Quint and I never actually set out to be the Corn Police of I-57, mind you. But between Mile Marker 342 (Vollmer Road) in northern Illinois and where we get off in Effingham at #159, there stretches miles and miles of I-57, bounded on east and west by some pretty healthy corn crops. So somebody needs to keep an eye on things in case God might be too busy somewhere else.

With very much help from up above, the farmers pulled in a rather robust crop this year. But it just seemed like they were lagging behind.

Not that Quint or I are farmers, mind you. But I remember Norman Rockwell's all-American Americana and that says nature's bounty is supposed to be in the silos when harvest season comes and goes. To my reckoning, being a city clicker and all, that ought to be about the time the first frost settles on the punkins.

But then, no farmer alive ever -- not once, mind you -- has ever asked my opinion about when to bring in the crops.

Well, today, coming north from about the middle of the state, we noticed that most of the corn has been picked off those big tall corn bushes that get spit out of gigantic John Deere machines. There are still a couple of farmers who haven't picked their corn yet.

As for the rest of the weekend, Quint and I did a number on the hardwood floors in the dining room. It's absolutely glorious -- all clean and polished. We hardly poked our beady littles eyes out of the house except to make our required trip to Menards to see what we could see.

We got more fence post ornaments -- little round balls that I will paint in the basement since it's too cold to paint outside now. Then when spring comes next year, we'll just add them to the uprights that are already decorated.

Quint selected a 4'x4' pegboard to put up by his wood working bench in the basement. He's thrilled. Now he's going to actually start to get the mountainous heap of steel in some kind of order. And since he has the world's largest collection of screwdrivers, things just may start to get organized over on that side of the basement.

Fortunately I don't have to stroll past his workbench since it's just past my laundry area.

In another part of the basement, I am going to construct a work area for my botanical adventures. It's going to be a very long counter-height shelf where I can re-pot flowers, start things that get planted outside in late spring, and other projects that have to do with flowers. I figure I will need a trellis or two to cordone it off from wayfaring trespassers who can't keep their screwdrivers corraled.

So now I'm off to the craft supply store for some vining red roses to put on the trellis (that's yet to be built). In the absence of the real thing, I have no problem whatsoever using silk flowers. They take very little tending.

I did discover that Murphy's Oil Soap is wonderful for cleaning the kitchen floor too. I thought the kitchen floor was a kind of drab olive and mustardy gold mosaic design. Imagine my surprise to see a bright yellow-green and a sunny yellow mosaic! Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for your wonderful concoction.

The next big project is moving the electric range (my preference by about a million to one is gas, but there's a fairly new electric model sitting in the kitchen) from one side of the kitchen to the other. The range is actually sitting about six inches from the front of the cabinets down at that end of the kitchen. I tried to stretch my feeble brain to get it around the logic in that thought, but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't work for me. What I'd like to do is just walk up to the cabinet -- kind of perpendicular like -- and open the door and see what's in there. Well, that is, once I'm able to get to the cabinet and put stuff in it.

Then again, this could be one of those things that has a very good reason for being the way it is and I will discover my brilliant stupidity when I move things around. But for now, I'm guessing that the stove isn't supposed to be parked next to the refrigerator -- which is where I'm moving it to.

That used to be true back in the old days. But in this new era of modern marvels, things are different. Insulation is much much better. In fact,  I can put my hand on the side of the oven when I'm baking and it's cool.

So our getaway house gets better with every trip to Effingham!