Rain, Rain, Go Away!

I almost hate to chant that old children’s rhyme with last summer’s drought fresh in my memory, but we’ve gotten so much rain you’d think Tennessee is supposed to have a monsoon season. All the rivers are way out of their banks now. The kids and I drove over to Milldale to see the section of river we sometimes play in during the summer. The deck, which is normally ten feet or so above the water, is a mangled mess. The deck was built against one large tree and had steel I-beams as pilings. The tree next to the deck and another close by have been washed down as well as the levy next to the river which served as the road to get down there. I really need to give our yard its first mowing of the year, but it will be a long time before I can run the mower without the risk of miring it up.

A QUICK VISIT. Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob drove up for a quick visit last weekend. I didn’t get to see them a whole lot, but I Mom and Aunt Mar really enjoyed their visit. They got several games of Spades in over the weekend.

We had dinner over at Aunt Mar’s last Friday night when they arrived. The Dees came over for dinner as well so Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob got to meet Tanner and catch up up on the Ashland City branch of the family.

A COLD JOB. Last weekend was pretty cold. The PTO at school had scheduled a workday to clean up the playground and prepare it for some new pieces of equipment they had bought. When I got there I was asked to assemble a car and a Buck-a-bout, both of which are mounted to the ground on large springs. It took me over six hours to put the pieces together. All the bolts came mixed together and I bet I spent half my time trying to sort out all the parts so I could find what I needed. When I left the house I thought I had enough clothes on but since this job kept me fairly still I felt like I was about to freeze.

Vicki found it easier to stay warmer than I did. She swung a sledge hammer part of the time driving re-bar through timbers to anchor them to the ground. She rediscovered muscles she had forgotten about.

SCIENCE FAIR. Jenna entered a project in the science fair this year. She investigated the question “Do bigger apples have more seeds than smaller apples?” In the end she determined that apples have a random number of seeds (her sample set had between four and nine) no matter what their size. She speculated in her conclusion that the number of seeds probably had more to do with how well the flower was pollinated than anything else. Her project won second place in the fourth grade at school.

CUTE MOVIE. We took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who (which Nate thought was titled Norton Has a Zoo) last weekend. We all thought it was cute. If you have young kids or have fond memories of Dr. Seuss you will enjoy this film.

CONFUSED. One morning during Spring Break Vicki was in a rush to leave and was having a hard time getting out the door. I was staying home with the kids. Nate, who is used to having Vicki at his disposal in the morning, kept asking her to fix his breakfast. (He didn’t want me to do it.) Vicki, who had refused him several times, finally said, ”Nate, I am not here. Ask your father.“ You could see the confusion play on his face as he considered this for a moment. It was no surprise when he said, ”But you are here…I see you.“

COLD FEET? The other day Vicki told Nate to get his shoes on so they could leave. A moment later she heard him cry, ”Owwww, my shoes are too small! I’m not wearing these.“ When she went to him she noticed his fat feet.

”Nate, how many pairs of socks are you wearing?“

”Uh, three…no, four!“ His voice had that ”why, is that a problem?“ tone.

Vicki talked him out of three pairs of socks and the shoe problem was fixed.

Joe