Tuesday, October 31st - Happy Halloween!

Good Tuesday morning! Gosh, the days are getting so short. As I sit here at 7:10 in the morning, it's still pitch black dark outside. I suppose that will change slightly for a short time when the time goes back this coming weekend.

Our mild weather still continues. It's quite remarkable to have temperatures close to 20' on a regular basis at the end of October, but we'll take it.  This nice weather was a contributing factor in finally getting Lloyd up in the air.

He went for his first flight in over a year and a half, on Saturday. He went out to do some circuits and get his head back into the game. I was going outside to the garage to get something when I heard a small plane overhead. I looked up and saw what I was pretty sure might be Lloyd. As I watched, it made a couple of circles over our property, so I knew it was him. I was standing in the yard waving like a mad fool, but not sure if he saw me.

He flew again on Sunday, when he moved the plane to Summerside to be housed in a hangar out there. Bernie drove out to pick him up when he was landed.

Brenda was away on Saturday and Sunday at her annual girls weekend, so I invited Bernie to join us for supper. Meghan was out helping him so she came over as well. I was making lasagna, so it was easy to make a smaller vegetarian version as well. I made fresh pasta, tomatoes from our garden were in the sauce, and the ricotta used was made from our goats milk. Pretty much a local product, I would say.

I got some great news this week - my friend in London, England, is coming over to visit over Christmas. I'm really looking forward to sharing a Canadian Christmas with her. She's from New Zealand and her family, who also live in England, are going to Australia/New Zealand for 3 months and will be away for Christmas, so I suggested if she had enough time off work, she should come here. I was surprised to learn that she's never had snow at Christmas so I really hope Mother Nature cooperates.  She's flying into Halifax and we're going to pick her up and we should be able to come back on the boat as it will still be running when she arrives on the 15th.  Now I'm really looking forward to Christmas and all the festivities that go with it. I was reading the November Buzz yesterday and Decembers will likely have lots of ideas to keep us busy while she's here. She will be leaving on the 1st of January, the same day I'm planning to fly up to Ontario so Lloyd will drop me off and then take her to Halifax. Again, hopefully the weather cooperates!

And to start preparing for our Christmas feast, the wild cranberries over on the VanGaal property are now ready. Brenda has picked quite a few so I think I'll need to go over and pick some to freeze to make our own festive cranberry jelly in December.