Turning Back Time

Tower Clock at Our Mill Apt Building

That wasn't just an expression this past weekend. Daylight Saving Time (DST) took effect on Sunday, Nov. 3, at 2 a.m. Most areas of the U.S., fell back to Standard time as clocks were set back an hour. 

No need to change clocks in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and most of Arizona. 

But, we live in N.H., which follows DST. Here's a room breakdown of how many time pieces we reset, mostly inside our apt:

Kitchen: 4 (appliances, wall clock)
Dining Room: 1 mantel clock
Living Room: 4 wall clocks
Porch: 1 wall clock
Master Bedroom: 2 alarm clocks
Guest Bedroom: 1 wall clock
Guest Bathroom: 1 mantel clock
Cars: 2 
Misc: 4 wrist watches, 1 Kindle, 1 "house" phone

YIKES ! That's 22 total resets. Thankfully, the computers, tablets, and cell phones reset without human intervention. We're doubly thankful that we won't need to do this again until March 2020 when time springs ahead. 

What was your reset count in your home?

The clock in the above photo and the first one are interior views of the tower clock at the mill residence where we live in Nashua, NH.

This is an exterior view of the clocks. We're really glad we don't have to reset these.

Friday Funnies

This doggone driver was next to my car at a traffic light in downtown Nashua, NH this week.

He did appear to be keeping a close eye on traffic. Hopefully, his human companion was doing the same.

Enjoy Your weekend, Everyone.

Cemetery Seens

Today's the day when ghosts and goblins and other things that go bump in the night are thought to be out. Grenville and I won't be tempting fate. We plan to remain at home tonight watching our favorite 🎃 films, Beetlejuice and The Addams Family. (Comedy is our preference as we're not into Halloween slasher movies, like Friday the 13th.)

But last week on an overcast and very dreary day, I explored a Nashua, NH cemetery that's about 2 miles from our mill apt residence. It wasn't to look for spirits, and thankfully none appeared. My purpose was to do shoot B&W white scenes using various exposures and an overcast day seemed ideal.

Edgewood Cemetery is one of the city's oldest burial sites. Some headstones date to the early 1800s, and many were topped over perhaps due to age or, worse yet, vandalism.  

While they hadn't collapsed (yet), these headstones, and others, were leaning rather precariously.

Many of the trees here are as old, most likely older, then the headstones. And like the headstones shown above, many of the older trees were not doing well.

Some trees had already fallen and the stump was left in place. 

Other trees were hosts for various fungi, which were really quite intricate, despite my macro shots not being as sharp as possible.

While I don't know the term for the way this tree has expanded, it was an interesting subject. (Please leave a comment, if you do know.) 

Can you see the face in this tree trunk? 

Despite the cemetery being a large one, there was a single mausoleum which bore the family name of Anderson. So I did a bit of online sleuthing and learned that, in 1885, Frank Anderson co-founded a large Nashua shoe factory that stretched an entire city block. The factory was sold in 1912 and an Indiana casket company from the town of Batesville took over the plant. Today, that building houses Palm Square Residences.

After Anderson's 1925 death, his widow approached city and cemetery officials with an offer to present a stone chapel to Edgewood Cemetery in her husband's memory. The chapel sits atop a rise in the Northwest end of the cemetery. Last year, the 83-year old building received a $100,000 make-over, a gift from a local family in memory of their son.

As stated, while I didn't see anyone else, living or otherwise, during my outing, it was time to leave after spotting these headstones. There's no need to tempt fate.

However, you're spending Halloween, keep a lookout 👀 for any 👻 spirits, as 💀 it's their day to celebrate.

Happy 🎃 Halloween

Downtown Nashua Scarecrows

Seasonal scarecrows are hanging around downtown Nashua, NH, and they're really hanging since all are suspended from downtown lamp posts. Some are more creative, others not so much. Many of those on display seem rather haphazardly assembled. 

A scarecrow is defined as an object, usually made to resemble a human figure, that's set up put in a field to scare birds away from where crops are growing. It's also described as a very badly dressed person who is odd-looking, thin or frightening, but harmless. Some of this year's displays fit those definitions quite well. 

We notice there were fewer scarecrows than in recent years with a total of 30 this year. There was a definite scarcity of creations from schools, which had previously been active participants. 

The powers-that-be management here at the mill apts opted out this year. In the past 2 years only a handful of residents, myself and Grenville included, volunteered to help with the project, so lack of interest may have been the reason. Perhaps that was the case with other groups too.

These seasonal works of art are crafted by local businesses, organizations, schools and non-profit groups. There's online voting for the top three winners, without any actual prizes just "bragging" rights.

The wood body and burlap head are provided to all participating groups, which then add the creative touches. These two entries has very little embellishments to the wood frame. Oddly, the one on the right below was the entry of a local art group. 

Many scarecrows, like these two feature-less and colorful entries, had no labels to ID the participating groups.

