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And get on with all of these leaves, and put the lawn to bed before the snow comes along to put a halt to everything for the rest of the year.

Things I did this morning; take down all seven inflatables, stakes, pins and all. Dry them, and drain them if rain water accumulation. Put them back up on the top of the metal rack. Our newest edition, the large green snake was boxed up, and all the sections, stakes and cords got filed away together over top of the garage door.

Dig up, prune, and dry all twelve Dahlias, which go into a box stuffed with towels and left in the basement for the winter.

Plant nearly three hundred tulip bulbs in various stages of decay, and disrepair in hopes at least a handful survive until the spring to add a pop of pizzazz to our front garden beds.

Take up, and mulch a month’s worth of fallen leaves from our fairly sizeable front yard. I hate doing leaves when the Halloween decorations are up because the guide wires are a tripping hazard. So I did the leaves and grass before erecting them all. And now it’s all torn down 8 can attempt a final grass cutting tomorrow if the weather holds. I want at least one more before the snow comes.

Now it’s after two, and I’m going to slake my thirst, eat some lunch, and crash from last night emotional roller coaster of a Game Seven of the World Series where the Jays lost by one run in extra innings. Damn. Double damn. Spent five hours in a bar with friends to watch it which was great. But not the outcome we were hoping for. Oh well, maybe next year!

Not much of a lazy Sunday if you ask me.

The bullpen, and the pitchers kept us competitive, but the bars were soft and ineffectual. Barger once again cost us a precious extra out by being absent minded on, or near second base. D’oh! What a way to have to go to a game seven. Losing 3-1, at home. It was a stinker. But a round of applause for the pitching staff, they kept us in the fight, and made us competitive. I pray we don’t go 23 innings to lose by one run tonight, and have to give up the series after all this hard work! I don’t think my heart could take it! No! I will stay strong. Maintain the faith in this team. I believe!

In other news it’s Saturday, and last night was Halloween, and the game six of the world series. The kids had fun, got lots of candy. Handed some out to friends, and went to a friend’s house to watch a movie. Not only that but with all the driving 8 had to do I didn’t wind up with any sugar addled kids under my car. I hate driving after dark on Halloween, too many kids out on the streets being goofy.

We also had at least fifteen to twenty kids, teens, youths come by, which is great. It’s hard to gauge how many we will get because some years it’s only one or two, and other years it’s more than forty. So either the candy dries up before the kids do, or we are left with full boxes of candy to deal with for months after the holiday. With no rhyme or reason as to which quantity of kids we’ll get. Huh.

Now I need to air out & dry off all of the inflatables. Dump out the collected water, and gear up to store them for another year. Guide wire, stakes, extension cords and the timers all need to be sorted out and stored too. Somewhere close, because the Christmas Lights will need to go up on the next delightful day in November. There is no guarantee of how many of those we will get, so I have to jump on the first one available. My guess is it’ll be a day when work gets busy again, just to spite me! Ha. Life um… Finds a way.

Not going to fib, I am bummed the Jays weren’t able to dig deep for some runs last night. That’s going to sting a little, early on today until I can get past it. No matter, on to bigger and better things. Ciao Bella!

Costumes, candies, decorations and so much more…big yeah! Game six of the World Series where the Blue Jays could (potentially) take the whole damn thing! Best of luck carving pumpkins and navigating around town with so many additional pedestrians afoot.

Naturally all of the extended families junk was piled both on top of, and in front of the only object I needed to grab. Not going to lie I did swear a bit when the snowblower that only rolls backwards in neutral was facing the wrong direction to be easily moved. Trapped in place by a boat on a trailer, three rabbit hutches, a planter, and two wheel barrows and a buggy of some sort. All heavy. Not to mention the doors to the barn were a bitch to open with all of the frost, rain, debris and overgrown grasses. I was displeased. But! I did uncover the wheelchair, and get it to fit inside our van. So first problems solved. Chair was found, cleaned, and brought back to our neighbours for future use. It is now pouring with rain so I have the chair stashed in our garage. Not ideal, but should be fine for at least one day. Any longer and you risk the pests burrowing into the seat and ruining the foam.

Not going to lie, it was hard on my back, and it made my fingers go numb, but we did finish a new full row, plus plant a second half row to finish off the garlic for the year. Well, at least the hard neck stuff. Soft neck has to go in slightly differently, so I’m told, so we didn’t do any of that — yet.

I took the dog for a quick walk about after we finished with the planting. Which is always fun. I checked on my wood piles to see if any logs had dried up over the last four or five days. I had to turn some rounds to get them to drain, and hopefully dry out a bit better so that I can split them more easily. Wet wood is far too spongy. It absorbs the blows from the axe, and then the wood gets all chewed up, but doesn’t really come apart. So I took a few moments to turn a couple logs, make my life a bit easier.

The dog and I also walked the fields to pull up more stones, rocks and such. I got more than a handful of eight to ten pounders this morning. I have six or seven good piles to removed if I can locate a sturdy bucket, and a side by side with which to transport them all. Might take a number of trips to get all the piles relocated. Better in a culvert than in the fields banging up the farm equipment. I’d love to have a few hours to go through the whole field, but I’m ok walking a few strips on foot, and carrying out armfuls or rocks manually. I’m just trying to be nice. If nobody else wants to do it, I can leave it be, farm equipment be damned. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I do believe it is Wednesday today. We took four days to go to Niagara Falls for a short family vacation. Did all of the things we wanted too. Had lovely (if cool) weather for it. No noticeable rain while we were out and about. That’s all one can hope for these days. Couldn’t go south to the US, as the weather in the Keys looks like it might dissolve into a category five hurricane. No thank you. I feel bad for the Caribbean, and Jamaica who’ve been hit hard by **Melissa already. Just ugly. (**Name edited from previously mentioned Marie, which was incorrect.)

