It's April 30th and we woke up to 34 degrees and this. Snow. Sarah, you are so lucky. The weather in Japan looks warm and beautiful from your pictures! Doesn't look like we lost the fruit yet, though, thank heavens. It didn't actually hard freeze so hopefully we'll still get peaches and pears. The Apricots have already set so we should have a good harvest of those despite the weather. The tall green shoots you see are garlic plants, the short green shoots in front of the pink peach trees are onions, and maybe you can see the chives, strawberries and rhubarb in this post. The potatoes, peas, and carrots are also coming up and don't appear to be harmed.

Oh, we are anxious for the sun!

Sarah

My baby is at this moment flying somewhere over Russia on a Chinese 747 heading for Osaka, Japan for three months to live. Without me, her mother. What is wrong with this picture? I have been obsessively watching the flight tracker status hoping and praying she will arrive safely. She has a layover in Beijing. It is hard to believe she has really pulled this off. I am very proud of her. For any family who wants to follow her adventures, feel free to go to her blog. She'll be posting entries and pictures of her trip over the next three months. It's http://gaijinzilla.blogspot.com/. That was undoubtedly the worst nights sleep I've ever had. I should have bought her a cell phone before she left so at least I could talk to her between flights. Sigh.

Grandchildren

Peter is getting so big! He loves to play in Gene's truck on Sundays when he comes over to Grandma's house.
Little children are so easily amused!

New Years Resolutions

This year my resolution was prompted by this photograph. This is my brother Daniel's birthday party where I am surrounded by freakishly thin and attractive young people. I am the one in brown dominating the foreground with my, er, "assets." This photo is being taken from a very unflattering vantage point. I had no idea that my nether parts had become so expansive. I don't spend much time looking at myself from the back. But can I just say Whoa! When did my bottom line get that big? I've never been a particularly thin girl, but boy oh boy, that's just downright large. Sigh. So I ordered Christine Avanti's book called "Skinny Chicks don't eat Salad" and despite the somewhat silly title, the book is marvelous and will, I hope, enable me to participate in the games at Daniel's next party with decidedly less in the caboose. I don't go to weightwatchers or anything else, but I will commit to being accountable to you, my family and friends. I could lie to you and say I'm concerned about the health risks of being overweight, but really I just want to look good in my clothes again. Better health is a nice but unnecessary fringe benefit. So far I have lost 13 pounds. It's been ten days. Wish me luck!

I love Thanksgiving.

I wish my whole family could be here together to celebrate. It's beautiful here. Just look at these colors!

These are on the drive up to Aspen Grove.








And if any of you want to come, we have turkey waiting for you! Actually we have five. This is one of them getting ready for bed.




Isn't she beautiful? Maybe we won't eat her this year. She looks so peaceful up on the swingset, doesn't she?

Canning OVER. Sigh of relief.

It's that time of year again. My favorite season of all. I love the fall with the leaves and the snap in the air and the anticipation of the holidays. But the thing I love most about the fall is that it's the time when all the extra produce (except the apples left on the tree which I'm ignoring) are in their bottles or rotten in the compost pile, one of the two. Every year it's a battle between what gets processed and what *cough* doesn't. And my husband keeps track. He keeps track of every single thing that doesn't get done. Sometimes I wish he would count the things that do get done. But that's not his nature. He is an analyzer extraordinaire, and he knows down to the ounce what food got wasted. It makes me sad too, to see the food that doesn't get processed. I know he works hard to grow that food and I'd really like to get ALL of it into bottles, but my heavens, sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in tomatoes, zucchini and peaches. I just don't dwell on it. It's my nature. I'm not an analyzer. Of anything. Sigh.

But we're done. Yeah. One more year in the bottle. We have a whole winter to get ready for next year. Once I get my bottles organized, I'll post a picture of the rows of shiny yummy food. Or not. Organizing is also not in my nature.

Thank You

To those generous souls who have found it in your hearts to support Sarah in accomplishing her dream, we thank you. As soon as she reaches her goal we will remove the donation buttons, this is not an attempt to generate revenue. I know she will make her goal. God bless you for helping her.