Great weekend........

We went up to Mayberry this weekend...... so nice there, even at this time of the year when the temperature goes down at night and you have to bundle up in a sweater. Most of the trees on our property keep their green leaves all year long, so it still looks like a park. The sky this weekend up there was just filled with stars... many more than we're used to seeing here. My husband says the light-pollution up there is much less than here. The lake is two hours northeast of here, so the city lights are a good distance away. When it's dark up there, it's dark.

We should have a sign put on the front door of the cottage: "Everything is better at the lake." I just can't explain how nice it is to sit in the kitchen and look out at the lake, or sit on the back porch and watch the lake. We can also see the lake from our bedroom, the living room, the game room, the laundry room, and C's cabin also has a great view. There's no fence around the property there, so the view of the lake is just endless. Then we come back here and we look at the wood fence all around our backyard.... Oh well. As I said-- it's better up at the lake.

Our young Miss C and her mom drove up to Mayberry on Saturday morning and stayed overnight. L brought everything she needed to make a great pasta dish--- Rigatoni with shrimp, fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil, and feta cheese. So delicious...... she had made it before, at their house here in town, but of course-- everything tastes better at the lake. I made Italian focaccia to go with dinner, and even that was the best I've ever made-- I picked some fresh rosemary right from our yard to sprinkle on the bread before I baked it. (And this time, I remembered to cut a bunch of sprigs to bring home.)

After dinner on Saturday night, my husband taught us all how to play poker. We even had poker chips. We learned how to play, how to bluff, and we tried to remember what beat what, which was a little easy because we had a sheet with everything printed down. I was the first one to lose all my chips, then C lost all of hers. My husband ended up with everyone's chips at the end of the night. Coincidence or not?

We knew we'd be making a fire in the fireplace, so I had gone to the store and bought everything we needed to make "S'mores." Graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate, and wooden skewers. The fire was a roaring one, with all the small branches and driftwood that had washed up over the bulkhead after the last storm--- we gathered up all that free wood and stacked it up for our fireplace. The S'mores were delicious, and we had fun making them.

That night, when my husband and I went outside to look at the stars, Gracie came out with us, and chased a possum right up to the edge of the bulkhead. I cringed and held my breath, waiting to hear a splash and hoping it would be the possum going over the bulkhead and not Gracie. The possum, however, just stood its ground, right on the steel bulkhead. At first, we thought it was a cat, but there's no mistaking the hairless tail and the pointed snout of a possum, even when all you're looking at is its sillouette in a dark backyard.

So there was Gracie, staring at the possum. And there was the possum, head-to-head with Gracie. We're lucky that Gracie didn't lunge at the possum, because it surely would've bitten her. The teeth on a possum are huge, compared to the size of that animal. Luckily, Gracie ran back to my husband when he called her. Of course, it was a lesson for us-- not to let Gracie out into a dark yard without a leash when we're up there. Too many critters up there in the woods. She's already chased a couple of rabbits, and the squirrels, and now she can add a possum to her list. My husband said we were also lucky that it wasn't a skunk.

Tomorrow starts the countdown for Thanksgiving. We've got to go grocery shopping, to get everything we need for Thursday. C's dad is making the turkey on his barbeque, C's mom is making apple/cranberry compote and corn pudding. C and I are baking the pumpkin pie and apple pie on Tuesday, then C is baking a surprise cookie recipe on Wednesday. (She won't tell anyone what it is, but she said the recipe is perfect for Thanksgiving.) I will make the sweet potatoes, and my husband will make the mashed potatoes and the stuffing. I think I'll also make a special salad as a first course, like I did last Thanksgiving. Last year, I used fresh spinach, but I don't think I'll do that this year, after that big spinach scare this past summer.

Since we're not having a big Open House Christmas party next month, we decided not to get a tree that goes way up to the highest point of our ceiling. Which means we won't need ladders to decorate our Christmas tree this year. Usually, my husband goes out on the morning after Thanksgiving so he can get the tallest tree in the lot. Not this year.... he won't have to rush down there now. Someone else can drive away with the 15-foot steroid-fed tree.