Sandra's mother was hospitalized briefly at the Cape yesterday. She seems to be doing ok and is coming home this morning. Woody has canceled a planned trip with Adam to Prince Edward Island to finish the winter preparations.

Cell phones have become a key part of lives, haven't they? Sandra and I were at the camp when her sister, Barbara, called to tell us that their mother wasn't well. We don't have a landline phone there and so rely on the cell phone as our link to the outside world. In turn we were able to keep in touch with others in the family, even though no one was at home.

Although the pace of the Always On life has slowed a good bit since I changed jobs, I and we spend a lot of our day electronically connected. The phone is always there, email, instant messaging, and the Web often. My father likes to remind us that, when he was a kid, commercial radio didn't exist.

The leaves are down in the woods, letting sunlight shine on the camp road. For the warmer months, the camp road is a tunnel, but now we drive through sun and shadows. The mice at the camp are getting ready for winter. They found a package of peanuts and had themselves a fine feast. We've put the other edible goodies into the refrigerator.

Baby Cassandra hasn't been sleeping much. Mike and Lynn have remarkable endurance and reservoirs of good humor.