Bug Time!

It's grasshopper weather and the field just south of us was sprayed, necessitating the plane to fly beside.....

....turn around....

...and head directly over our house, several times.

I tried to post this last week but the heat was making things quite wonky for our Internet service.

Now that the weather has moderated, bytes travel faster and the kids can even play outside.

Today starts the Olympics, which means eating supper in the living room for the next few weeks. I could get the meal earlier, I guess...nah, not really.

I look on it as a break from having to set the table.

In other news, my first box of books arrived by UPS because....I've already done some Christmas and birthday shopping for the year (mostly for myself).

I"M KIDDING, of course.

And by kidding, I mean there were one or two purchases for the family.

Only one more order to make (Amazon), which will be for a couple of school items and possibly some wishy-list things I've been putting off...a long, long time.

In other news, I did clean off my desk, today. Comparatively speaking.

An intense moment of panic when I looked in the usual please to make certain of my passport, and could not find it.

I've only used it once and I have no immediate plans to use it, but MERCY!, it's not something you want to misplace.

It was actually right where it had been, I'd simply passed it by in my hurry.

Did I mention the kids (Melinda and Ethan) are done with detasseling? Who can remember? Who wants to look back in a previous post to see?

Not me.

Kendra stopped by for a brief visit on her way up to Minneapolis. She is there now, staying with Ardith and Justin for her rotation at a local hospital. Had a bit of  a brake problem but Ardith was able to get her into a nearby mechanic and that should be all fixed up :-)

I can't believe how monotonous and boring these posts are becoming. I blame a lot of things but mostly myself.

I should have run off to Bermuda a long time ago for a rest, ha ha.

At least I know where my passport is...in case I win a cruise or....something.

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The Ditto Report

I looked back at the most recent blog post. As well as being on the 13th (longer ago than I'd remembered) it was talking about rain.

And now there is more coming! Real rain, it looks to be.

There have been occasional 20% chances, and most of the don't pan out. And when we do get rain it's barely enough to make any difference.

The corn looks pretty bad around here. A fair amount of stalks don't even have ears. Really awful.

But now there are storms out to the west. Too late for the corn but it should do something to settle the dust and keep a few of the dying flowers from croaking completely.

And possibly cool things down?

Today was an over 100 degrees day. Unfortunately it coincided with a long work day at the courthouse gardens. Very hot! I was so thankful for the jug of Gatorade I included with the water.

I spent 4 hours just taking care of the binder weed. I think I spent at least three hours on it back in June, but that stuff is spreading all over and only getting worse. Whoever brought it with the mulch or dirt or whatever, several years ago, has made a huge mess for this little Ma.

But anyway.

In case people haven't heard, the detasseling is over for this summer. Melinda and Ethan had their last day on Sunday, working the clean-up crew. Now we sleep right until the sun comes up, every morning. It is bliss :-)

Also completed, Kendra's second rotation. She is driving at this very moment, to stay overnight before she leaves for Minneapolis, tomorrow afternoon. It will be a short but fun visit! I imagine she is having to drive through storms, however...

Well, the ol' brain is very tired, as is the body and also the will to attempt much more than laundry, this evening.

G'night.

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Rain, Rain!

It arrived early this morning, just before 5am. I doubt we got much over half an inch, but it certainly was welcome.

The detasselers, on the other hand, endured a rain delay. It was raining as they drove to the pick-up point, and as they waited for the bus, and as they rode on the bus, and as they waited IN the bus at the field, until about 11:00.

Then they worked in the sticky soil and didn't get home til around six. Got paid for the wait, though, so that is good. And as I said, they made up for the slack time with hard work in difficult conditions.

On the home front, Nolan finished up his school this morning, and Trevor came very close. He only has four more Bible lessons and we'll take care of that, next week.

In the afternoon I thought I'd take advantage of this morning's rain and clear a few of the myriad weeds that are growing better in the garden than any vegetable ever did. Some of the tallest weeds are still hard to pull, so more rain is needed. I even pruned a few roses. There's something about pruning roses that has a therapeutic effect.

And I needed a little therapy because any joy gained from school progress was promptly negated by discouraging conditions later in the day. For one thing, I haven't lost any weight this past week. So now I'm ramping up the exercise. Thankfully my leg isn't bothering me at the moment so I can increase my treadmill speed again...I'm almost up to where I was this past spring.

But never fear. It will soon be time for the young lads to hit their bunks. Carolyn is reading to them from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, at this very moment. Then we'll have our Friday-Night-at-the-Movies, viewing something Ethan won't mind missing, since he's in bed.

