Still no carp, but a beaver!

Even though the temperatures this week were higher, the carp were no longer jumping and our carp shooting trip was cancelled until next summer.  Sadness.  Oh well, Saturday was rainy and dreary most of the day anyway.

My foot was hurting all week to the point I was barely sleeping at night because the pain kept waking me up.  Work was tough and I was really wishing I had just had the surgery on September 28th when the doctor originally offered.  Now I just have to hobble through this week and my surgery is supposedly on Friday.  I say "supposedly" because it seems like everything else has been postponed and cancelled so I'm terrified the surgery won't work out for some reason.  For the second week in a row, my "regular" doctor appointment for a pre-surgical physical was cancelled because my doctor was sick.  I now have to go on Monday during work.  Ugh.

Other than whining about my foot, it was actually a pretty good week.  I took Monday off to spend Columbus Day with the kids.  We have a tradition of going to Tanner's Orchard and then to the dink town of Bradford.  Two or three years ago, I was at the stop sign leaving Tanner's and turned right toward Bradford rather than left to go home to spend the rest of the day babysitting the neighbor kids.  We've gone back each year and this was at least our third or fourth year.  This year, both kids realized they are too old for most of what they used to love about Tanner's.  We had a good time tasting different spreads and dips and shopping for food, but they are too big to play in the pumpkins and on the little wooden train.  They enjoyed feeding the goats, but were completely fine with not paying to go on the playground that is really for smaller kids.  They are too big for pony rides and barrel train rides.  We got some good food and moved on to Bradford. 

After playing on the playground in the park for a while, we toured around the town to see what Bradford had to offer.  We found a pool and baseball field, the schools, several churches and the tornado siren.  Both kids were completely amazed by some old man burning leaves in the gutter in front of his house.  "He's starting a fire right on the street!"  They agreed that they'd like to live in Bradford, but wished it was a little closer to Peoria.  We took pictures with many of the Bradford attractions and I posted them in a facebook album.  It was a good day.

Tuesday night was the book fair at Logan's school.  They always have a chili supper, but the food is pretty awful and Logan wanted to skip it.  Gene took the kids and Logan actually found some chapter books.  I can't believe how much he's been reading!  He found a series of books called "American Chillers" that have a scary story about each state and he has been devouring them.  The kid who had us so worried two years ago is now a reader!

Friday morning Logan woke up coughing and sniffing nonstop.  He wasn't "that" sick, but he would have been annoying to have in class and since I was home anyway, I allowed him to stay home from school.  By about 11 we were both bored and itching to go outside.  We went down to Galena Marina to look for birds and other wildlife.  We scored!  We watched a pair of belted kingfishers, several great egrets, a family of mallards and a small flock of yellow-rumped warblers.  We hiked around the boat launch cove to the river when I looked back at the cove and saw a beaver swimming toward the boat launch area.  What in the world?  It was almost noon!  What was a beaver doing out?  We walked back around and the beaver was munching on a twig and half asleep and didn't care at all that we were watching from 10 feet away.  We got a good, close look at its flat tail and big teeth.  Well, that was unexpected!  Hopefully next time it will be an otter :)  We headed back home and set up all of our bird feeders.  It is time anyway, but I wanted them to be ready and the birds to be flocking to them before I spend a week down after my surgery.  I want to watch something other than just the tv.  We've already had at least 10 different types of birds at the feeders.  Logan wants to set up some kind of platform feeder so hawks can pick off the feeder birds.  I think that's the best idea ever- as long as the hawks are only picking off the house sparrows!

Saturday was rainy and dreary.  Kaylin went to a sheep shearing party with her friend Zoe and had a great time.  Gene spent the afternoon at work.  Logan and I ran a couple of errands and let a friend's dogs out while she was out of town for the day.  I then spent the entire afternoon sleeping.  I couldn't believe that I spent the final afternoon of my last day off before surgery sleeping, but I really needed it.  I even went to bed at my usual early hour.  Hopefully that will help me through the next 5 days of work.  I can do it!