It's raining! It's pouring!

I don't know about any old man snoring, but I can tell you this: This is one of only a handful of days we've had with no "hot, hazy, humid" weather since mid-June. We've been sweltering here under the oppressive humidity. Generally, the consensus is that we can take the heat, but when the air is thick enough to cut with a chain saw, that's when it gets to be too much.

The storms that raged through here last night did a lot of damage. On a farm south of here, lightning hit the barn, frying it's circuit and electrical boxes -- the barn was a total loss. There were reports of several houses with tree branches crashed through their roofs. A 60 year old man had a near miss when lightning struck a tree he was standing near. BUT BUT BUT our tent and gazebo are still standing, and looking good. GO FIGURE!

Last week some skeletal remains were found just to the south of here. There was a pregnant woman that went missing from these parts about 5 or 6 years ago, and no hide nor hair has ever been seen since. There was a lot of speculation that it might be her, as it was determined that it was a young-ish woman. But, check out this news item:

Livingston County authorities say skeletal remains found in Mt. Morris last Monday appear to be that of a 19th century woman.

The Livingston County Sheriff's Department said a preliminary report from a University of Rochester forensic anthropologist shows the remains are that of a 35- to 50-year-old woman who lived in the early 1800’s.

The report also said the woman was large in stature with a height of about 6 feet. She had features consistent with Caucasian and African-American ethnicity.

Another partial skull and bones were also found at the excavation site. Police say that area in Mt. Morris was a cemetery from approximately 1794 to 1818.

A full report on the remains is expected in the near future.

Pretty interesting. And, yet more proof that when a person with money has a mind to develop land to make money, nothing's sacred.

It's been very quiet at work. In this entire month, I've had only one job come into my office. I've had to look for things to do to keep myself occupied. There's only so much web surfing one can do, and it's impossible to take a nap. I bring DVDs in and watch them on the computer from time to time, and I've gotten a lot of knitting done. I hardly see anyone, and often feel like I'm alone in the world up here. A month from now, I'll have more work than I can keep up with because that's when all the faculty will decide that maybe they should get their syllabi and other beginning-of-the-semester documents in for work. Putzes.

I read an interesting article this morning that explains why our cats are so good at giving us that "fuck you" look. It turns out that the little darlings can't taste sweets. Why, if they can't taste and enjoy chocolate, who could blame them for being pissy? LOL!

I've been knitting away furiously here at work trying to get a blanket made for our bed to give Lisa for Christmas. It's very ambitious, and will be approximately 100"x95" all made out of "granny squares," so to speak. I'm doing it in panels, and finished the second panel two days ago. At the rate I'm going, I should have it done by a couple of days before Christmas. I'm averaging about 28 rows per day but would like to get that up to about 33 to 35 just to give myself a comfortable buffer. There will be days that I know I can't get anything done on it so I'd like to get more than my average done so that I can make up for those days ahead of time.

Feedback we're getting is that the party we had Saturday was a raging success. We've always been proud of our gardens but are really beaming these days with all the positive feedback we've gotten from the folks that were there. Some sort of joke that they'll have us over to design gardens for them. What the hell, we don't do anything constructive between midnight and 6:00 AM, why not garden for other people?

150 shopping days until Christmas!