The Changing Seasons

As the mornings turn to frost, it's time to finish the last bits of preparation before snow season starts. This weekend I finished removing the air conditioner, replacing the storm windows, and arranged for the septic system to be pumped. If you have municipal water/sewer you probably have never dealt with it, but its part of the rural/mountain life for homes far off from the town service grid. Our prior septic pumping vendor, Bob, had retired to the good life of Florida, so we had to find a new person. Fortunately, a quick scan through our local paper found someone and he came by early Saturday. It tooks only 40 minutes and I felt better about having this squared away for the next few years.



Interestingly, this tradesman also raises deer, big 450 lb red deer, that are sold to the restaurant business. For the most part, game can not be hunted and then sold commercially, so when you see pheasant/deer on a menu somewhere it was raised in a farm like environment. We had some leftover lamb from a roast, so I made some pasties, although the first batch drooled a bit onto the baking sheet. The second attempt came out better since I used a Silpat sheet and cut a few steam holes to stop the crust from bursting. The dog has started spitting up blood so it looks like the growths have metastized into her lungs. But she still ate some beef this weekend and got her nails Dremeled down.

I went for a bike ride down into the village -- the foliage colors were stunning.