Greetings faithful readers! What a nasty storm Wednesday night! I attended an event at the Villa Roma last night and drove back home to Pucky Huddle Road during that terrible rain, wind and wet leaves event. It was like a blizzard of leaves out there! You know the expression “white out”? It was like a leaf out. Beware both walking on roadways and sidewalks as well as driving where the wet leaves are as they are very slippery.

As I write this news column, on Thursday, October 17th, it is a bit hard to believe that we have not yet had a killer frost. I seem to recall that normally we had a killer frost in September.

My mother, Marguerite Brown just got back home from one of Barbara Hahl's trips. It was a train trip through part of New England, including a stop to the Vermont Country Store. Even though the weather was dreadful at the beginning of the trip, my mother said that she had a wonderful time with the train rides and dinner delicious and memorable. My mother told me that one of the tour guides said that there is a type of tick virus killing the moose in Maine and New Hampshire. I did some quick reading on the topic and 70% of the moose calves have died from this terrible tick. I am on tick vigilance with the Otto household cat Willy who is both an indoor and outdoor cat.

Whitetail deer rut activity is picking up. I have seen does standing around and all of a sudden, in a flash, a doe running away from a buck that is chasing her. (I am not going to tell you where I saw this happen.) My husband Ray, who is an avid traditional bow hunter, calls this period the mini rut. Beware of deer zipping across the road when you are driving the roads, from now until about the third week of November. The Times Herald Record had an article earlier this week saying that Orange County was the number one county in NYS with deer accidents (1,594). Sullivan County was 37th in New York State with 421 crashes in 2018.

The Kenoza Lake Fire Department Roast Beef dinner was once again, a fantastic, successful event. Yours truly was a co-host with District Attorney Jim Farrell, for the folks who took advantage of the family style service and enjoyed their meals with neighbors, friends and politicians. The Raum boys outdid themselves, again with their special gravy. The lines to eat in were very manageable and the growing trend was for folks seemed to be was to do takeouts. I don't know who won the 50-50. This coming Saturday, October 19th, Jeffersonville Roast Beef dinner and October 26th, Youngsville.

About two weeks ago, there was a man with a hard hat and a truck with flashing lights from the company Osmose Utility Services, Inc. I saw this man approximately four different times, along Old Taylor Road, Goldsmith & Perry Road. I finally saw him, studying a utility pole with a table. He said he was from Florida and was mapping things out for Spectrum and future cable service. This is very encouraging news, indeed as I do not have cable internet services available to me at my office location!

The Kenoza Lake United Methodist Church preaching schedule is as follows for the next few weeks:

Bud LeConey - October 20th and Linda Simmons - October 27th. The Kenoza Lake United Methodist Women will be having their annual Election Day soup & chili Election Day sale at the Kenoza Lake fire house. There will be a Kenoza Lake United Methodist Church Administrative Board meeting on October 22nd

The next Kenoza Lake news column will be for the November 1st edition of the Sullivan County Democrat.

Last call for volunteers to help planting bulbs around Kenoza Lake. Please contact me if you are interested in planting some spring bulbs around the Kenoza Lake public areas.

Are the Yankees going to pull it out? Only time will tell. I am having my doubts, as those Houston Astros pitchers are unbelievable. Furthermore Altuve, the 5'6” baseball player is amazing.