Awww! ... and not so much :)

Cute when Doggie does it.



Not so much when boy does it. But notice Andrea's kitten, up by the face. :)

Kagan & Alexes Weekend Itinerary UPDATED

Here is my synopsis of Kagans & Alexes AND OUR weekend plans.
It sure sounds like a lot of work if you ask me, and not enough relaxing.
I'll help pick out a cabin spot, but I'm not hauling logs all weekend. =)

(Inexplicable, unremovable white space again, just scroll down...)

Kagan & Alexe	Caitlin & Jim (tentative)	Natalie (guessing)
Friday 6/30 Drive all day, eat whatever feast Mama & Papa offer, go to bed.	Friday 6/30 Work all day, pack for weekend trip.	Friday 6/30 Sleep, hang out
Saturday 7/1 Go to land. 1) Choose a building lot (Caitlin estimates 4 hours) 2) Pick which trees to build with. (Caitlin estimates rest of day.) 3) cookout hotdogs on a fire. :) Camp out or sleep at Mommy & Papa's	Saturday 7/1 Go to Kagan & Alexes land. 1) Watch choosing of a building lot. Complain about bugs. 2) Watch about 5 trees get cut down before getting bored & throwing ball for dogs. 3) cookout hotdogs on a fire. :) Camp out or sleep at Mommy & Papa's	Saturday 7/1 Sleep late. Drive to land and hang out for a little while. Leave to go party.
Sunday 7/2 Cut down trees. Maybe go swimming. Sunday evening at mama and papa's?	Sunday 7/2 Relax, with Kagan and Alexe if they are not cutting down trees with a chainsaw, or at the parents or home if they are. We will need to feed our chickens at some point. Maybe hang out another evening if we can get chicken sitters or Natalie leaves earlier.	Sunday 7/2 Fight all day with William for having to hay instead of doing what Natalie wants.
Monday 7/3 * Pieter van Sheik's party at some point. * Visit the grandparents sleep at mama and papa's Monday night.	Monday 7/3 We were not invited to Pieter's, or to the grandparents. We may head to downtown Burlington for fireworks, don't rightly know.	Monday 7/3 Do fingernails. Bake something and eat it and let William have firsts, but NOT seconds, because he will still be in "the doghouse".
Tuesday 7/4 Drive home	Tuesday 7/4 Book Sale!!! Relaxing! :)	Tuesday 7/4 Hang out with Andrea. Meddle in other people's relationships.

I'm sure you've all read this, but just in case

I love this poem so much that I will tuck in in here, just in case one of my loved ones hasn't seen it before.

"The Lanyard"
by Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Mystery of the Rare Breed Chicken

Doesn't that sound like a Nancy Drew title? :)

I have figured out what my rare chick is! They throw a mystery rare chick in with your order at McMurray Hatchery (along with extra roosters evidently) and it turns out that mine is an "Egyptian Fayoumi"! :)

Here is a good picture:



He is the liveliest of all, holds his tail straight up, and swoops in to grab every worm I offer anyone. He also has started trying to crow, and looks rooster shaped although smaller than the others. If I'm right he may stay as small as 4 lbs!

The chicken chart I like says "Precocious scavenger and escape artist. very economical eater; does not like containment; lively; flighty, known for wildness, but varies."

McMurrays says: "These small, active, lovely chickens have been raised along the Nile River in Egypt for centuries, and even though quite common there, are practically unknown in this country. We got our start of this very rare breed from one of the state universities whose poultry department was using them for special studies in genetics. No other breed matures quite so quickly as these do and the young pullets are apt to start laying their small tinted white eggs at 4 to 4-1/2 months while the cockerels will start to crow at an unbelievable 5 to 6 weeks. They are attractively marked with silvery white hackle and white bars on black background throughout the body plumage. Leg color can be either willow green or slate blue. Baby chicks are highly colored in brown, black, and white markings on the back and a brownish purple head color."

As a chick he did have a brown head, the only one who did - and then it came in white, but the whole time I was distracted by the big white chicken who has a hen comb and looks like an eagle, but has started trying to crow so is probably an Auracana male.

Here is McMurray's Fayoumi page: click here

And here are more chicken pics, look how they've grown! :)

Whoah! Happy Father's Day to ME! :)

So, instead of my giving Papa a nice present, for Father's day he & Mama came up on friday and gave US an *awesome* present! Look at these wonderful desks! I bought paint & will be painting the shelves to go on the brackets this week. Also, I am moving forward with suing the floor people, but because of the ingenious wall-mounted design of these counters I can move into the room while still suing the floor people. Thank you Papa! :) (And thank you Mama for buzzing around and cleaning the whole house while we were working on the shelves - please let me know where you get your "mama's little helpers" for all that energy! :) )





Today:

This kitty will smack at a great Dane, but BEWARE the mini poodle!!! :)
This is my friend Bev's mini poodle named Ozzie, and this is Balthazar upon spotting the menace (plus, there was hissing.)

Mmmm... Potential Energy :)

Look at the perfect circles!!! The last little one I planted blackberries in a ring, it'll have two little arched entrances and a tiny grass circle inside. Tomatoes in the middle one - they are half in. And dilly bean beans will go into half the big one! :) I am thinking about all you families while I plan extra beans, because I need enough to share!

Five and Eleven! Loooong miserable years :)

Jim's boss sent this in response to his email about leaving a little early today:

Jim,
   Happy Anniversary to you and your Bride.
   You probably need the time off to find a gift so here's a little help..
   I may not be remembering this exactly but the guidelines are something like this ...
       1st yr anniv    Paper
       2nd  yr anniv    Cotton
       3rd yr anniv    Leather
       4th yr anniv    Flowers
       5th yr anniv    New Car
Regards,
John 

JimE in a TreE!

We lost lots of branches this winter, and a pretty big one was just a hanging down and would not come down from the other branch it had locked wills with. Jim climbed allll the way up the ladder that was a present from Mama and Papa and then into the tree itself to chop both offending branches down. See teeny Jim all the way up there??! :)








Oh and here's a lovely photo of Natalie snuggling with her blender. I stole it - it was on the coffee table - and snapped a digital photo of the print ha HA. I burnt out my rubber blender gear (repair in progress) and have been missing my blender, so this picture is very appropos of the warm feelings between a girl and her blender. :)