The berries are always bigger on the other side of the patch

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My parents and brother are here for the long weekend, and we thought we’d teach them a few of the ways of the Loafkeepers. My dad decided he wanted to learn to mow, so Andy took him down to the flat part of the lawn and gave him a few quick lessons. Dad said he’d stick with a lawnmower and weedeater.

While Dad and Andy were mowing, Mom and I wandered around and looked at plants. Raspberry plants. Dad passed the scythe over to Andy, and the next thing you know we had filled up Mom’s hands with berries. We send Dad up to the house for a container, and after a while we wandered down the road to a bigger patch of berries. The only problem…the patch was behind a lot of rather tall grass and weeds. I twisted Andy’s arm, and he mowed a path around the berry patch. But he couldn’t stop there and hacked away to make paths for us to get to more berries.

We picked and picked, and I went back up to the house for another container. Dad and I finished off the patch, and Andy went searching for more patches. He came back over to where Dad and I were. I asked him if he found any berries.

He said, “You know the taco bell dog?”

“Yeah.”

“What is he always saying?”

“Umm…yo quero taco bell?”

“I think I need a bigger box.”

Andy found a ton more berries, and we quickly filled up the second container.

The bushes are all loaded with unripe berries. We could probably pick a couple of buckets every day for a long time. What will we do with all these berries? Perhaps we need a freezer.



First Sock

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I was having a not-so-great time at work this morning, so as lunchtime approached I decided to go on an adventure. I went yarn store hunting.

I don’t need any more yarn, and I really shouldn’t be spending money on yarn right now, but I was drawn to the yarn. It was calling to me like a rice krispie treat. When I walked in the store, I knew I’d made the right choice to forego my normal noontime routine. Shelves of fuzzy goodness surrounded me. Walking into a yarn store is like walking into a store full of words. Little bits just waiting for me to turn them into something fun/pretty/useful.

There were two other women in the store: the yarn store person and a customer — an older woman who was looking to spend a gift certificate. She was even more of a newbie to knitting than I am, and it made me feel good. Yarns stores for newbies are probably as intimidating as a pencil store would be to new writers. Can you imagine going into a store and having the sales person invite you to sit down and try out the store’s new pencil by working on a story she has already in progress? The pressure to make sure your words aren’t sloppy….not too slanty, not too curly or flat. All the while the pencil pro is watching you… Aie!

Yarn Store Person was very nice, though, and hey…she’s getting paid to knit and to help other people knit, and she can always unravel the stiches we newbies have made.

By the time I left the yarn store (half an hour after my lunch break was over…oops), I had in my posession everything I need to make my first pair of socks. The nice Yarn Store Person even helped me get started. She would have showed me more neat things if not for that darn pesky work thing.


Like water off a duck’s back

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This afternoon I was sitting on the porch watching sheets of rain come down (while at the same time incredibly sunny), and I glanced over at the duck tractor. Today it seems the ducks have learned that they can get out of the rain if they sit under the little roof I put up for them. But then one duck would run out into the rain, and alllll the other ducks would follow, they’d make a big circle and realize they are getting wet, so they would runnnnnnnn back under the shelter. After waiting 30 seconds, this would repeat. Again, and again, and again…




Two weeks

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Our little quackers are now two weeks old, so we took them outside to play in the almost-finished (darn rain) tractor recently. Look how big they are getting!

Ducks

We also filled up their pool with water so they could swim around. Only two could seem to figure it out, however.

Ducks in pool

Look, she’s duck shaped now instead of baby shaped!

Tall duck

Everybody poops

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Do you know that spiders poop? It’s true! I was taking a picture of this neat green spider on the side of the truck this morning, and I was so scary looking (especially if you see eight of me, I bet), that it pooped right in front of me!

Green spider


Fancy Frock

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Ms. Dollie has a new, fancy frock. She was very excited about showing everyone the dress and had a hard time deciding where to pose. In the end, she decided that since she’s a country girl at heart, she’d like to have a little bit of country as a backdrop.

A kind soul, Ms. Dollie reassured me that she did not mind at all the novice stiching on the dress. She did, however, recommend that I not quit my day job to become a seamstress.

Here’s another shot that shows the dress a bit more.

I’m having a lot of fun working on Ms. Dollie, and I’m really going to miss her when she heads off to her new life in Europe. I may just have to make her a sister or brother.