Trunk or Treat at church was the Monday the 23rd this past week. Seems a bit early for Halloween but we had an amazing turnout again. Beth and I did the fishing pond again this year since it was a big hit last year, and it was a big hit again this year. I did put some more work into the setup this year so it didn't fall down so much, and I wore the gigantic waders to look more like a fisherman. The entire setup was inside and outside this year, and the weather was so nice we were a bit disappointed to be inside, but it worked well. If we were outside it would have blown over, probably. Anyway the church had over 500 visitors altogether for the event, so much that we had to have people park on the grass. We had thought the inside games would be lost since there were all the trunks outside, but that didn't happen and we were hopping the whole time. 

My group at work had a service project this past week: hanging siding for Habitat for Humanity. We'd been contacted about clearing furniture and appliances out of a house that was going to be demolished so they could be hauled to the re-store, but instead they needed to get some siding finished at a house in Claypool so we were contacted about that instead. None of us had ever hung siding before, so we all learned something new. And who was afraid of heights. We had a short instruction course on how to do it (surprisingly not that hard), then nailed up the soffets and finished the siding on two sides of the house. We did about half a wall's worth on the front and back side of the house. Cool way the spend an afternoon. We did wonder how long it would have taken someone who knew what they were doing though, probably a fraction of the time it took us. But, they log volunteer hours, so we helped out with that.

Remember me talking about the service project our life group did for the lady at church? Well... I and all the guys that did yard work for her developed horrible poison ivy this past week. I have it on my right forearm going down to my wrist. Drew has it all over his arms and chest. Derek has it on his arms and neck. It's nasty. Blistery and painful. So far it's the worst poison ivy I've ever had.

I killed a mole this week! It's been a few years since I caught two moles in the backyard, and they haven't been back to my knowledge, until lately. Tunnels have been popping up in the front yard, so the scissors-style trap came out again. It took around a week, and trying in a couple different spots, but once I zeroed in on where the beast was I got it in a couple days. It was nearly broken in half, poor thing. Too bad for him. Shouldn't have gone digging in my yard.

Our life group did a service project yesterday for an elderly widow who lives next door to one of the couples. Judging from Google street view, she used to have a very nicely landscaped house, but these days she can't take care of it so her whole yard was pretty overgrown. There was a big garden area behind her garage that was so far gone we just hacked and mowed everything down. Her evergreen trees were all over and had a lot of other plants growing through them, so we cut off all the lower branches and dug out all the other weedy stuff. She also had on overgrown trellis with a lot of vines that was out of control and rotten so we took down the trellis and dug up the vines. We felled a few other trees and raked leaves. Overall a hard days work, we were planning on 3 hours but it was more like 6 that we were there. Pizza afterwards. 

Last Thursday Beth and I went to see Josh Gates speaking in Indianapolis. Missy would have liked to go too but school night. I took off from work a bit early so we could drive down there, and we got there in plenty of time. The event was held at Clowes Hall at Butler University, which started looking familiar when we got there and I recalled that it was where I saw the Mighty Lemon Drops back in 1990. Anyway, Josh talked about his times on Expedition Unknown and Destination Truth, how he came to be a travel show host, about how Covid had impacted travel shows and how Josh Gates Tonight came to be during the pandemic, stories about doing shows with William Shatner and Christopher Lloyd, and stories about the various travels he's done for the shows. Then a big Q&A session, during which most people wanted to talk about "The Secret" but it seems he's not planning another show about it. Then someone gifted him an original manuscript from the book, so we'll see. That was a really fun time even though we got home really late.

Soup season is in full swing now. Beth has a show in 2 weeks and is racing to get everything done. It's not easy with bad knees, bad back, and cracked ribs. Anyway, it seems the big thing for shortages this year is instant potatoes. We just can hardly find any of those. And potato soup sells really well. Hope we can find some.

Soup season appears to be in full swing. Beth and I got all the stuff out of storage downstairs, did something of an inventory, and began buying supplies. Jars seem a bit easier to find now but there is a wide variety of pricing. At Meijer, they are $18.99 a dozen. At Menards, $12.99 a dozen, if they have any. So we're getting them at Menards if we can. So far we've done all right. I even finally got a spreadsheet together to figure out our profit margin on each type of soup so I have an idea of how much we spend to make soup money. First show is in just a few weeks...

For the first time in a long long time, Beth and I saw a movie in theaters twice. Missy wanted to see "A Haunting in Venice" so Monday evening we took her out to see it. She really liked it. So did Beth and I, enough to see it again with her. I hope Sir Kenneth keeps making the Poirot movies, I've really liked them. We took Missy back to school Tuesday evening. Beth and I both had bible study so we took her back after we were done, which meant we got back home after midnight. Poor girl didn't want to go back to the drama and all the crap she's been going through, but no choice. 

The annual donut dash 5k was Saturday. I almost didn't go run because a) it was kind of rainy and b) my knees and hips have been so sore lately. I saw the chiropractor last week and he adjusted my hips and it feels better, but he said my pelvis was a bit rotated. Like, backwards or something? But anyway, I did go run, and had a fair to middling time of about 27:30. Not great, but I've been sore. But, I did win my age group, because the older I get the easier it is to win my age group. And I ran the course twice so I got 6 miles in and lapped a few people on the way.

