Shooting Potato Cannon

Memorial Day-9 Months

   This Saturday marked the 9 month anniversary of my Dad’s death.  We brought flowers to his gravesite and reflected on our times with him.  In some ways it seems like time has flown…we’re almost halfway through this year already…. but in other ways it seems like last fall was years ago.

 

The cemetery is called “Pleasant Meadows” and the views from this hill is amazing.  Plus, it’s only a few miles from our house.

Cemetery

Over Memorial Day weekend, we stopped by cemeteries to reflect and remember some of our loved ones. Some have recently gone away, for some it's been years.....visited Kenny's gravesite, Laura's, Courtney's, both sets of grandparents, Aunt Jean's, and several cousins' sites.
This picture of my sister, Laura is from her tombstone. I like how her beautiful eyes can be seen in this pic. Gosh, I miss her!

 

This is a picture from my sister, Courtney's tombstone. She passed away just three days before her fourth birthday. She was so sweet and precious.

 

My dear Aunt Jean, who suddenly left us just 21 months ago. So beautiful.

 

 

-Lisa Wong

Fences & Mulch

  We went over to the Ford’s house today to help them replace some rotting posts in their fence.

 

 

Cement

Mulched aread

Fun with the LaMotte Family

Mowing @ the Bauwens’ House

  Today we drove down to the Bauwen’s house to help them mow their lawn.  The grass was waist-height when they first arrived from Detroit, so they had to brush hog the field before mowing it.  There were a lot of grass clippings we had to rake up and haul away before we could begin mowing.

  Noah had a good time driving the pick up truck we used to haul off the grass. He said that he got about 30 minutes of driving in, but most of the time he was in reverse!

 

Benjamin on the tractor

While we were working on the yard Deanna was dismissed from the hospital and her family drove her home. A lot of friends and family stopped by to visit with her and say goodbye.

  The Bauwens will be leaving tomorrow for Detroit. 

Princess & The Frog

Expedited Move

   Wow, what a day we had yesterday!  Our cousin, Deanna,  and her mother, Doris,  who will be taking care of her needed a place to go when Deanna gets out of the hospital.  This resulted in a move that needed to be expedited this weekend.

The day began by rising early and driving 105 miles in our van (with our trailer) down to to Aunt Doris’ home.  We loaded up the trailer with out door furniture and then loaded up another trailer with more picnic tables and benches.  We were joking that Ellie Mae and Granny needed to be sitting on the bench.  Someone took the joke even farther and taped this sign to the back of the pile.

Everyone worked hard and worked together to pack things up and load them onto the truck

 

26’ U-Haul

 

Loading the truck for maximum storage is like a puzzle……………………..…..Packing up boxes                           

 

Time for lunch and for a quick birthday celebration!

 

 

 

The house is empty! Time to move out!

 

We formed a caravan of 5 cars as we drove north with the cars, truck and trailers loaded down. (Notice the Beverly Hills or Bust sign is still on the picnic bench.) 

Two hours later, we made it to the new house where other family members had been painting and repairing the house.  A few fresh hands also came over and helped us unload the truck.  We also had some pizza together that evening before it got dark.

 

 

 

 

 

Noah hanging out with our cousins

 

By the time we got home we were exhausted and slept well.  It looks like Lydia was tired too!

Pileated Woodpecker

Benjamin saw this pileated woodpecker in the yard and took a quick photo.  Above is the original image and below is the image after spending 8.5 sec. to open up the photo in Photoshop and adjusting the RGB levels.

 

Judgment Day?!?

Cicadas Molting

These are periodical cicadas that only emerge from underground every 13 years in eastern North America.  They’re juveniles when they come above ground, but they molt into flying adults for the few weeks that remain of their lives.

We have our share of annual cicadas also.  Throughout the summer they can be so loud it’s almost overpowering, especially at sunset. 

I think that we’ve identified these cicadas as Brood XIX or The Great Southern Brood
Next appearance 2024

It’s hard to believe this guy is just a few years younger than I am!

Working in the Gardens & in the Treetops

   We were very busy today working in the yard and in the garden.  I did a lot of shoveling, Benjamin resembled a monkey as he pruned the trees and we also planted a few more plants and mulched another section of the yard.

   I worked on turning up the soil for the “East” garden.  It was quite a job using the Maddox to bust up the chunks of sod.

 

 

 

 

 

Benjamin trimming the trees

Benjamin thinks he remembers reading about a woodpecker that’ll place acorns inside of a tree, but he can’t remember for sure what species it was.

Noah cut down some bamboo to use as posts for the tomatoes to grow on.

The west garden mulched

 

The new blackberry patch