September Saturday

Fall gardens lend a little color on a gray day.

This weekend is really Fall, no doubt about it. Rainy, cool, and dark. First fire in the fireplace. So far, it's also been a very fine weekend.


Yesterday we started out with our morning tea (me) and coffee (Larry). I had to show him the People of Walmart website. It has to be seen to be believed, and it is every bit as bad as you are imagining right now. I can't decide if it's funny, sad, scary, or degrading--maybe all of the above. Whatever it is, it's horribly fascinating to see what people think is an okay outfit to wear in public.


Breakfast at the Downtowner was quiet, none of the usual crowd there. I had some research to do at the library on a couple of new ghost stories. The librarian reminded me of the afternoon "Southern Social" being held in the afternoon to kick off the county's Big Read. She was counting on me to come and tell a lie at the Liars Contest. I knew we had turkeys to dress out at home, but promised to be there.


We came home and got to work on the birds. We have a system--Larry does them in and plucks them, I do the innards cleaning, finish up any odds and ends of plucking and cleaning on the outside and wrap the birds for the freezer. While Larry got the first bird ready for me, I tried out my new bread machine for the first time. It's a Cuisinart and I can already tell I'm going to have fun with it.

Turkeys are much, much easier to clean than chickens! In about 15 minutes I can have a turkey ready for the freezer, but the chickens took at least 30 minutes each. The reason is that the turkeys provide a much larger opening for cleaning, and since these are white turkeys plucking is much easier. The bronze turkeys are hard to pluck cleanly, I think.

A good crowd in the pouring rain. No one seemed to mind a little dampness.

I sped back out the door after giving my hands a thorough cleaning and got to town just in time for the Social. Rain was falling in buckets but the library staff and their helpers erected tents on the courthouse lawn and forged ahead. No one seemed to mind the rain. About 150 people, I would guess, milled about under the tents, sampling the good food and drinks, picking up their copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and generally having a good time. There was no microphone available which was challenge for the speaker and for those of us who were there to tell lies, but we managed.

A contest participant entertained the crowd with a lie in the form of a song, The Bricklayer's Lament, one of my favorites. He did it perfectly.

Rather than try a story, I opted to sing The Swapping Song which includes audience participation so I could keep the group focused despite the noise of town traffic. The audience was more than willing and we had a fine time with the song. Any crowd willing to stand out in the rain to celebrate a reading kickoff has to be people who like to have fun. And we did!

The Mayor of Ripley is a real ham!

Back home, I cleaned up in the kitchen, talked to Terry McNemar of WV Writers for a while about next summer's conference and waited for the bread to finish. It wasn't perfect, but for the first try it isn't bad. This is from the Honey Wheat Bread recipe. A bit lopsided, but it tastes wonderful.

Larry lit the fireplace to take the chill off and settled down with a John Wayne movie (I know he's seen every one at least five times), and I picked flowers for the tables, and read through the material I had collected for my story research.


A visit from one of our sons, his daughters and a friend closed the evening. We enjoyed the fire, talked, listened to a little of my new CD and had little blackberry cobbler while the night gathered outside.