Beth saw the doctor on Wednesday because after the fall she took in Michigan last weekend she's not getting any better, and actually feeling worse. Turns out, she has cracked ribs. Plural. And nothing to be done about it except take tylenol or motrin, and put up with this level of pain for a few weeks. 

Ric's annual chili cookoff was this weekend! And we have quite a story. It is also Missy's fall break weekend, so she has school off until Wednesday. Friday, Beth went to go get her and bring her home, and we found that she had bleached her hair, sort of. She and a friend tried to color it blonde but they didn't know how much colorant they needed, so they only had one bottle and ran out way too soon. So, about half of Missy's hair was blonde on one side, and the rest was unchanged. Saturday morning, Missy and Beth went out to find a hair salon to get the rest of her hair done. So she is totally blonde now. Later on Saturday, we headed up to Michigan for the chili cookoff. Beth made a crock pot full of the chili she was sure was going to win: a jalapeno popper chili. With jalapeno slices and cream cheese and everything. It smelled great, and she was kind of playing the audience, so she was optimistic about her chances. We got to Ric's around 6:30ish, by which time the crock pot had been unplugged for a few hours, which is a good thing as you'll see. Carrying the pot out to the deck, Beth tripped on a stone lining a flower garden next to the house and fell flat, and the chili went everywhere. They had to hose some off the side of the house and off the deck. There was a big pile that the many dogs there seemed to be enjoying. Beth bashed her side into the stones, smacked her shin, landed on both hands hard, dented up the crock pot, and got the chili all over her new blouse. So she spent the rest of the evening sitting down and did not win the cook off, although she was awarded a special honorable mention ribbon by nomination of Sam. We stayed longer than we should've, probably, but left around 10. Stopped at Judy's briefly because she said she had something for me... which turned out to be a Michigan State sweatshirt that she found at a thrift store. It didn't fit me, but it fit Missy perfectly, so it's hers now. The rest of the weekend was not really full of activity because Beth was so sore she could hardly move. 

I finally got Natalie moved out of her now-ex-boyfriend's house. She's been in FW for a month or so but he still had some clothes and things of hers. She asked a couple weeks ago if I could get her clothes back so I've asked him a few times, and he finally put everything all together for me to pick up. There was more than I expected. I was wondering when I was going to get a chance to bring it to her when she solved that problem for me by showing up at the house unexpectedly. She was hoping to get some of her warmer clothes out of the closet here, so I was able to get all of her stuff to her then. Her friend was driving them in a Mustang so things were pretty crammed in, but they got everything they needed and got the doors closed. She also said they were moving out of their place and she and her friend & friend's fiance are moving to Ohio. So I hope things continue to work out. Maybe she'll be able to get all the rest of her stuff out of here. 

 The annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Knight/etc campout was back on this year after the hiatus of last year! The camping crew is quite a bit reduced, though. I took Friday off work and was going to leave early Thursday so Beth and I could get to the campground (Michawana again!) at such a time that we wouldn't be setting up the camper in the dark, but it didn't quite work out that way. I was busy at work so it was around 4 o'clock before we finally headed out, then we had so many last minute things that we just couldn't seem to get moving. And once we did, the truck was having problems. It was the first time we've tried towing with the "new" truck, and all the way up north it was jerking and stuttering. I tried controlling it by taking it easy on the gas and using a manual shift, but it was just driving awful. Enough so that I stopped at Napa on the way out of town to ask if anyone there had any ideas as to what it was doing, and they suggested I stop at Montieth and ask there. At Montieth, they had a few suggestions as to what it could be, but it was late in the day and they didn't have anyone there to do anything with it. So when we left there, I sat in the drive for a bit going 'crap crap crap crap crap....' and wondering what we should do. Not really feeling great about driving (with a camper) all the way up north and not knowing what the truck was going to do halfway there....but in the end I decided to see if I could get it to drive ok shifting manually. It did all right, not great, but more or less under control all the way up there, although I was still despairing a little bit. We made it to the campground around 7:30 so it was getting dark, and we set up in the dark again anyway. But not a problem. We had us, Marve & Beth, Ric & Nickie & Lauren, John & Steph & Trevor, and some friends of the Pinksters, so small group this year. And nobody stayed up as late as we usually have on this campout, even though the weather was really nice for camping. Not too cold, not too wet. We did really just a lot of hanging out at the camp Friday, except a town run for coffee and a few groceries, and even had a surprise when Judy & Neill showed up with their camper, since they were supposed to have been departing for a European river cruise that day. Turns out they volunteered to get bumped from the cruise which got them their trip moved to next summer, a cabin upgrade, and it was totally comped. Completely free for them now. So they could camp with the family this weekend instead! In other news, Ric and Marve and I looked over the truck for what might be causing the jerking, and we found that the (brand new) trailer hitch assembly was a bit loose: the ball was not completely tightened down onto the receiver. There were a few wrenches in the camp so we improvised a rig to tighten things down, and hoped that the loose ball was the reason for the jerking. Saturday Ric and I went on a bike ride (a much hiller one than I am used to!) and we did a lot of hanging out at camp. On Sunday, we packed things up. Due to family drama there was not going to be a big group lunch at Walldorf's but Beth and I went to lunch with Ric & Nickie at a restaurant in Otsego on the way out, and also hit Plainwell ice cream. Rolling out, it seemed to be confirmed that the loose ball was the cause of the jerking and stuttering, because it didn't do it even a little bit all the way home. We got home around dinnertime.