Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone!

There once was a time when Halloween was a holiday focusing on children. The little ones would dress up in their ghoulish costumes and roam the streets begging for candy. A few errant miscreants would take part in some unwanted pranks here and there, but for the most part, there wasn't much to this holiday.

That's certainly not the case today. Adults have hijacked this holiday and made it all about themselves. And perhaps that is part of the problem we have today -- adults no longer behave like adults.

But I don't want to go down that road at this time . . . . .

No reason for this picture other than I like to post pictures of turkeys. This guy and his friends were high-stepping down the street in front of our house yesterday afternoon. 

We currently seem to have two groups of turkeys in our neighborhood. One is a large flock numbering about 11. The other is a group of 4, which Donna and I call "The Gang of Four". The three above are part of the Gang of Four; the leader was farther down the street. I thought a picture of turkeys was appropriate for my previous discussion of adults.

That was a nice little cold spell we had. As expected, it began moving through the area early Monday and was moving out by Wednesday afternoon. I like a guest who doesn't overstay its welcome. But from early Monday to mid-afternoon Wednesday, we did have some cold, dreary, wintry weather. 

We did get a bit of moisture. The streets and sidewalks more or less stayed wet for about 48 hours or so. I'm not sure how much moisture we received, but it may have been just over half an inch. We could certainly have used more.

Snow on the roof of a neighbor's house. You can see a little wintry mix on the ground, as well, but it was really not cold enough to stick there.

We woke to snow on the rooftops Tuesday morning, There was a little snow/ice mixture in the grass as well, but not enough to cover the lawns. It really didn't get cold enough to allow things to freeze on the ground. 

Snow on another rooftop, and a little wintry mix that was able to stick in our yard.

We're back to normal now. I was able to walk late in the afternoon on both Wednesday and Thursday. It was still a bit chilly both days, but the sun was out. The worst part was the wind. It was blowing nearly 20 mph both days. By Friday, I was walking in short sleeves again. Yep, yesterday was beautiful.

It's nice to have such variety in your weather. I'm not a big fan of cold weather, but I do enjoy cool weather. And when we do have cold weather, I like for it to move on through in a couple of days. And that is exactly what this cold front did. Now we are looking at highs in the upper 60s and lower 70s for the next week or so, though the nights are chilly.

The community newsletters for November 1 were ready for distribution, so Donna and I made our route early Friday afternoon. After that, we just continued walking around the neighborhood.

Rain gauge with snow in it.

My heart surely does go out to the people in southern Louisiana. Those poor folks have now been hit with 5 big storms this year, all while dealing with COVID. And folks out in California are still battling wildfires. They and others across the country -- mainly in the west -- have really suffered this year. And some folks whine and cry about being asked to wear a mask. There's that adult thing again I mentioned earlier. But I said I wasn't going to get started on that . . . .

And speaking of COVID, our numbers continue to go up. I believe the positivity rate in our county at this time is now 15.9%. A vaccine can't come fast enough.

I'll leave you with our latest puzzle. Normally, we work on puzzles with 1,000 pieces, but some neighbors shared the 500-piece puzzle below with us. After that really hard puzzle I posted in the previous entry that contained such irregular pieces, it was nice to put a normal puzzle together.

"Days to Remember"

Remember to set your clocks back . . .