A Post About Nothing In Particular Except Life In July

"You haven't posted in a while," said my mother-in-law.

Sometimes I eat lunch on the porch and watch other people work.

I thought Ok, if Anne--who doesn't even get online, but relies on email feeds--notices, then it's probably time to post.

I said something like, "I've been really busy."

I thought something like, "Nothing is really happening."

Which isn't entirely true.  But this is the sort of stuff that's happening:

I bought two big fat [butchered] chickens at the grocery store.  I cooked one in the crock pot and thought I would pick off the meat and save the broth and make a big vish of chicken noodle soup.

The meat all disappeared just like THAT.

So I baked the second chicken yesterday and served it with baked potatoes and lima beans.  I picked off the leftover meat to make chicken noodle soup and I said, "DO NOT EAT THE CHICKEN IN THIS CONTAINER."  By this morning, most of it was gone.

I wonder how chicken-less chicken noodle soup would taste.

Here my great-niece Izzy and I are celebrating the 4th.

We are suddenly in the middle of harvest.  Fragrant field smells and lovely sunsets and big combines crawling across fields.  It seems there is always a hungry person in the kitchen fixing food, having just come home from work or just about to leave.

Ben is sacking seed with the help of Cody, who came with his grandpa who was dumping a truck.

Here's Cody's grandpa, Leonard Baker, blowing the last seeds out of his truck.

My dad is staying with us.  I am quite sure he isn't the fridge-raider, as I am always urging him to eat more.

Emily took her grandpa blueberry picking.  He is 97 and didn't think he'd ever gone blueberry picking before.

Here's Paul, putting some seed into totes, because someone had a field of K31 certified fescue, and there was a field of regular fescue next to it, and the seed from a buffer zone in between had to be kept separate.  It made more sense to put it in totes than to use up a whole bin for 4000 pounds of seed.  Something like that.  I do like having a hardworking and dusty husband.

Jenny has been taking lots of practice driving tests online, but she was still fearful that she'd fail.  I said, "You had a big brother who insisted that he was ready and I took him in and he failed TWICE.  There's an inverse relationship between competence and confidence in this area, I think."

Paul took her in today.  Of course she passed.  She came home and made lots of noise about this.  "Don't drive yourself crazy," said her grandpa.  And then he laughed and laughed.

I said, "Did you tell anyone?"
She said, "I told Allison, Emily, Janane, and Deana, and I asked Janane to text Ashley because for some reason my phone won't let me."
All right then, that should do it.

The ruins of Steve's fire have been cleared away and the new building project is underway.

"And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, . . " Isaiah 61:4

Cousin Trish and her husband are building a big straw shed across the way.  "Does that shed remind you of anything?" I asked Emily.
"Yes!  It reminds me of Noah's Ark," she said.
"Me too!!" I said, and then we both didn't feel quite so weird any more.


So I told Trish I feel like one of the wicked people in Noah's day who is watching the ark being built.  She said, "Oh dear!"

I also feel like we live back with the Druids or whoever they were, in ancient England, and they are putting up Stonehenges all over.

First they criss-cross the field with big balers and stackers.  Here's the last one leaving, with our new calf over there in the corner.  We actually have two calves: Merry and Pippin.

They weren't up quite in time for the summer solstice.

 
Some girls were over and they baked and decorated cupcakes.

Here they're sharing with Paul.

 Now this was actually worth blogging about: my sister-in-law Laura called and said her cousin Kathryn is in town and they'd like to get their former classmates and teachers together.  Which would include me!

It was a fun time of reminiscing.  The two girls who used to fight in the car on the way to school and then pour out their hearts to me about it at school?  Well, they sat and discussed homeschool curriculums.

Left to right: Celesta Yoder Nelson (teacher), Laura Schrock Smucker, Kathryn Bender Garbutt, Greta Gingerich Shaum, Rosie Smucker Leichty, Esther Schrock Troyer, Gina Gingerich Hostetler, Senesa Showalter Yoder, Dorcas Yoder Smucker (teacher)

1983--the same group plus a few more girls and all the boys

Two mean boys--who weren't there--are now preachers.

Kathryn once put ketchup in a teacher's shoes.

Alton K. once dumped a bottle of glue in Kathryn's hair.

When this bunch was about 16 years old, five of them went to the coast overnight and rented a condo.  Without adults or cell phones.  None of them would e.v.e.r. let their daughters do the same.

I'm sure they could have dredged up dreadful stories of the things I did as their teacher, but they were very kind.  I told them how I finally made peace with some of the inept things I did.  When my daughters were that age, I suddenly realized that this is how teenagers are and this is what they do.  If the school board was dumb enough to hire a 19-year-old they didn't know, then they deserved exactly what they got.

We all survived those years.  They are all gracious people who can read and write and cipher.  And much more.

Quote of the Day:
"True or false:  Trains should be given the right of way in all situations."
--online practice driving test