Sunday Evening Dibs and Dabs

A pinch of this and a dash of that on a Sunday evening:

Steven is in Arizona fighting wildfires. I know he's out of cell phone range, most of the time, but when he is able to text, especially after 3 days of silence, I think it should be like this:

a) to me
b) in the gentle evening
c) saying something like, "Dear Mother, We are safe and well. Please do not worry. We are in no danger of being surrounded by fire. And we have plenty to eat. Also the rest of the crew are all Christian guys from Liberty University."

How it actually was:
a) to Ben
b) in the middle of a church service
c) "Have you moved your stuff out of our room yet?"

Honest, I'm just glad he's well enough to be thinking of such everyday things.

And yes, Ben hauled the last of his things out the door this evening. He's moving into a house in Corvallis with three other guys.

I have such mixed feelings about that empty nest idea.

And yes, the empty nest is still a hypothetical idea.  Until Ben left this evening, there were seven people living here. Amy is home for six weeks, my dad is here for a few months, Amy's friend Joy joins us for a few days before she and Amy fly back to Thailand, and a nephew is coming in August to work for us. And to live here for the duration.

I love having a houseful of interesting people, but as an introvert I need some alone time every day, or at least a few times a week, to keep my mental faculties from exploding.  That can be very hard to put into practice, hence the mixed emotions.

Dad at age 100 likes to crack walnuts with the large levered nutcracker that my brother Marcus made. Walnut shells go flying into the neighboring pantries and clacking onto the floor right where bare feet are likely to step on them.

But the job gets done.

Dad can hardly hear, but visually he doesn't miss a thing. We were eating outside one evening when suddenly Dad observed, "Now we can see that Amy has been living in a foreign country, just the way she uses her spoon and fork."

Indeed. She had been using them according to Thai manners, where the fork doesn't go in the mouth, and is only for pushing food onto a spoon.

Harvest is here.

Jenny starts driving a combine this week. It's the first time for her, but she felt like she needed a summer of really experiencing harvest. A local farmer hired her. 

They say that girls aren't as hard on the equipment as guys are.

A fox ate most of my chickens, one by one, which caused me great frustration and pain. Paul got a Havahart trap and I caught a very mad cat, twice.

Emily graduated from college, but that is a story for a different day.

Quote of the Day: or: Life With College People
Ben's car was at the shop.
Ben: You can pray that I didn't blow a head gasket.
Me: Ok. But do retroactive prayers work?
Ben: Maybe it's like Schroedinger's cat, where it's both alive and dead until you open the box.