Preparations for Thanksgiving Day are underway. We're hosting my family, and expect to feed 25. This is my first time attempting a large sit-down meal in this house and it feels exciting. I'm pulling out bowls and platters to make sure I have enough and double-checking my supplies. Two more days!

I took pictures of Ted and I working today..
(YaY! I can resize my photos much faster now so this is much less of a pain to upload)
 
First we walk up the back lane to where the tractor is parked.
Ted standing by the tractor/wagon rig



To the right is a steep drop-off and the Kokosing River (in the background)


This is our rig! There is a suction motor between the tractor & wagon.
Ted runs the leaf vacuuming hose and I drive the tractor.
8 months ago I had no clue how to drive this thing...
my legs have had to get stronger from inching along... clutching and braking, uphill and down.
The vac motor is so loud we have to wear noise muffling ear things (that hurt over glasses after awhile)


 



The trailer is full! Time to unload...
 I backed it to the edge of a hill both times! I'm getting better at backing trailers...
 

 

  After we unload, we drive back past the house to finish a section on the front lane.
This is the view of his house from his front driveway. It drops way off to the right--- down to river bottom land.

Look Ma-- hardly any leaves...
The leaf-vacuuming is coming to an end! Good thing too, because it's almost December.

I thought I was going to get out of tractor driving today bc of rain.... and now the rain quit...  leaf vacuuming will return to its regularly scheduled programming ... shiver, gonna wear my warm hunting boots, the better to clutch and brake with, my drear

"Hi PeacefulLady! It's been 1699 (wow, that's a big number) days since you joined Xanga..." yeah, long timer here

Shot my little muzzleloader today. Sam got it for me. I learned to load it myself... now I have a gun and hunting boots.. that's the most important part-- fire power and warm feet. Anyone have a small camo clothes or warm hunter-orange jacket to give away?

We had visiting preacher from Kenya as speaker today Peter Kebae (spelling?) I really connected with what he said. He started out with the words picture of Why do trees fall over? it's not the circumstances, it's the inner strength of the tree... and on to how concerned we are with our appearance...

Might have to add to this later... family is going to watch "Jacob's Harvest".. off to ice cream and popcorn...

Okay I'm back... 
We are all concerned about our appearance outwardly and spend time with that... what about out inner appearance.. spending time in fellowship with God makes us beautiful inside... reading the word shows us ourselves and what to do, prayer does way more than we may realize at the time... I think he said too: How much we pray shows how much we believe prayer will make a difference. (? I'm writing this off the top of my head, anyone else remember this?)
We can choose to do things even when we don't like it right then because the harvest will be rewarding. Persevere.. Farmers do this when they keep doing the hard work months before they will see any results of harvest....

There was more but I was especially struck by the "doing things we don't like right then" part because this past week I read and reread an article by a Doctor who was talking about how just giving facts to people about their health doesn't usually do much to change behavior. We make way more of our decisions from feelings of like/dislike than we realize. He called it emotions but I believe it goes deeper than superficial feelings to words like heart and desire. But anyway. I was really struck by the like/dislike thought in the article and how that plays out in my life... and then this further connection..