Here's the birthday boy enjoying his new ride.

.....and here comes contestant number three in the Mr. All-That-And-A-Bag-Of-Chips contest........

And now for the talent portion of the competition........

Bailey with cake on his face! I did not obtain a photo release from the gentleman in the background, therefore I am not responsible if the photo is not to his liking!!!

"Bring it on!" Okay, she didn't really say that, but I can't figure out what she WAS saying, so I went with that!

Andy having a laugh at the pool antics.

"If I stick my tongue out and concentrate REAL hard on not tipping over........"

"OH NO!..........."

We'll miss you, Busa.

Goodbye, Busa

Yesterday was a sad day around here. Our cat, Busa, passed away. Busa has been a part of our family for the past 17 years. Tom was 3 years old when he chose him from a litter of kittens at the humane society. It's very hard losing a pet that we have had so long. It is especially hard on the boys - for Tom because Busa was his cat, and for Andy because this is Andy's first experience losing a pet. What made matters even worse was that Jerry, Andy and I were in Delaware yesterday. Tom had stayed home to do schoolwork and went looking for Busa upstairs and found that he had passed away. Tom was very brave because he had to handle things until we got home. When we got home it was 11:30 at night but we gave Busa a proper burial anyway. Tom had wrapped him nicely and readied him for burial because he said he didn't want Andy to see him. Now that's a good big brother. I'm sorry that we weren't here when it happened, but I'm not sorry that Andy wasn't here at the time. Busa had been slowing down considerably over the last couple of weeks and over the past few days I noticed that he wasn't eating very well, so we figured it probably wouldn't be long. He was very old for a cat, and definitely lived a full life! We used to joke that he used up 8 of his 9 lives a long time ago. He was bitten in the leg by a bobcat when we lived in West Virginia and we were told by the vet that he might not make it. He was run over by a car and had half of his tail lopped off and his back legs crushed - again we were told he probably wouldn't make it. Something (we don't know what this time) got into a battle with him and tore part of one ear and put a massive wound on his head - we didn't think he would make it that time. Then when we were moving here from West Virginia, at the last minute he jumped out of the car and ran into the woods. We searched for him but couldn't find him. We had a caravan of people helping us move and we needed to get on the road. It broke my heart, but we had to leave. I knew that we would be returning in two weeks to tie up loose ends and I prayed that he would be there then. Well, he was - because that was 14 years ago! As soon as we pulled up I jumped out of the car and started calling for him whereupon he promptly came bounding out of the woods. He had survived two weeks by himself out there. This time when it was time to go, he didn't even try to get out of the car - in fact, he laid down and got quite comfortable! He was a guard cat around here and would actually chase dogs out of our yard. He even chased a pit bull to the fence line once. We definitely didn't think he would survive that - but he did - again. He was one tough cat, but he was also a real sweetheart and loved to be cuddled, purring so loudly that you could hardly hear anything else. Busa was a great pet, and we will miss him very much.

It's Been Awhile!

I didn't go away - just took a hiatus! In the intervening month we haven't done a lot that was newsworthy. Tom is still in school (he got his midterm grades and is doing very well). Andy is still doing well with homeschooling (in spite of the MEAN TEACHER he has!). Jerry has been busy working and restoring a 1950 tractor for his uncle. His uncle bought the tractor a couple of months ago and wanted to convert it from a 6-volt system to a 12-volt, so now it is finished and running beautifully. Jerry wanted me to drive it when it was finished (and I wanted to drive it), but I was too afraid! If something happened to it, I didn't want to think about Jerry's uncle's reaction! If it belonged to us I would probably try it. Maybe I'll get my courage up before it leaves here next week - we'll see. I did finally get brave enough to drive Jerry's John Deere backhoe. He needed me to drive it and push a wrecked truck into the garage while he steered the truck. I actually enjoyed it so much that I took it for a spin down the driveway a few times! He had bartered with the guy who owns the wrecked truck - if Jerry would remove the engine from the wreck (which was still good and which the owner of the truck wanted), then Jerry could have the transmission for his truck. He got the engine out and the man took the wreck away, but the engine is still hanging on the engine stand in the garage because he hasn't picked that up yet. So, between Jerry's uncle's tractor and the engine, I didn't think there was room for our vehicles which made me a little nervous the other night when the weather forecast was for storms with possible hail. Jerry proved me wrong, though! He crammed the tractor and engine and grill off to one side, and managed to fit the Tahoe and his old brown truck in the other. The brown truck is the one that he used to drive and that the transmission is for - this is the one he had painted and it isn't tagged or insured yet, so we definitely didn't want hail damaging that! That truck means as much to him as one the boys, I think!

Well, I will try to post more consistently, but right now I need to go and do a few things and clean this awful house! Yuck!

Farmer Jerry on the move.

A 1950 Ford 8N tractor. Jerry had a lot of fun fixing this up for his uncle. He also had a lot of fun driving it when it was finished!

The rhododendron bush has nearly reached the second-floor window now.

We saw the sunrise on our way to Delaware, and the farms we passed were beautiful.

This is what the cow (picture posted previously) looks like now. My freezer is grateful.

A bird on the knee is worth....no, wait.....wrong saying!

Grammatically incorrect, but very tasty!

Now for some catching up.......

Tom enjoyed his first day of college. The only problem was that there was a nasty thunderstorm following him all the way down the road and he was trying to get here before it did! There was a tornado watch also, so we were a little concerned about his journey home, too. He arrived at about the same time the thunderstorm did, so didn't get caught in it. Andy and I made him a cake to commemorate the occasion of his first day of college. Andy decorated it - and yes, he meant to use that grammar on the cake, incorrect as it may be!

Dinner around our house is usually at 6:00 (or thereabouts), except now on Mondays we have it at 8:00 so Tom can eat with us. The time change met with a few groans at first until I offered to make sandwiches for the offended persons at around 4:00 on Mondays to stave off their hunger until 8. Anyway, yesterday Tom called to let me know that he would probably be a little late. He said that the Metro stations and the surrounding areas were packed with immigration protestors and it was very slow going.

One of these days I am going to get back on the treadmill. One of these days. This spare tire around my middle is really bugging me now.

I was looking through some homeschooling materials I had used when we homeschooled Tom (I told you I am a packrat!) and came across a workbook on Life Skills for Middle Schoolers which included such things as budgeting, working, nutrition, cleaning, and other neat stuff. I was looking through the nutrition portion of the book because there were some pages I wanted to use with Andy and I started looking at the pages Tom had completed way back when and reminiscing. Evidently I must not have looked too closely at the work Tom had done because I found where he had drawn a food pyramid, complete with pictures and labels. He had everything in it's proper place - including a drawing of a pear labeled "Mom-shaped pear" under the fruit and vegetable category. Nice. Can't fault him for honesty though, can I?!

I have given Andy an interesting assignment. He has started a blog and is required to post on it at least once a week. This is part of his writing assignment. He seemed to not like the idea at first, but then asked if he could post more than once a week if he wanted to. So far he has only
posted his first post which was when he created his blog, but the posts are due on Thursdays so there should be another forthcoming. He hasn't given me permission yet to post a link here to his blog, but I will as soon as he lets me. Blog shyness, I guess!