It's Mowing Season

It is now starting to look and feel like spring. I'm sure we'll have a few cold snaps in the coming weeks but the pear and peach trees are blooming which means other trees and bushes won't be far behind. I mowed the yard today. Thus begins a weekly ritual that will last for the next 8-9 months.

PROGRESS. Mom is making good progress with the walker, and as long as she can avoid low chairs she can do pretty well.

We spent the day at her house Saturday. The kids borrowed Kenny's Gator and put in several hours picking up limbs from her yard. I stayed out of their way and cleaned up the garage a bit as well as the freezer. The freezer hadn't been touched in almost three years and it was a bit discouraging to see the amount of expired and freezer burned food I tossed out.

Mom went back to church Sunday and even taught her Sunday School class. After church we all went out to the 109 Diner in Portland for lunch. I think Mom enjoyed being out of the house.

APRIL FOOLS. I don’t think I’ve written since April Fool’s Day. Kenny called Mom up early that morning and told her the school bus had broken down in front of her house and the all the kids were in her yard. She wised up after a few minutes. As for me, I had to drive out to one of our schools to install a computer. As I was leaving I decided to call Vicki and tell her that I had dropped my keys into a storm drain with no possible way to retrieve them so I was locked out of my truck and stranded. Vicki did not fall for this but one of the ladies I work with sure did.

CONVENTIONS. Jenna got to spend three nights at Opryland Hotel last week. She left school on Monday for the Beta Club convention. When that was over she and several other students checked out but remained in the lobby for the next group from school to arrive for the FCCLA convention. (For those of you who have been out of the high school loop for a while you would know the FCCLA as the Future Homemakers of America or FHA.) This convention earned Jenna a third night away.

Vicki went to Nashville on Thursday to drive Jenna and several other girls back home. The group took some time to go shopping at Opry Mills Mall before heading back.

AMBITIONS. Jenna has been telling me for months that she wants to have a garden this year and replant our strawberry patch. Steve Freeland was kind enough to drive his tractor over and break ground for us this evening. Now to get in there with a tiller and plant some veggies. Steve broke a lot of ground so Jenna will have her hands full this summer.

PRE-WASH. Nate is typical of most ten year old boys in that he is a messy eater. We frequently tell him he needs to wipe his mouth and have learned to specify that he should use a napkin. For his latest trick he likes to announce the "pre-wash" and then commences licking all around his mouth as far as his tongue can reach. I think he likes to embarrass us with this behavior now. What he hasn't thought about is that one of these days he will bring a cute girl home to visit and I will enjoy telling her all these stories. I feel she should know what she's getting into, don't you?

KITTENS. I have written about our cats before. We had three, but Dusty, our gray cat, met his fate on the centerline of the highway during spring break. We still have Miss Cat, Dusty’s mom, and Tagalong, the one that stowed away in my truck from Mom’s house.

I had noticed Miss Cat getting really large back in February and when I mentioned my suspicions that she was pregnant but Vicki thought it was too early in the season for cats to be having kittens. Well, it turns out that I was right. Miss Cat moved her four kittens under our back porch and we saw them this morning. We’ve gotten a good look at two of them, a gray one and a solid black one. Ben even crawled under the porch and held one.

Joe