But now I’m all washed, dried, and have had breakfast. I need to do some household chores, and return some items back to the garage. Happy Wednesday. Go Blue Jays!

It was a nice brief and quiet portion to our otherwise raucous vacation spent in Ontario. The girls loved the gift shop (as per usual) and we got a great family photo as well.

Opted not to go to Tampa Bay, Clearwater, or Key Largo for the week and instead have done some exploring within Ontario for a change. Niagara Falls to be exact. Yesterday we did just about everything. Visited the falls, arcade, brunch at Rain forest café, Sky Wheel, Dinosaur mini putt, carnival chaos interactive ride, Zombie Attack ride, Skyway go karts, Boo blasters, and the wax museum, looking around a few stores, then the zipline over the falls, and dinner at Shoeless Joe’s. All before heading back to our room for baths, a little tv, and then bed. Woow I’m pooped. That was a lot of walking around outdoors. Now my hips ache, Ha-ha!

Going on a walk about to go look at stuff, so I’ll keep this short. Had a nice visit with extended family, which resulted in a wonderful dinner, and watching the first few innings of the Jays Game from the comfort of their living room. Not as fabulous as the first game, but that Yamamoto fella had our number. Dust it off and get back at it on Monday night! Short memories!

Wow what a game that was to watch. I saw the first five innings with friends and then returned home to watch the single greatest sixth inning 8 can remember. Nine runs in during that whale of a sixth. Plus a Barger Grand Slam, a few singles, a walk brought in during loaded bases. It had everything, including Addison Barger’s first ever recorded pinch hitter world series grand slam in baseball history.

With any luck they will continue to perform admirably throughout the entire series. Win or lose that was a hell of a return to world series baseball. No clean sweep for us! Dodgers might be the best on paper, but the Toronto Blue Jays have heart, passion, and know how to dig deep to eek out a win. I do not know how this tale ends, but if they can stay in the fight without deflating, then we are all in for a wild ride. Go Jays!

A solid mix of small ball base grinding, followed up with long bombs, and a bullpen that kept us in the game by limiting runs by the Dodgers. Trey Yesavage did a commendable job even if he was unable to bring his 100% to the mound. He is young, full of fire, and I think he’ll do wonders for the organization over the next couple of years. Worth keeping an eye on I think.

Geménez, Springer, Kirk, and Bobichette,Varsho, Straw, and a whole mess of others played like a well oiled machine. Team work made that dream of a game work. No slackers present. I do love to see them gel like this, feed off of one another, and bring something special to the table. I like how egalitarian the team feels right now. Oh what a feelin’.

I enjoyed two Twisted Teas with the game for a change instead of my usual zero sugar Gatorade. Still had a great deal of fun. Extra bathroom breaks required though, once the seal was broken. Ha.

Have a terrific Saturday, as the lads will be back at it again tonight. Same Bat time, same Bat channel. Ciao Bella!

I have only a couple of things loosely planned for today, so it may not be the smoothest ride ever. Extended family at the farm in the early afternoon. Oldest daughter doing a group costume building session at a friend’s house for eleven. A family dog walk this morning. Very loose, very informal, very much a patch work of half heard suggestions, requests, and answers. I get it. Not my best work, of that I am aware.

To the best of my knowledge I do not know what I did with myself when we had PA Days back when I was a Child. I have no recollection of doing anything out of the ordinary. No additional programming. No babysitters turning up. Must have been like an extra Saturday, so no cause for celebration, or alarm. In my teen years I would have gone to work for extra hours. That I do know. But childhood me? You could say that anybody’s guess is as good as mine. I genuinely have no idea. We certainly didn’t do day trips as a family, or go to do some out of home programming with the library, or town, or some other educational institution.

It’s funny because I have been watching these two guys on Facebook reels that talk about retro gaming, clothes, and music from the late 80’s, and the 90’s, and they were waxing poetic about shoes (most recently). And I honest to goodness could not tell you what brand of shoes I had ever worn, until I met my wife (back in 2002) because I only now remember the White & Green Adidas she bought me, and prior to that I don’t know what I would have had on my feet. I remember a reddish brown pair of faux leather New Balance shoes with a squared off toe, but again I think I got those after 2002. So for my first 22 years of life I do not know what brands of shoes I owned or wore. Desiring foot ware was not one of my concerns as an adolescent.

I don’t really remember my coats all that much either. I do recall a UNLV red and black hooded sweater, button up jersey thing I used to love back in grades 7 & 8. I remember the half zip pull over mostly black ski jacket I had. I’ve never been much for fashion. I do remember certain t-shirts that had patterns on them, or Bart Simpson apparel. Clothes just weren’t that big a deal to me. I remember getting overalls, which were “cool” at the time, and immediately hating them. I know I wore track pants for far too long before ever wearing jeans. I had a couple cable knit sweaters I loved in high school (the purple one was the shit). So that era is not totally lost to me, but I have some significant gaps in my day to day memory.  Weird how that works huh? Crazy.

I do still have most of the video games, and systems I’ve ever owned. My Sega Master System & games, my PS 1, and games, and my Xbox, and Xbox 360. Problem is with those 2000’s gaming consoles I would have bought & traded in games to get new ones all the time, so the full roster of games I’ve ever owned is unknown to me. I didn’t keep a master list of owned titles. Now that would be interesting to see and know. I just never thought of it at the time. Shame. I did try out some dog shit games back in the day. Would be funny to know exactly what they were, so I could mock them mercilessly with confidence & as authority. Oh well, what could have been.

Welp… I’m pretty sure it’s Friday. I need to get up and go walk the mutt. Have a day to remember. Ciao Bella!