought out after the house fire. I almost made the deadline. It was 1:30 a.m. Sunday when I finished with all the dirty work. Now I can hope that my nails will grow back and look decent.

Saturday morning two grandsons played three soccer games and won every time. Elijah was especially pleased that he made all four goals for his team.

Malachi, Elijah and soccer mom Kristie

It was cold out there. People wore winter jackets and wrapped in blankets. I realized it was time to shop for winter wraps and replace those lost in the fire.