I can’t believe two weeks have gone by since I have had time to do any posting. Let’s see, way back Jessalyn had a good time going to the caves in the southern part of the county with youth from church. It was a spur of the moment thing and was over just as quick. It was a quick get away/over nighter.

When we went to drop her off, one of the family members took us back to a project he was working on. A water wheel that he built himself. He has it fed from one of his ponds. He says he would like to experiment and see how much electric he can get from it. Why? Just to see if he can. He is always trying new things. I have had times taking Tom to work over the last few weeks while he worked on the van and getting it inspected. Still waiting on the outcome of that. But when I take him to work, some mornings the view is just to beautiful to enjoy just that day so I have him slow down while I snap a few pictures. I love the view over the fields.

When taking him to work it usually means he doesn’t work as late. He got a chance to finish Dusty’s stall with the boards that Ken bought. It was so nice to have clean feet for Benny when he came to trim this time. Even though we have only three horses right now, Tom said he would like to do the last stall, if only by buying a board or two at a time. Another good thing is that it is done for summer.

Seems Jess will not be working at the horse camp. Conflict of information led to her decision to not spend the summer there. Tom also took time to replace the side porch. The rain had rotted the wood and it was just falling apart. So much yard work! I put in the tomato plants, cantaloupe, and an acorn plant. I also put in seeds for beans and peas. The peas are doing great! The beans are coming up sporadic, and it looks like the leaves are getting eaten by something. I lost most of the plants I put out. Not because of cold. They made it through the cold. It is the drought. It is so dry here that everything is baking. Everything but me! I really have cut back using the stove now that we replaced the microwave. It seems the small propane tank lasts about 7 days and we start to smell it and know we need a refill. I’ve been exchanging the kitchen for the outdoors. I have been mowing, weed whacking, weeding, and transplanting. I pulled hundreds of Rose of Sharon up on the west side and transplanted them. I also gave away a five gallon pail of them. Too many left! Again, it was doing well until the skies decided to dry up. I think it is encouraging some wild life to emerge too. I haven’t seen one of these around here in years!

This last weekend we took Hazel in to Tom’s work. Hopefully she has found a new home with a woman that runs the front office there. Poor Tiger mama. She cries and cries looking for her baby! No bites on the others yet. It is hard when you don’t want any old yahoo taking them. Jessalyn replaced the kitty with another pet. A pet rock ! Would you believe that as an assignment they had her write a short story on how to take care of a pet rock? Organized school. Great.



Tommy and I were out putting netting on the blueberry bushes when we had some surprise visitors. Mom and Dad stopped by on their way home from Florida. They brought a few southern tomato plants and Mom gave us the horse painting she made while she was down there. It wasn’t a long visit and they were off to settle back in up here.





Tom and I celebrated our 17^th anniversary on Sunday. Three of the kids surprised us with a card and gift card to a local restaurant. They usually don’t do anything for us so it was a real treat. I had planned on just taking Tom out for ice cream. I think he liked this a lot better! I still have so much on my “TO DO” list. Maybe after I close my eyes for just a minute….