| 8-13-05 Hello All, The summer is going by so fast, here it is mid August! We are trying to keep up with the boys and stuff around the house. Lorelei�s biopsies came back negative, so we have been so thankful for that. In news around the place, the boys and I finished the boat/truck, covered parking area (except for paint). The improvements to the outdoor kitchen area has been put on hold, mostly for lack of construction material. My stockpile of lumber is almost gone! The remainder of materials we have has been going towards building an enclosure around the music area down in the shop. We are trying to keep the sound from drum practice from annoying the neighbors. Adam and John have both been working for friends and neighbors to earn money every chance they get. Adam purchased a new guitar and amplifier. John helped with the expenses for his bike trip. He is leaving tomorrow for a weeklong bike trip with the church youth group. They are going to the San Juan Islands in Washington. They will first take the ferry to Canada and then back to the US and visit several of the islands. He is very excited about the trip and we have been working to get him a bike and all the gear he needs to go. Everyone will be expected to carry everything they need except food and a tent on the bike with them! Cody is his adorable self and he is getting excited about going back to school. Lorelei mentioned yesterday that he is growing up so fast, before we know it he will be a teenager. How the years fly by. In animal news, you may remember from last time the �rogue� deer. Well the neighborhood has named her �stupid deer�, she absolutely will walk right up to you, no matter if you throw rocks, yell, doesn�t matter what you have done to her, if it was more than 2 minutes ago, she has forgotten about it. We have been leaving Queenie out at night and this seems to have gotten the message across to �stupid deer� our plants are finally growing some new foliage! The chickens are laying us plenty of eggs and the chicken tractor is working great! Last time I touched on our mole and gopher problem, well to date I have killed 5 moles and 3 gophers! Where do they all come from? Buddy �the king of fetch� is still hobbling around, he can�t have many years left. Last time I talked about the ducks sitting on some eggs. Well one mother duck finally hatched out 9 ducklings. After about a week for some reason she decided she had too many and started killing them? We separated the six remaining young ones into the brooder. At this point we had been having �duck issues� anyway. The ducks are loud in the morning. If they don�t get let out at first light and get some food, they let you know they are unhappy! Quaaaaaaack, Quaaaaaaaaack, Quaaaaaaack. So I put an add in freecycle and gave away all the adults. We are now enjoying the ducklings, which are growing rapidly! The garden is just so so this year. We haven�t spent a lot of time on it. We had plenty of strawberries and Lorelei made some great strawberry jam. The green beans have been doing well. The cucumbers we are still trying to figure out, some are bitter and some are great! The tomatoes still are not ripe but there will be plenty when they do finally ripen. The orchard is now producing all the plums we can eat and the blackberries are ripe. Lorelei has made us a cobbler and some jam to date. We eat them by the bowl full. We haven�t had any rain since July 22nd, so the mowing and spraying chores have subsided. The boys have been helping me water the young native species trees that we have planted. We have been kind of laying low and getting ready for our vacation. The end of the month we are taking the boat up to Washington to the San Juan Islands (one week after Jon returns from there!). We will ferry the boat and all our stuff over to Orcas Island and stay for a week. We are planning on fishing, cruising and relaxing. That�s about it for now, I will give a full report when we get back from vacation. Glynn Jr. |