All Hallows Eve

Halloween went very well.  I usually don't like it very much.  So this year I tried to make it more fun in a way I could enjoy.  We threw our own little party.  We had beef stew requested by Una (next year I am adding rice to the last 30 minutes of cooking) and my pumpkin pie.  It took me the better part of the morning and afternoon to cook both things.  But they turned out well and the kids and Stephen and Alfred seemed to like them. Then we had bobbing for apples, pin the stem on the pumpkin and find the candy.  The kids liked the games.  I also made caramel apples as if there weren't enough sweets already.  After this the kids went to our old neighborhood in Corning and went trick or treating for real.  I did not go and this was fine.  It rained most of the day of Halloween but not really in the evening.

The ground is good and soaked and I have been busy trimming torn branches from deer attacks and adding goat manure to the bottom of the trees.  I told some visitors that we were having a lot of deer pressure.  When one looked at the other inquisitively he said, "That's rancher speak for deer eating."