Hi, everyone!
This time of year, a lot of my adventures depend on the weather. The first snow melted, but more is coming. When it’s dry and on the warmer side, there are still things to do outside. If it’s sunny but cold, we enjoy the sunshine from inside!
The town finally came to pick up our leaves! Grandma had been adding to the piles, so there were lots to pick up! I made sure my pride got to watch the town crew! First, the scraper moved all the leaves into the middle of the street. Then the crew with backpack leaf blowers cleared what the scraper missed. After that, the dump truck moved into place and the loader got to work on the pile in the middle of the street! Our leaves filled up one dump truck and another one was waiting!
Grandma likes to wait to start putting up the holiday lights in front until the big leaf pile is collected. She doesn’t want the scraper to snag the strings of lights that run in between trees. After the town crew came through, I helped her string the lights on the two remaining apple trees. They’re all up in the branches, so nothing can get snagged. We put up five strings of lights! I made sure the power plug could reach into the front lamp post when we’re ready to have the lights turn on. That will be December 2nd, to remember Uncle Bill.
Last Wednesday, Grandma took me and my pride on a big adventure! We went to the George Eastman House and Museum to see the holiday displays. I was happy it was mild, dry weather so my pride could see the Colorama display in the parking lot. When we got to the admission desk, the clerk said that lions could get in free! We came to see the gingerbread house display. It started right inside the new entrance and continued in the corridor connecting the museum and Eastman’s mansion. The windows there give views of the east garden, too!
There are galleries along the hallway with more gingerbread houses and some wreaths. We all liked the Star Wars spaceship. My pride had never been to the Eastman House before, so they didn’t understand the wreath with an elephant head until we got all the way to the great room in the mansion.
Once we were in Eastman’s house, we looked at some decorated table-top trees and visited the big tree in the parlor. Guess what? We found a lion cousin there and made friends with the other animals, too! Then I showed my pride the stack of player organ rolls stored underneath the stairs.
After that, we went upstairs! I wanted my pride to get a better look at the elephant head in the great room. There were more gingerbread houses, too! In the discovery room, I showed them the early machines that made still images look like they were moving. The sun was pretty on the east gardens! We looked at the upstairs organ console and came back downstairs via the banister!
My pride had never seen the permanent photography exhibits, so we went back to the museum part to take a look. We saw lots of cameras from different time periods. One of the ones on display was the same model Grandpa had that he passed on to Bill! There was a display of work from Hungarian photographers. We were particularly interested in the picture of a lion statue taken in Budapest in 1948 by Kertesz.
Just as we were getting ready to leave, Grandma realized there was another whole room of gingerbread houses we hadn’t seen! They were all really nice, but my pride was getting tired. They aren’t as used to adventures as I am! They did perk up when we went out to the west garden before we left!
Last Friday and Saturday, the weather was dry enough to finish up leaf raking at the bay. We put up the deer fencing around the rhododendron, too. There was a really big branch down in front of the porch. We were lucky it didn’t break anything when it fell down! Grandpa sawed it up and I helped Grandma stack it for firewood.
Sunday afternoon, Grandma decided it was time to replenish the supply of biscotti. She made four kinds, and they all went into the freezer. Today was the day a cold front and snow were supposed to move in, so Grandma got out this morning to put up the rest of the holiday lights. I helped string them from the second apple tree to the clothesline tree and then on to the maple tree. I made sure we put up red bows on all the low-hanging strings of lights, so no one will walk into them! It’s hard to know how they’ll look in the dark until they turn on next week. I hope we did a good job!
Love,
Lion-san
Lion-san you surely had ring side seats for the leaf pick up! I’ll bet grandma is glad she and grandpa do not have to bag all the leaves for pick up. Around here people have to bag their leaves in a certain kind of bag. Sounds like a LOT of work to me. Glad we never had to too that.
Good thing you got the holiday lights up already. The weekend after TG is supposed to be much colder. I saw a video on Weather.com urging people to put lights up last weekend instead of waiting for after TG because of the coming cold.
signed by your Great Aunt Betsy, who loves to see creations of all sorts made of gingerbread.
It is always fun to see creations made from gingerbread whether they are houses or represent historical buildings or great big scenes. Good thing those gingerbread creations were in protective plexiglass cases or you and your pride would have made dinner of them!
I like the way you and the pride came down the banister in a big pile!
I imagine not only were your pride getting tired but grandma must have been getting tired after guiding you and the pride around and over and over again helping you all pose properly for your portraits here there and everywhere. You all owe a big thank you to grandma for all her efforts.