| 02-26-02 Hello All, The weather is warming, the rain is diminishing, the days are getting longer! The birds are getting very active, the frogs in the pond are VERY noisy. We are doing some things to get ready for Spring. The boys and I are digging a trench for a water line towards the fruit trees, ( I call it the Orchard, Lorelei says that I don�t have enough tress for it to be called an Orchard). Anyway it will be nice to have water closer to the trees in the summer. We have been stretching two hoses together ( about 150�) in past summers. We are still cleaning up after the big snow storm. There is still a large Maple tree that has to be cut up. Codys� swing set has been cleared of the Oak branch that crushed it, but I still need to fix it. We are starting to have thoughts about the garden. The boys and I planted some more trees. We got 5 Ponderosa Pines, 5 Cedar, 5 Giant Sequoias and 5 Pacific Redwoods. The animals are doing fine, although Buddy freaked out the other night during a lightning storm and tore up the front screen door! The chickens slowed down on their laying again and we turned the light back on in the coop and that seemed to take care of that. The boys and I said something the other day about getting some more ducks this Spring, and Lorelei cast a furrowed brow! She basically said, �No way unless you put up a fence to keep them from around the house�. So I found a farmer who had just removed a field of grapes. They string high tension wire between treated round poles for the grapes to grow on. I called and said that I needed about 50 posts, he said he had 8,000 available! For less than half price of new, the boys and I went over and picked out 50 posts. So now we have to decide where to put the fence. I want to hinder our movements around the place as little as possible. Too many gates and fences are a pain! The regional Chess Tournament was fun. Jon in his first match went up against a tough opponent and lost a close match. He won his next three, and then the last game he had to go up against his old rival Milt. For this tournament Milt was undefeated 4-0 coming up against Jon. Milt prevailed in a close game. The two opponents who beat Jon tied for the tournament championship. Adam in his first tournament in middle school rolled over the competition and led his team to the championship as well as winning the individual 6th grade title. The team travels to Portland on Friday for the state finals, and we go back on Saturday for the individuals tournament. We finished up the basketball season. We only played 4 games with local schools. The boys had fun, and Jon got to play with the older kids so it was good experience for him. We won all 4 games. Cody is growing up so fast, at 3-1/2 he now of course thinks he can do most things himself! (he must get it from his mom) He insists on helping the big boys, dig, chop, saw, and his favorite, build camp fires! He is also playing Chess and learning how all the pieces move. At the recent school carnival Jon was one of the star performers in a magic show put on by his class. His teacher is quite the magician and weekly teaches the kids new tricks. Lorelei is still having trouble sleeping, she is still walking and somehow keeping up with all us boys. She is a real trooper. The boys and I finished the floor of the tree house. We are waiting for several days of dry weather on a weekend so we can start on the walls. That�s about all for now. Glynn Jr. |