Happy Thankgiving!

Given my traffic phobia, we spent the night at Mum's last night so that we didn't have to fight the masses on the roads. As it was it took us twice as long to get past Springfield, due to all the bumper to bumper. Yuck.

They treated us to dinner at their fancy dining hall and we came back up and traded jigsaw puzzles. We hit the road first thing this morning, no traffic, a clear lovely day, and at the last minute Dave said, okay, let's take the ferry to Port Jeff. We were almost the last car on (no reservation) and it was a perfect crossing, a clear morning, not much wind, not many clouds. Port Jeff is so lovely from the water. We got to Dave's mom's before noon.

So now it's Thanksgiving, with Lisa (Dave's sister), Wes (her fella), his mother and daughter, Brian (Lisa's son), his girlfriend, Amber, and Sarah (Dave's sister's daughter), Randy (her husband), and Maddox (their son), who along with Wes et al. are arriving later tonight. Yikes! It'll be quite a full house. Dave and I are going to take Lily to see Enchanted and add our nickels to the company coffers.

No bears lately but lots of birds. The guys who replaced our window a couple of weeks ago hung up the Dave's birthday bird feeder outside one of our bedroom windows -- high enough so the bears can't get it, at least 12 feet -- and we've spotted lots and lots of chickadees and tufted titmice. Lily, who has been on vacation since last Friday, climbs into bed in the morning and gets all excited every time she sees something really unusual -- Tuesday it was a cardinal, juncos, finches, although not at the bird feeder. She studies the bird book intently.

We ran out of the sunflower seeds that came with the feeder so Dave refilled it with cheaper seeds, and the birds don't flock nearly as much as they used to, it seems. Oh dear. The lady at the birdwatcher store in Northampton (address to come) says all birds eat the sunflowers, and only certain birds eat the other stuff. So we'll see. The only real problem is we can't watch them while we sip our tea in the morning. But maybe we can rig up something until the bears come out of hibernation.

I miss the country. I am glad I don't live in the city. Here's a story about our literate hometown from the Times.

Happy Thanksgiving! Just remember, two down, two to go (Halloween and Thanksgiving).