Perhaps Schindler's List....I don't know. Frankly, I'm in the mood for something more lighthearted. No nap means I may have trouble staying awa....

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Under the Ban and the Treadmill of Life.

Due the lack of rain much of Iowa is considered to be in moderate to severe drought conditions. And our county is under a burn ban so....as the trash bags pile up in the breezeway....I may have to do something slightly...well,  I just may have to do something.

Tomorrow should spell the end of Nolan's school, which I may have touched on in the last post, but hey....you have no idea what this means to me!

And I'll fight the first person who claims they do understand.
_____________________________

We've settled into a routine of sorts concerning the detasselers. They go to bed around 8:00pm and we try to be quiet. Carolyn's been entertaining Trevor and Nolan every evening and it may end up affecting her transcript, I am so grateful.

Then we tip-toe up the dark stairs and the two youngest try to crawl into bed. Quietly. Pretty hard for Nolan since he's on the top of a creaky bunk set.

In the remaining hours I have some time to just relax or fold laundry or whatever. It is pretty nice except for the  knowledge that the kids are getting up at 4:00am.

Sometimes Loren and I get back to sleep. Sometimes we don't. We're both agreed that we'll will be glad when this is over. But it is a good way for Melinda, in particular, to earn some money. And it sounds like both she and Ethan are performing their tassel-ripping chores efficiently.

I guess a worker or two has been fired. And we do hear that some people are chastised for talking, which slows down the job overall. Thankfully my two are not in that category :-)

But getting back to lack of sleep, it is hard to keep going on those days when one can't drift back to snooze-land after they leave at 4:35. Only three more weeks to go.

When they come home it's showers and then washing of the pollen-and-dirt-filled clothes.

Every single night.

A bit of relaxing and supper and then it's time to make sandwiches for their lunch, the next day.

And then bed.

Next day: ditto.

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Counting Down

Hard to believe it's only July 11 and I am almost done with school...whoee baby!!

That was supposed to be humorous (or humerus, if you've an anatomical bent).

Finished up history and science with Nolan, today. So that should free me up to work longer with Trevor on Thursday and Friday. As it is I have been going through one chapter in science each day, with him and while it makes for less retention, we are getting through that book, by gum!

And lest you think I am slaving away at this, when I talk about doing school it only involves part of the morning (unless something extraordinary happens and I have to continue after lunch). I just can't make myself go until 3:00 every day. Aside from having to work in two rounds on the treadmill, I never had to work into the afternoon with the other kids and I'm not inclined to start doing it, now.

On the one hand, I think there are legitimate criticisms of my methods in "teaching," but on the other hand, at my stage in life I'm basically not taking any guff from people that haven't been in my situation. In fact, there's a whole mindset where I'm channeling Clint Eastwood and staring down any detractors with, "Go ahead...make---my---day."

Other than that I'm my usual, happy, cheerful self. Just floating around the house as if I had nary a care in the world. Constantly shoving out of my mind that one person who seems intent on self-destruction and/or bent on taking others out, with them (no, not one of the kids).

Ah well. There are times when you can't convince people of their irrational thinking...guess I'd better leave it at that.

Still very dry around here. And now our county is under a burn ban, though our trash is starting to pile up in the addition breezeway. Other than build a large container to hide the fire, I'm not sure what we'll do. We need rain!

Three weeks and two days until I leave for my 35th high school reunion. Looking forward to it! Sounds like a lot of people will be there, this time around. I'd better start trying to memorize the ol' yearbook.

Now, it's almost time for supper and I have a surprise in store for someone, involving a secret ingredient and the potential for.....great surprise.

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Relief!

A break today from the heat :-)

I don't think it got above the lower 90's and there was much less humidity. Even so, I did get a little overheated working at the local memorial garden, on the south side, in the sun.

Decided I'd better water things and it was good that I did...definitely a little heat stress on a couple of the hostas, but not too bad, overall.

And as last year, I came back somewhat covered in the dark, red pollen of the tiger lilies. That stuff is hard to scrub off! But I managed to negate some of the more obvious stains before I stopped at the grocery...didn't want them to call  the EMT's.

Our detasselers put in over 10 hours, today, though a bit of that is driving on the bus to the fields. Ethan said it was rather fun without the horrible heat of yesterday. Melinda, too, remarked on a much better environment. She's being bothered a bit by the corn pollen so we dug up some dayhist (or whatever that stuff is). Guess I'll have to pick up more supplies on Monday's shopping trip.