My personal favorite was this pumpkin scarecrow posted on the lamp post near a downtown brewery. While this wasn't a contender, it was the best downtown scarecrow.

Does your town or community have any seasonal decorations? 

Savannah Is In NJ

Yes, there's a city by that name in GA, but our family has a Savannah in NJ.

Two weeks ago, a post announced the arrival of our first great niece, Autumn Rose. Last week, Savannah Marie, our second great niece (and Autumn's cousin) made her fall debut. 

These photos of newborn Savannah were sent by her mom, Jamie. 

The two cousins share some things: both were born in NJ on a Tuesday, both arrived with a headful of dark hair, and their moms are sisters. Savannah was a lightweight at 6 lb. 7 oz. 

Savannah Marie is now home with her parents, Jamie and Mike. We'll see them all when we visit our native NJ to see family and friends during the Christmas holidays. 

But, first we'll meet Autumn Rose at Thanksgiving. She's doing well and shown below with her first-time grandparents (my brother and his wife) and mom, Julie.

These two little girls were the best fall arrivals in our family this year.

Welcome to the family, Savannah Marie 💜

Friday Funnies

Saw this display at a local supermarket recently.

Who knew that mayonnaise was cage free?

Of course, I know this refers to chicken eggs used to make the product, but the wording seemed an odd choice. Sure glad that mayo wasn't fenced in.

Enjoy Your weekend, Everyone.

Downtown Duck Derby

A river of 5,000 yellow rubber ducks floated downstream in Nashua, NH, last Saturday.
They weren't bathtub escapees.This was a planned fundraising event.

The 2nd Annual Duck Derby was sponsored by the Nashua Rotary Club. Right on schedule, the yellow flotilla was released dumped into the Nashua River near our mill apt residence. We joined the gathered crowds to cheer on the silent race entrants. 

Duck contestants raced floated an estimated 500 feet to a duck barrier near the Main Street bridge. There, duck wranglers snagged the first ducks to reach the finish line. The top three won cash prizes for their adoptees.

Days before the duck derby, volunteers put waterproof numbered tags on the bottom of all 5,000 entrants. The names of those who adopted ducks were entered into a database which had the person's name and number of ducks adopted. Tag numbers were randomly assigned by computer. According to race officials, this was to ensure that: "no ducks were on steroids and that the race was not fixed."

There was no official announcement of the winning time, and the total race time was under 15 minutes.

Duck adoptees didn't get to keep the winning or losing duck(s). That's because after the derby, all ducks were collected and expected to travel to their next race somewhere in the U.S. Laundry baskets worked quite well for the collection efforts.

Funds raised from the duck derby will go to support various local non-profit organizations and activities. When we lived in VA, this was an annual summer fundraiser sponsored by Eastern Shore Hospice. It's a fun and popular way to raise needed funds. No ducks were injured in the race.

Cracking Down on Spam

To me this means checking published blog comments daily to read "legitimate" ones left by fellow bloggers. All of these are read and appreciated. 

What's not appreciated and so annoying is to find a lot of spam comments on recent or previous posts. Several recent ones have been left by spammers using names of the Oxford School and Unknown. 

What can be done?

My suggestion is to — Check published comments regularly. When spot a spam comment is found, click the box to the left of the comment, then select Spam at the top. 

Next, look for Spam (it's under Comments) and delete all the comments marked as Spam. This will remove them completely from the affected blog post(s).

Will this stop spammers?  

Most likely it will not, and it could even cause an increase in unwanted spam. 

But, I will definitely continue to be diligent about deleting all unwelcome spam.

How about you — any spam deletion methods to share with fellow bloggers?

Friday Funnies

This RV conversion has to be one of the most unusual ones seen on the roadway. It was sent by friends, who live in Oregon, and was seen on their cross-country trip.

It looks like that RV has a lot of other repair work going on too.

Enjoy Your weekend, Everyone.

We'll be enjoying Art Walk events here in Nashua, NH.

Going Batty . . .

We've been going batty every time we leave or enter our apartment. Here's WHY . . .

The bats flew in over the weekend thanks to our next door neighbors. This isn't the first time they've decorated the door. Last March, they placed shamrocks all over our door. 

Quite possibly, this latest add-on was "pay-back" for the pumpkins, scarecrows and fall decos we put outside their entry a couple of weeks ago. Yes, those are mini pumpkins growing in the tree. Wait until the Christmas decorating season arrives; we'll have lots more decorating fun.

YIKES! it's already here as shown by displays in a local store last week. Earlier, fellow CT blogger, JP, posted that she saw Christmas items in a Walmart there. Most likely FL blogger, Sandra (Madsnapper) has also seen them in the Walmart she frequents.

At the Dollar Tree store, the Halloween and Thanksgiving fall decos had been condensed to make room for the expanding Christmas displays. In the coming weeks,it will only intensify. Sadly, there's nothing like merchandisers rushing the holidays much earlier each year.

Are holiday decorations already on display in stores where you live ?