heavy frost

 
It's C O L D! We've had a fire going for a couple days now. This morning... 7-ish, it was 34 degree F on the front porch! I put a big fan in the stoveroom, on low, trying to blow the heat into the rest of the house. Turned the living room baseboard heat back on. Brrrr!

I need to make more suet. The last batch was a bit thick, though the birds don't seem to mind. I'm down to one cake in the freezer. Speaking of birds, the turkeys are back, in force. They've gone through a bag of cracked corn already.

Speaking of cakes, I've made another batch of pumpkin sheet cake and two more pies, and there's about 20 cups of pumpkin in the freezer. I made whipped cream this time and gave the remaining CoolWhip to the neighbor, along with one of the pies. What a difference real cream makes. Amazing that that sort of thing is allowed with the Adkins diet??

Wednesday th'Mr went to a "Pain Clinic" in Lexington to see about the chest pain. Dr. Halpin, the CT surgeon, referred us there. We were afraid they were going to be just pill pushers, but no, they do the intramuscular steroid shots (like Dr. Troutt does) to get rid of the pain, and did just that on Wednesday. Took both of us by surprise that they didn't want him to come in a 2nd time for the shot but were willing --no, eager-- to do it right then. Too bad it didn't take more than a little bit of the pain away. Next week he sees Dr. Troutt again, for the rhyzotomy (sp?) (shots to kill the nerves causing pain in the back)

I got up early today to take Boog back to the vet, to have his urine checked, but I didn't get up early enough --he's already been to the litterbox. Guess we'll shoot for Monday morning.

I finished the fair isle hat! I washed it in the sink with a dab of Woolite and blocked it over a gallon milk jug; dried it near the woodstove. I still have earflaps to do (not to mention the mittens) but I told Larissa I'd knit the pattern "with" her, so I'm going to wait till she starts the colorwork before I procede. In the meanwhile I've started another hat, in the same pattern, but using only two colors - a solid brown and a variegated red/beige/brown that will make the pattern much more subtle. Maybe a bit too subtle! We'll see.

No pictures till my computer returns from the computer doctor. The 2nd hard drive that's been giving me problems has finally gasped its last. Not a problem, except the bootloader is on that drive! I'm hoping our local computer guy can surgically insert a bootloader instead of me having to use a floppy to boot from now on. The box is 6 years old. I really am due a new one. :(