"It was a dark and stormy night ..."

Boo to all of you! Our Halloween really lived up to it's long promised potential. All the old hands had told us that winter begins on October 31st up here; and by gum, it did, this year! The rain began yesterday and continued all night (dampening jack o'lanterns all over NoCal, I fear). We stayed inside, cozy and warm, and had great chili and TexMex Cornbread, and went to bed early. Boulder Creek doesn't get wandering ghouls with edible plunder on their minds; the festivities are usually down on Route 9, when merchants stay open late and hand out free candy to kids – while their guardians buy merchandise, they hope.

So the rains continue; and we shut-ins are enjoying it mightily. I baked cookies this morning (how much cozier could we get?) – Granola/Oatmeal Everything drop cookies, with raisins, nuts and chocolate chips: need I add, they are scrumptious with a cup of green tea, right now!

If the power goes out (and it probably will) we have lots of candles placed around the house in strategic locations; our wood stove is ready to go, and a nice stack of logs plus kindling are nearby. We can activate our oven and stovetop with that old-fashioned implement, the kitchen match; and we have food in the freezer that we can use up in any long-term power outage. To top that off, we have nice wooly sweaters of all sorts, and a new down comforter for the bed (both warm-fuzzies courtesy of Leenie, bless her). We don't have to go anywhere!

I hope you all are enjoying this turning point in the year, with the departure of Daylight Savings Time tonight; we expect to be waking up earlier and going off to sleep earlier in the coming days – and that's just as it should be for winter hibernators.

Looks like we'll have another dark and stormy night tonight; lovely!