Yes, it arrived! Our new (refurbished) engine!

We also got news that the injectors have been tested, on their way back, and should arrive this Friday.
Unfortunately one of them was bad and had to be replaced and, even worse, the pump was kaput so we had to get a new one!
Oh well, it never rains but it pours, doesn't it ...?

In the meantime, I baked my dutch cookies for Sinterklaasavond:

 

I'm working on this crazy puzzle by Jan van Haasteren, a dutch artist. It's so much fun to make! Look at the state of that kitchen!

Mine looked practically 'sterile' compared to that ..

And tonight is St. Nicolas's busiest night of the year! 
We don't really celebrate this anymore, but it's a good excuse for hot chocolate and speculaas (not that you necessarily need one of course).

And although in Holland you're supposed to wait with your Christmas decorations until after the 5th of December, I cheated, and put up the outside lights already!

Hey, this is America! I'm actually late, compared to most, who started decorating the day after Thanksgiving.

The weather is quite nice at the moment, temperatures, and the humidity, are down for the moment, so I enjoy my walks in the park.

When passing one of the two lakes the other day, this pretty Heron was busy fishing along the shore:

I think it's a Tri-colored Heron, but it's colors are a little off, so I'm not quite sure. But than, nature doesn't always obey by the rules, does she?

Also Osprey are literary all over this place. I've seen as many as four or five of them at the same time flying around the lakes.
They fish and even bathe in them:

  

Beautiful birds!

This park has a whole bunch of these interesting interpretive signs scattered throughout:

 



What a great idea!  I think I've almost read my way around the park by now ...
 

Here's for a little more bad news. Yeah, just what we need ...

Poor Merl has been attacked by 'something' the other day, just around dusk. 

We're not sure if it was another (feral) cat or maybe a Raccoon because we never saw the culprit, but we heard a fight going on outside and Merl came running in, bleeding quite profusely from a wound on his head.

It took me a while putting pressure on his head to stop it, but than, head wounds always bleed like crazy.

He also had a puncture wound in his left cheek and one on his back. He was quite shook up, and so were we!

We're a week further now, and despite the fact that has wounds are healing and are not looking infected, and his temperature and even his blood-sugars are OK, he still doesn't want to eat, lost 1 1/2 pounds, looks to be nauseous and in pain and has been very lethargic. 

We think the attack has triggered another bout of Pancreatitis, trauma can do this, so I've started force-feeding him once again.

I sure hope we can get him through this, he's getting to old for this crap!

Well, with that I'm all out of topics, it's a somewhat short one for this week. 

I'll end with a sunset. They're very intense here!