Horsin' Around at the Hoytstead

I came downstairs this morning and Nolan excitedly waved me over to the north window: "What are these doing here?"

 Ah. Not really sure. They ambled in at the farmer's driveway and started munching grass. Spent a fair amount of time with the long stuff beside the field.

Then they went INTO the bean field, browsing as they went, had a roll in the grass strip, then they saw me and started coming back...."no, no, NO"

 They munched for a while and then I looked out the window and saw...

they were in our yard!

Perilously close to the garden, perhaps?

OK. Time for Ma to get out the hose.

No, not that way....

THERE ya go....(I think that's the direction they came from)

Off into the south....

...getting ready to go over the hill.

I do not know where these horses belong, but I hope they get back to their own abode without mishap.

And that was our excitement for the day.

Tweet

Tuesday's Doin's

This past Tuesday brought a unique experience for our family: got to see two of the college kids in action!

Derek and Melinda had a presentation for their chem internship down at Ames.

We got permission for Trevor and Nolan to tag along and after wards had a tour of their lab.

Personalized lab coats!

Derek and Melinda were able to work with one of their chemistry professors from LeTourneau and spent their days doing experiments involving heating various metals and carbon nanotubes and....something about a microwave.

Of course, Loren would understand a lot more of this than I did.

Here, Derek shows and explains something about the nanotubes.

Then we went on a quick tour of buildings and lobbies...this one had a turbo jet engine.

Immediately Nolan was interested in what would happen if you put one of those babies in a car...

Virtual reality machine.

Derek and Melinda were looking forward to a demonstration of that before they left the campus.












Well, it was a bang up, top notch presentation, to my mind. Judging by how much I understood, ha ha.

But seriously, I was amazed and extremely proud to see my two up there describing their summer's work to a roomful of graduate and doctoral students. What an experience!

It's nice to know your kids can go a lot further than you ever did.

Tweet

Tweet

Pine Lake

 Had to get one day at the lake in before Carolyn and Ethan started detasseling (a call for which they still wait).

July 12th turned out to be just about perfect: hot, breezy and utterly sunny.

The next day was cloudy, 60-ish and included a random shower. Looks like we picked the right one!

Water temperature was just right, as well.







Here's Trevor, demonstrating sand maneuvers and what it's like not to have one ounce of body fat.

  

(seriously miffed at Blogger for changing their picture posting format and making it tremendously difficult to achieve uniformity in photo descriptions, placement, etc...have I ever mentioned this??)

 Our kids joined up with two young ladies from another family for a bit of group fun. I think the time honored (family reunion) tradition of Marco Polo was observed, as well as the usual amazing and astounding feats of strength and daring and totally dangerous and impressive watery tricks mostly involving handstands.

 And of course, one of the benefits of playing with others is getting to use their stuff.










I have more pictures but they are similar to the ones taken over the years.

We did have an extra bit of excitement in that a young bicycler crashed nearby and received a huge and bloody gash to his ankle. Some time was spent clamping that down and applying ice until his guardian arrive and he was carted off for stitches.

Anyway, good time in total. We hope to get in one more lake afternoon before school starts...

In other news, my latest calorie reductions enterprise has resulted in a loss of 7 pounds, so far.  

Hooray pour moi!

I guess despite my long history of weight struggles I haven't done too badly this year. And in fact, looking over my lifetime and gazillion pregnancies and stress from this, that and the other thing, I'm in reasonable to good health and condition.

Therefore, I officially relieve all concerned personnel of the need to send me diet tips, websites, cautionary tales or whatnot. I am: a 54-year-old adult who has never exhibited anorexia, bulimia or any other such thing, regular in my exercise and apparently, very close to respectability.

And now, for a nap.

Tweet

Life in the Yard

 A glimpse of the main wildflower beds, just before sunset. (okay, the yellow flowers in front are Stella d'Oro daylilies that were thinned out of the overgrown courthouse garden...). But there are lots of pretty Verbena (purple flowers), a fair amount of milkweed (which I didn't have to dig out of the ditch, ha ha) and all that silvery stuff in the back is a type of wild Sage.

 Here's the Verbena (also called Vervain) up close. They spread like crazy and I believe their roots can go down ten feet or so.

Forget zombies...plants will definitely take over the word, some day.

I love the common milkweed, in bloom. Quite spectacular, actually.

Sooner or later the boys will be raising a crop of monarchs.

This is something from a wildflower mix that I planted in a small, round bed. And basically, it's driving me nuts because I can't identify it. Looked up every single name on the NK packet (Old Fashioned Garden Mixture)...looked up wildflower sites galore...anyway, it is beautiful.

Not a perfect picture but it is notable, since this is the first time a Cardinal has hung around our yard.

He's been singing in the trees every evening this week.

It's almost sounding civilized around here...








I took a walk around the yard this evening. Can't stay too long near the higher growth as the mosquitos quickly move in for the kill at dusk.

In other news, Ethan finished fixing shingles on the roof and is turning quite reddish/brown (he forgot the sunscreen today). Other than that, he and Carolyn await word for the start of detassling. Probably next week but we'll see. Getting close, anyway.

Guess they will miss the Franklin County Fair this year. They will just have to console themselves with making big bucks.

For myself, I plan to go before the last day...ain't no way I am missing out on the homemade ice cream this year.

Tweet

Goin' Down the Road

Tweet

Fourth of July

 A few pictures from tonight's fireworks. For a town of modest size, Ackley puts on a decent show. Particularly when one realizes they already had fireworks at Sauerkraut Days.

Ethan figured there was no telling what could be done if the two firework displays could be combined, but I say there are some things you just don't do...

...separating pyrotechnics from fermented cabbage festivals, for example.

Any good shots of the bursts are accidental. I'm not fancy when it comes to shooting night pictures once a year.

If someone wants better shots from me then I want the  firework thang 365 days in a row.

I'm sorry but that's the way it is.

It took me months to learn "copy and paste."  Taking snazzy pictures of rockets' red glare might involve adjusting the mode dial on the camera....or....something.

Here's one where the trees were trying to shoot down the fireworks in the air.

The last picture shows the grand finale, which naturally followed up with a couple of single "ka-booms."

Still, the kids were pleased. Nolan thanked me FOUR SEPARATE TIMES for taking them.

So a pretty great day. And it even started well.

I was relaxing on the couch with a book and my second cup of coffee when in walked Derek and Melinda.

Qualified them as top prize contenders in the category, "Who stays in the will? arrives first?" Jason popped in next and that's when I decided maybe, just maybe I should start on the stuff I'd wanted clean before any of the kids arrived.

We did manage to tidy up (well, level 3 of the 10 point scale: one being nothing and 10 being "Oh alright...we will try for the cobwebs") before Kendra swept in from Des Moines. She even stayed long enough to pick up her driver's license and eat. We were glad. Verbal barb quality always improves when Kendra's here.

In other news...oh wait, there isn't any other news.

AH YES, I just remembered....have to start up the ol' diet again, tomorrow. The loose pants are not so loose anymore. Love handles are just another name for "Fresh-strawberries-on-vanilla-ice-cream-with-chocolate-granola-sprinkled-on-top."

(completely incredible, by the way)

So it's back to writing down foods-n-calories, and hitting the treadmill; something I haven't done since breaking my toe.

It'll be Ma's independence from the tyranny of food.

Tweet