Raintober

This week brought some unexpected weather...a "rain day" on October 1st for John!!  Heavy, heavy rains came through most of new york state at the end of this week.  I believe they were the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole?  We got a phone call at about 6AM that school was closed on Friday.  Tragically, a woman lost her life trying to get to work on Friday morning when the river flooded up in Claryville.  Unbelievable.  Even though my school did not close, luckily I only had to drive through a few huge puddles and made it unscathed.  Though it was nice to have the day off for John, a snow day wasted in October is never a good sign for the upcoming winter.  But, Roxy and Riley were so excited to get to spend an unexpected day at home with Daddy and when I got home from work the kitchen was clean & the laundry was done :)  What a guy.

This weekend brought much nicer weather; cool, crisp temperatures in the low 60s with ample sunshine and fall breezes.  Quite lovely.  Friday night we did our usual grocery shop & dinner at Ricke Lens routine, but this time brought my sisters along.  It was nice to have two additional people under the age of 65 in Ricke Lens.  Saturday we spent the day working around the house; John is re-doing the landscaping in the front of our house...he toiled pulling out our old shrubs that were overgrown and just generally hideous-looking.  Thank god for the "saws-all", what a tool!  We are going to be putting in a rock garden in front and hopefully improving our curb appeal.  We'll see how that goes.  Saturday night we headed up over the mountain:

to Pine Bush to have dinner with Chris & Dana.  I was happy to see Dana as our weekly walk was rained out on Thursday.  We brought KJ along and it was a fun time....good wine, food, & great company :)


Roxy's Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard
We have a stray dog that's been using our front yard as a toilet...I don't know if he just enjoys the way Roxy fertilizes it or if we have special grass, but what looks like a yellow lab/shepherd mix has been secretly pooping on our property!!  We have been noticing some extra "presents" in the front yard that definitely don't belong to our dog.  Today was the first time I caught him in the act; the pets actually alerted me to his presence as they both must have heard him or smelled him at the same time & looked outside...I had my laptop with me & caught it on my photobooth:

I spared the blog-o-sphere of a photo of the doggie getting his poo on in my front yard and you're welcome for that.
Needless to say, I prompted Roxy to bark her heart out & the aforementioned pooper quickly vacated the premises.  I'm not sure what we can do to keep him away.  Anybody have any suggestions?  I can't put anything outside to keep him away without jeopardizing my own pup's health.  Maybe Rox gave him a good scare today, I guess we'll see.

Well, off to get clothes & lunches ready for tomorrow.  Have a good week :)