With no young grandchildren of our own in the community anymore and living far back on a lane, we have not have trick-or-treaters visit us for a few years now. So last Wednesday in the late afternoon when I took my broken computer over to Megabytes, I really enjoyed seeing Herrin’s main street sidewalks filled with parents and children all dressed for the holiday and strolling together with buckets in hand.
Then stopping at Katherine’s, I shared seeing the costumed little ones coming to their house for candy. I even enjoyed the two awkward non-costumed very young teenagers, who were obviously somewhat embarrassed at their own audacity at begging for candy—they only took one tiny piece from the bowl and one for a friend outside who evidently was less nervy. (I could just imagine them cooking this up and daring one another to knock on the door. I smile just thinking about it. I bet they had fun on this early evening outing—perhaps the first time without their parents along.)
As I drove back to the farm, I passed crowded church yards and parking lots, which seemed united in offering treats from car trunks as well as other activities and good times for the youngsters and their parents. We’ve come a long way from the days of putting buggies on barn roofs, pushing over outhouses, or throwing corn on front porches.
I had taken my computer to the shop because I had sleepily clicked on something one late night and realized immediately I did not want to do that. I thought I had cancelled the download, but a day or two later, trouble began. The computer worked slower and slower. I clicked on some sort of help site and saw in red the listing of the silly “who unfriended you” that evidently did download, but it seemed to disappear when I deleted it.
Nevertheless, the computer stayed slow and then would not let me open emails or do much of anything. Thinking I had a virus or spy-ware, I took it to the shop. They cleaned it up in a day although there was no virus, and I went over Friday and retrieved it. That night I had time to plug it back in, and excitedly I tried to open my emails. Nothing happened. Oh dear. Tried it again the next morning to be sure, but same results. The shop was closed over the weekend, but I got a return call immediately early yesterday morning.
Miraculously, the technician took over my machine and fixed it from his computer. The trouble was with the browser and not my computer after all. So it is nice to be able to open emails and blog again. (And I like thinking my machine is all cleaned up.)
Brian and Mary Ellen were down over the weekend for him to do more harvesting and her to work on all the projects she has going in decorating their recently bought home over on Route 13. We were spur-of-the-moment invited to stop in for a pulled pork sandwich with them for Sunday lunch, and I loved seeing all the latest improvements she has made as well as hearing about Brianna and
As I pondered what to share in this blog, I realized you haven’t missed much as things have been pretty slow at Woodsong. In fact, sadly the most exciting event in our lives right now-- and I am embarrassed to admit this-- is our fight against the gnat invasion we have suffered. The first couple of weeks, I just shrugged and assumed it was a seasonal thing, and this too would pass. We were having to be careful to keep fruit in the fridge and get banana peels out of the house as soon as possible. It only helped a little bit.
I have had gnats before, but they did not stay this long past their welcome. Finally I googled and found they are actually flies, but nothing was said about a season for them. We were growing more and more agitated at those tiny ugly things. Gerald sprayed carefully once, but I am nervous about any kind of spray in a kitchen.
When he called the other day from a hardware store in town to see if I needed anything from there, I suggested they might have some sort of gnat traps or something. Sure enough, he brought home a box of the old-fashioned fly hangey-down things that are so distasteful to look at. The first one was unsuccessful until he positioned a banana peel near it to attract the creatures. Now we have added a second one with another banana peel in that part of the kitchen. We have scores of dead gnats to look at on those sticky traps, and I am sorry to be responsible for their deaths. But I sure am glad that maybe we are getting the little varmints out of our lives.
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