Door to Door

The children were much more serious about Halloween than we were.
They'd ring the bell and I'd display the goods and usually someone would ask "How many can we take?" Once I said two, one good piece and one bad, and that set them to work. Little hands hovered over the selections, and came to a group decision: Twizzlers were good and Almond Joys were bad. One defector stage-whispered to a friend as they rushed away "I took two Good ones."
Another time when asked how many I said "One point five," which puzzled them only a moment. A little pirate quickly figured it out. "Oh, that means one candy and one cards" (we also offered small decks of cards which proved unpopular). All of that group followed his example.
We had fifty to sixty kids this year. A neighborhood blog (myballard.com) provided a googlemap for households to display Halloween participation and this may have boosted activity.

porch raising

A couple of springs ago we started hearing strange sounds at night. Something like a rusty nail being slowly drawn from an old board, somewhere near our bedroom window. Spooky and unnerving. It would pass, but in a few hours we might hear it again.

As the days passed it got louder; we could feel the vibrations shake the house. Pretty freaky.
We started staying up to catch the noisemaker.

One night we spied a 'possum squeezing out from under our wooden porch. There was a gap between the concrete and the porch of less than two inches; we watched the whole structure move up and down as she slowly, painfully worked her way out.

Mystery solved but we were still curious so one morning I pried up one of the steps and there was Mama and her babies staring up at us with that frozen death rictus grin they use in extremis.

We burst out laughing and nailed the step back on.

Oh, and Mama had a open red gash on her back from wiggling in and out from her den. I had to admire such devotion to her litter, but after she vacated the premises we filled in the gap with a board and haven't heard from her or her kin since.

Coat and pants

A dim don did moan in his rue
and cursed the clergy, Earth's haters
"They gave me just one B. S. clu:
when I've passed Ed's asp this game craters."