Nice to have a break from the "summer school" routine, as well. That was the first thing Trevor asked me this morning..."Do we have to do school today?"

My cruelty does have its limits.

And with the early wake-up call, Ethan's been hitting the sack at 8 o'clock. Means I have to have Trevor and Nolan get dressed for bed and tip-toe upstairs when their turn comes. But they've benefited from this time by Carolyn playing various things from YouTube to keep them quiet and happy.

She's very altruistic, that way.

Tomorrow is Sunday and they could go to church, but they get a bonus if they work every single day, so it's off to the salt mines, again. I'm going to try not to get up around 4, tomorrow morning. I've felt a compulsion to make sure everyone obeyed their early alarms. Then too, I want to be certain Trevor and Nolan don't get the idea they can meander about in the wee hours. But this early morning policing is going to be hard to maintain, long term.

And speaking of bed...

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Life in the Yard, and Other Places

These are from my hostas on the north side of the house. The flowers bend over so I just stuck my camera underneath, pointed up and hoped for the best. I'm gradually becoming more fond of hostas--they've been overused in my opinion. But all three of my varieties I've gotten for free, so I'm yeah...they're starting to grow on me. One of these days I'll fix up a proper shade garden instead of simply sticking things along the north side as a temporary stash.

I didn't plant these: they are morning glories which came up volunteer from last year. I'm been incredibly lazy with my own beds and garden this summer...

Sure this is blurry, but the light was fading fast. When Melinda said there were several racoons over by the bins I thought I should give it a shot. What is unusual--I think--is that there are five babies (arrgh!). My experience has been that most often the litter is two or three. That's all we need around here....more nest-robbing raccoons.

Speaking of which, there is a chipping sparrow nest I discovered underneath those morning glories you see pictured, above.  It's closer to the house so I'm hoping (crosses fingers) nothing bothers them.

As to other news, Melinda and Ethan had their first day of detasseling, on this last of the heat warning days. They got to break off two hours early, due to a couple kids showing symptoms of heat stress. I am glad.

Tomorrow should be more manageable with temps in the lower 90's.

In dieting news,  Ma has weighed in and after 5 weeks has a total loss of 13 pounds! Good stuff. Though the 4th of July nearly did me in, perhaps adding a half pound with all the goodies. Now to try and be disciplined again and hopefully drop another 5 or 6 over the next four weeks.

I am very thankful that even during the reunion and my subsequent trip to Indiana, I still lost a bit, here and there. I did try most earnestly (except for that night out with Sharon and Kendra) to be watchful of the calories.

In school news I'm proceeding with the subjects we didn't quite finish, for Trevor and Nolan. Due to their taking WAY too long with their math, almost every day. It's been very, very frustrating for me this past year, but I think I can finish up Nolan by the end of next week, and Trevor by the end of the following one.

Whooee, imagine being done with school as early as July 20th!

*stifles sob*

Next school year is gonna be different, one way or another.

And now I must quietly get the two  youngest up to bed. That 4:00 wake-up for Melinda and Ethan will come soon enough.

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How Long Has it Been?

Seems like ages since I've had a sense of normalcy in schedule.

And the above picture was taken as last Friday's tremendous line of storms rolled into the Warsaw area. I had just passed the city limits when darkness overtook everything. This was the view outside my stopped car as the whipping winds blew construction dirt across the road, halting traffic.

Power had just failed so the traffic lights were not working. But thankfully I got to the doctor's office where Kendra had been doing her rotation, though it required slowly traversing a rain-deluged stretch of highway, with semis and RV's sitting on the shoulder, and more non-functioning stoplights before I felt safe.

Not a great picture but you get the idea.

As I finally arrived back in Iowa last Saturday, I realized I'd only been home 2 days over the past 2 weeks. And later I discovered we had missed the fireworks at our two usual places, so the kids will have to wait until next year.

There's no way to catch up on all that's happened. I still have a Picasa album to assemble from our reunion. And the trip to Indiana for estate business had its frustrations and potential progress. But as the trip itself proceeded with safety and no real car troubles, I am going to concentrate on the matters at hand.

Which involve finishing up the boys' school--hopefully in 2-3 weeks (that's the 2011-2012 school year, if you can believe it)--getting Carolyn into her prep for the SAT this fall, taking a stab at the garden weeds, and just trying to reestablish a wee semblance of routine.

Oh, and getting around to Carolyn's high school transcript.

And Family Camp.

And preparing this fall's school registration forms.

And trying not to gnash my teeth at heat-induced Internet slow downs.

Basically, everything is taking waaayyyy too long.

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