1st day of summer and Father's Day

Yesterday was the 1st day of summer but it didn't seem like it. It was cloudy, windy and ended up with a cloud burst of rain, thunder and lightening.

This morning it is windy and cloudy, but not to cold so I am going out in awhile to start pruning the lilacs and maybe moving some flowers to a new bed.

Each of the boys did something nice for their dad yesterday. One cooked dinner for him on Saturday night. One gave him a gift certificate and one gave him mixed nuts and socks! Another called long distance to tell him what a great dad he is. I took him for taco's and gave him an antique bi-plane to look at, not fly!!

He always has been a great father to his boys. He was there for every sporting event, play, trouble and sorrow, or exciting fun event. He was there to hear problems, offer advice (or keep his mouth shut) when needed. He took us camping, went on road (adventure) trips, karate-baseball-football tournaments no matter where they were.

He was always patient, understanding and never ever violent. Maybe a tiny bit threatening sometimes( scare the heck out of them kind), but always ended up loving and kind.

Yes, maybe summer is finally on its way and yes Gary is a good dad and now he is a terrific grandpa too!

Pets

I always find it amazing how attached we as humans get attached to animals. We have a german shorthair pointer dog who is almost 9 years old and we call him our million dollar dog because it seems like we have spent that much on him for all the fences we have built, vet bills we have paid, and time we have spent on him.

Sometimes I get annoyed with him because he brings in dead mice, mud and grass into the house. He swims in the nearby creek and comes in soaking wet and shakes off on my freshly vacuumed carpet. He never eats over his bowl, but takes a mouthful of food into the living room and then chews leaving crumbs all over the place.

And yet, when he is missing for awhile, I get worried that he is sick or dead someplace. When he is sick, I'm the 1st one to suggest we take him to the vet and I'm the one who gives him his pills stuffed in bites of hot dogs. I buy him countless tennis balls that he never brings back, but instead chews to pieces leaving the bits all over the place. I'm the one to rub his back with my bare feet when he comes and sits in front of my recliner at night.

My sister sent a really cool quote about our love of our pets. "We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would have it no other way."

I have had several pets over the course of my life and each one has touched my heart and soul in ways that has given me comfort when no one else has been able too. Their unconditional love allows them to keep coming back when others might turn away, even if we are cruel to them.

Be it dog, cat, bird or fish we humans need to make contact with animals in some small way. I think it reminds us of how we should be, how we should at least try to be to each other.

Still Raining

We have had intermittent rain and sun the last few days, but when it rains it really pours and is accompanied by thunder and lightening.
This afternoon the lightening was in our field and the thunder right on top of our house!! Odie and I both jumped like crazy.
But I am keeping busy and trying hard not to go crazy from the soggy weather.

Soggy!

We have had rain, rain, rain forever! I'm beginning to think we live in Seattle!
It rained all night long last night and I know because I was awake until after 2 a.m. and then woke up several times after that.
Everything is soaked! The lawn grows about a foot a day and the mosquitos are rammant!
I NEED SOME SUNSHINE!!!

Saving a Life!

Yesterday was a pretty normal day, cleaned house, did the dishes, returned books, did my little church clerk job, made lunch and saved a life!

We have a small wading pool that we filled with water for the grandkids and have left out in the front driveway forgotten for the last week or so. Today I was walking past it to go check the mail and spotted this moth about an inch under water in the pool.

There was also a big stick in the water and the moth was so pretty I thought I would dry it out for the kids to see. So I used the stick and carefully pulled the moth out of the water and took it to the little table on the porch. I continued on to get the mail and took that in the house and got a piece of paper to put the moth on.

He is BIG, about 3-4 inches across wing tip to wing tip and beautiful reddish brown with painted on markings only a master artist could achieve.

I showed him to Gary and then left him to dry.

Next time I walked past him, now on the kitchen counter I turned him over and then back again so he wouldn't stick to the paper.

Next time I walked past ( 1/2 hour later) I noticed the wings weren't flat anymore but curving up off the paper. I flipped him over and back again and lo and behold his little tummy looked like it was moving! No Way, he was under water!!

I wait awhile and go look again and he is moving his wings!! Slow and it looks hard for him. I move him out into the mudroom just in case he is really going to live.

I look him up on the internet and he is a Cecropia or Robin Silkmoth. One of the largest types of moth.

I checked again and his wings are fully lifted, but his legs are still pretty curled up under him.

This morning I looked and he is gone!! I looked everywhere in the mudroom and no Robin moth. When it warms up alittle I will open the back door and hope he flies away, alive, free again.

Hole in the Sky and Waterfalls

I often talk about how life changes from moment to moment and how I think that my life is not in my hands at all, but in my families, my church and my Heavenly Father's.
I really do believe that all things good and bad will eventually turn out for the best if we try our best to live the way we should. Sometimes it is just hard to remember that.
This last month has shown that things definitely not in our hands. There were several personal disappointments for different family members with alot of stress and sadness involved. There was also a couple of scary times with health matters, which thankfully proved to be less scary than believed.
Today both of us felt tired and restless so we sluffed church and took a drive while we talked about all that had been going on and how we felt about it all. We stopped to get a drive through breakfast and saw a police bust going on in the parking lot. A pick-up and 4-wheeler trailer, both loaded with people and 4-wheelers was there along with 3 police cars lights flashing were clustered in one corner of the huge parking lot. Of course we pulled in a parking space where we had a clear view of the proceedings, but could not hear anything said. So we made up our own scenario. Maybe a theft, probably a drug bust. There were 2 females and 1 male standing around talking to the police and one male handcuffed and in the back seat of the squad car. The 3 officers searched both the truck cab, backpacks and all the luggage in the back of the truck and also inspected all the 4-wheelers. Finally it looked like one officer handed one female a ticket and then drove off with the guy still in the back of the squad car. The others took off in the truck and it was all over. Our major excitment for the day! We were also reminded that we are blessed that it wasn't any of our family involved in anything like that.
Then we took one of the many long ways home so we could drive slower than the speed limit and stop whenever we wanted to look at something pretty.
The first beautiful site was the "Hole in the Sky". This almost perfect circle in the clouds that Gary could picture a jet flying through and I imagined as the doorway to heaven.


Then we drove to "Hog Hollow or also known as Monkey Rock" where a canal joins a part of the Teton River. This is a very popular swimming spot where those brave in heart jump or dive off the waterfall and swim in the icy waters below. It is also were alot of successful fishermen visit. I just think it is beautiful in its own small way.

So now we are home, refreshed in body and spirit and ready for the new month starting tomorrow and thankful for the blessing we enjoy everyday, with the promise of better tomorrows.

Graduation & Job Harassment

We went to our 4th grandchilds high school graduation last night. Isn't Tyler Dirk Andreasen handsome! Now he is looking for a job and planning college at ISU next fall. You can tell that his mom, dad and little brother are very proud of him!

I surely hope that Tyler doesn't have to face harassment on the job like Odie does! Here he is stalking a mouse in the lilac bushes in our back yard and the magpie in the bush to his right will not leave him alone! (click on the picture to see it better.) There are two of them and they follow him and swoop at him and walk on the ground right by him squawking like crazy, but being ever patient that he is he just ignores them. You would think that being a bird dog he would attack them, but it's like he doesn't even notice the two pests.

Guess we could all learn a lesson from these two events.

1st persevere to achieve your goals and keep pressing forward to the future.

2nd ignore those that bother and persecute you.

Now if we could just do those our life would be happier.