October has been so busy this year that we had to start it in September to get everything in. It started with Commonground Fair and a full house of the Commonground Regulars: Jennifer, Steve and Camden Dionne; Nancy and Steve from Portmanteau; David and Lou who do the birds and bees near Boston; and Carol, Ken, and Judy from New Hampshire. Dennis and Carol of Mother's Mustard and the rest of the Portmanteau staff came down from the Annex (the Russell's house), Mr. Oliver and Beatrice from the blueberry fields in Salem: about a thousand sittings for breakfast each day. Jinx came into this whirlwind after spending a week at a Buddhist retreat in Vermont and brought good squash karma. Melissa's brother Peter had left her a box of winter squash from his garden at our kitchen door. Melissa picked a butternut from the box, entered it at the fair and won a blue ribbon. On the next weekend Jimbo Allain and Neva Hicks Davis from Port Alien, uh Allen, were here, and that was not as scary as it could have been. I haven't seen most of the people I went to high school with since, well, high school, so that they are preserved as their 17 year old selves in my mind, permanently part of the mythology of childhood. Jim and Neva brought pictures that proved conclusively that my old schoolmates are no longer 17. It was comfortable to be with them and I hope to see other old friends when we're down there in November. Somewhere in here I started my new job. Nice folks, good working conditions; I'm writing server scripts in Delphi to bring their database info to the web. In the first week of October the Matens tribe from Baton Rouge came up to leaf peep and were treated to the full range of weather events: northern lights, peak foliage color, and on their last morning here, 3 inches of snow. The snow startled me because it's way early for that. I'll put up pictures of their adventures as soon as they send me some. It was great to have nephew power for picking up the boat and taking apart the dock. Friends Anita and Malissa from Covington stayed with us on the way to and from a Celtic music festival in Nova Scotia. After Sunday lunch with them at the Unicorn, we walked on the Two Cent Bridge and discovered the second floor of the Maine Made shop. I like the Bridge, shown above, because no one would ever build a walking bridge today.

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