Insomnia and Winter's Coming!

I haven't been blogging lately, mostly because the more time that passes without blogging, the worse my memory gets regarding just HOW to access and post on my blog!!  So, since I woke up at 1:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, I decided to hunt up my blog and get back with it!  I follow a couple of other folks' blogs and they're quite creative, entertaining and I love them.  Wish I could even begin to hold a candle to those.
This morning we have some drippy weather but will stay well above freezing for the next few days.  We're considering taking a drive to do some more exploring of the surrounding areas in our little corner of Washington.
It looks as though I'm going to be busy enough during the month of December and perhaps into the winter as well.  There are only about 15 folks who winter here at our park and most of them are men.  There may be 3 women, including myself.  Even though we're spread out in this large park, we plan to get together every Tuesday evening for dinner and wii bowling at our very nice lodge building.  It's a wonderful facility which has a large kitchen, game tables, a pool table, huge TV and big rock fireplace in the lounge area.  There are large restrooms with showers, a hot tub, lap pool, steam spa, exercise room and very nice laundry facilities.  That's all inside and during the warmer season there are large grills, tables and umbrellas outside on the patios.  Our Tuesday dinners will be potluck and last week we mostly featured Mexican foods.  I made a gigantic crock pot full of Mexican rice with black beans and other things.  I had not made the recipe in the past and felt I should double it  for the group.  Wow, it almost grew up and OUT of the pot!  We had more than enough and after several took some of it home with them, we still brought some back for the freezer.

This coming Tuesday, we decided to feature Chinese foods.  A couple of us like egg fu yung so I will make that, using a recipe from one of my old cookbooks I bought while living in Hawaii during the 70's.  A neighbor across the street will make some lo mein.  I also bought some fortune cookies since it wouldn't be complete without them!  I might brew some Oolong tea and take along a couple of thermos's of that for those who don't partake in adult beverages.  We haven't planned the following weeks as yet but have decided it's more fun to choose themes and keeps the meals from being the same old potluck fare.  Those of us who don't plan to leave for Thanksgiving or Christmas will share the days with meals and fun activities at the lodge, too.  There will be more than the basic group because there are several seasonal park residents who come to spend those holidays here.  From what I'm told, there will probably be around 30 folks then.  I like to cook and taste so I'm looking forward to our first winter here.
Speaking of winter, we went to our favorite Ace store in Newport a few days ago and bought a new ergonomic snow shovel and a roof rake, which is used to keep the snow off the roofs where it could slide down and hurt someone at the doors, etc.  We heard it's quite necessary to clear since someone was close to being injured when they got hit with a roof slide.  All the cottages have peaked metal roofs here.  Then I heard that the guys all have sets of cleats that fasten over the shoes or boots to keep them from slipping on the icy surfaces.  I found a pair of those for John at our Ben Frank General Store.  We have small space heaters going in several locations of our little compound.  Our trailer has been drained and winterized but we keep a small heater running inside.  I have 2 small heaters in my art cabin and John has one in his work cabin.  We also keep one in our tiny living room in the cottage.  The cottage stays very comfortable with the aid of its large heat pump system.  We feel ready for whatever the winter throws at us and its very peaceful and beautiful here on the river with the seasonal folks all gone.  I've been busy stocking up extra supplies and foods so that we won't have to get out on slippery, snowy roads.  And I still want to buy an oil lamp for when the power goes down.  We have some new fleece wear and already had heavy outer wear from living in the mid-Atlantic.  We even added a fire pit for the patio and got a new Weber Kettle grill so we can smoke our turkeys during the holidays.  WE ARE SO READY!  The temps can go down quite low and seem to be heading for the 20's during the nights, brrrrrrrrrrr!  But we're SO cozy.
Tomorrow I have to work on prepping my selected jewelry pieces which will be for sale at the Newport art center building during December at the Christmas store being set up there.  That lasts for 2 weeks, beginning Dec. 4.  And a few of my original artworks will be for sale at a Christmas Tree Festival at a Newport middle school event, which is supposed to draw pretty good crowds.  I volunteered to work at each event a couple of days.  I belong to an art group which has its Christmas party in December.  There are many things I need to do for all the different activities, some of them including cooking and baking. 
There is another art group in a neighboring area, which has a good building where excellent art and craft courses are offered during the year.  I'm hoping I'll be able to attend some of those including ceramics.  They also regularly feature open times when they hire live models and welcome all artists to come and paint or draw.  That would be great.
As you can see, I have no fear of becoming bored out here in our river valley.  There is far more to do than ever meets the eye.  We even have a gourmet kitchen store in Newport where cooking lessons are regularly offered!  And the small library has events and belongs to a 20-library system.  Current movies play at a little old town theater and there is a community theater group and building, too.  There is more but these are the Newport, Washington highlights!
After we drove into the park and to our place, we spotted well over 30 wild turkeys strutting and pecking along across our street!  That's the biggest flock we've seen so far.  The folks here say that we haven't seen it all, yet.  And we're told to NEVER feed the turkeys, they make big messes and are nothing but pests.  It's really funny to watch them take off and fly across our back creek.  Don't know what use they are since it's said they are really tough when cooked.  We're still hearing gunshots so we suppose the hunters continue to get their venison for the season.  We also have small game birds.  Haven't heard the coyotes for a week.  And a fellow told us there are 2 good-sized herds of elk just up the road in a pasture where they like to graze.  A pair of young moose visited our park several weeks ago but we missed them and haven't seen any since.  We do have a very noisy Western Jay that haunts our large pines and gets peanuts from one of the residents.  One bird we see many of along all the roads is the Magpie.  They are very pretty and dressy in their black and white outfits.
That's the North Woods Report for now--GloW

A scene from the end of our street, the back creek