I'm Going To Be A Grandma!!!

My oldest son, Michael, is going to be getting a puppy next weekend. He's a black lab, and his name is Hank. Here he is, six weeks ago, when he was one week old. I might be biased, but he's pretty darned cute, don't you think?



Here he is with all his brothers and sisters. He's the cute little black one with the big belly, laying down. See him?

Lawn Boy!

I have a lawn boy. He usually mows once every few weeks. Here he is, mowing in front of the newest hill.


He finished the front of the hill, now he's moved on to the backside of the new hill. Oh, he's pretty fast!


Looks like the hill and the rest of the North side is done, and now he's going to the South side of our not-yet-finished cross fence. That's what will keep my goats in the front part of the property. Uh, that is, when I get goats. They're imaginary now.


He's gotten pretty good, so now it doesn't take him that long, usually less than an hour. Unless he spends lots of time under the deck, untangling what he ran over! I guess that's what he gets paid the big bucks for.

Birch Seeds

Here are my birch trees. Beautiful, aren't they?

This is the first thing I see when I look out my kitchen window, or walk out my kitchen door.

Years ago, we started out with three, but now, thanks to Mother Nature, we have five. And we've transplanted another 5. We've also dug up, pulled up, sprayed, burned and stomped on a multitude of others besides these. Don't get me wrong, I love my birch trees. But the reason we have more now, is simply this:

This pile is made up of a quadzillion birch tree seeds. Yes, I counted them. I had nothing else to do, so I counted them, and came up with a quadzillion seeds. I'm quite good at math, so you can trust me on that number. Anyway, it's that time of year when my birch trees start dropping their seeds. The pile of a quadzillion seeds that I swept up today is what has fallen in three days, right outside my kitchen door. That wouldn't be so bad, except we track them into the house. They tend to stick onto the bottom of shoes. So every few days, we track about a trillion of these things into the house.


Even the cat brings them in. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the seeds out. Until I do, I will keep sweeping every few days. Mother Nature is working overtime. Anybody want some birch seeds?