Well, this is Friday the 13th - a day some people worry through, but actually this is a special one because it apparently doesn't happen often.  I'm not a numbers person, so the significance of the consecutive odd numbers, 11-13-15, didn't register with me until someone on a newscast mentioned it the other day.  I'm also not generally superstitious, but this morning when I went to warm my coffee in the microwave, it literally growled at me.  Now I don't like to fool around with that kind of stuff.  Friday the 13th or not, those microwaves flying around worry me a little - so much we never even had one until we bought this one in 1992.  So I turned it off and yelled for Fred - who confirmed it was, indeed, growling loudly and needed more than a gentle nudge or shake to cure it.  A quick call to our go-to guy, Wayne Lewis, out in Waterford, convinced us that just perhaps we've had our money's worth from our 1992 Sharp microwave and it might be time to replace it.  Wayne fixed it for us a while back and we got an extra five years out of it, but he said he might not be able to find parts for it this time.  

I was truly not thinking of the Friday the 13th thing at that point.  My thoughts were that with the holidays coming up I really didn't want to be without a microwave.  (Whatever did we do those many years before we finally broke down and bought that first one back in 1992?)  I went on line and located what looked like a fair replacement that would probably fit fairly well into the gaping hole in our kitchen cabinets, and found the Walmart in Woodsville had that model in stock.  A quick trip and we are now back in business with a smaller (and much cheaper) model than our old one, but serviceable, nonetheless.  So if that was the worst Friday the 13th has for me, I'm relieved.  

We can report that the Don and Audrey Walker cottage on West Shore Road has been demolished, ready for a new structure to be put in its place.  We haven't talked to their daughter, Shelly, who is building the new cottage, but we understand Larry Rossi's crew is working there.  The top picture is from the road; the bottom picture was taken from the fishing access across the pond.  We'll keep you posted.  

Larry Rossi is nearly finished at the Deckers, next door to Walkers, by the looks of things.  We've had unusually good weather for these jobs, and although we're into some dreary, raw weather right now, the forecast is for another warming trend after the weekend, so it looks as if contractors will have some pretty good weather to get things closed in before winter.  Not that winter weather halts work around here, for we've seen carpenters framing up houses in the worst possible weather, but having it warmer than usual is a nice bonus.  I expect some of the men will be taking time off for deer hunting - that's almost a necessity in these parts.  Others just watch for deer as they drive to and from work and hope they get lucky.  We saw a pickup truck with two deer carcasses strapped onto the back as we drove up 91 from Wells River today.  We suspect they had been shot in New Hampshire, as Vermont deer hunting season doesn't officially start until tomorrow and runs through Nov. 29th.  New Hampshire's hunting season is a bit different.  Of course, they could have been hunting somewhere else - like Maine, for instance.  

I hope everyone has a catastrophe free Friday the 13th.  There is so much crazy stuff going on in the world today, I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will blame their bad luck on the date.  Bad stuff happens every day, but also good stuff happens every day.  We just hope the balance swings on the side of good stuff.