Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Time to Plant Corn

It really is time to plant, but the weather isn't cooperating. I have mowed the lawn one time. I did the yard Sunday afternoon and now water is sitting where I mowed. It will get nice again; it always has and we've always gotten the crops in. It just seems like the time will never come and the weather will never get warm.

I had guests Sunday for lunch; Rick & Deb Sawyer, Larry, Ellen, Caitlin, Grandma Fehling and Sue and Ben. We had a great big meal and I only fixed the ham, potatoes, broccoli & corn casserole, a carrot casserole and rolls. Deb brought a green bean casserole, corn casserole and a strawberry whipped salad, Ellen brought her famous pea salad and Sue brought 4 pies (none of which she made herself!). Mother brought 2 bottles of wine she said she didn't want back, one of which was vinegary and I dumped down the drain. The other one we will drink. We played a few rousing games of Farkel which the women won!

Didn't go to school this week (Easter vacation for the school) and Vicki wasn't having story hour this month so I didn't go to the library. Last night was the night the Maragaret Dallas scholarship committee got together to pick the winners and North Cedar got 2 of the 4. There was only $2000 to divide among 35 applications. Three of us from North Cedar decide on whom we like from our school district, the other members read Tipton, Durant, Wilton and West Branch applications. A short, to-the-point meeting and we were done in less than 2 hours.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Home

We are home from our cruise to Bermuda. What a great time we had! New experiences for all of us. I really hadn't know where Bermuda was, or that it was a chain of islands, really, attached by bridges. The water is a beautiful shade of blue and as we saw on our excursion in the glass bottom boat, full of coral reefs (and even sunken ships!). Of interest on the island are houses with white roofs--they use the roofs to collect rain water as their main source of water. The water collected goes into a tank under the house and is used for everything. The houses are painted in pastel colors, they can be painted any color the owner wishes. Very big mansions there and some not so nice very old (think hundreds of years old) houses. We did a tour around the islands in a boat with a very knowledgeable man who told us many things about the island; a tour in the glass bottom boat; and a 5 hour tour on a bus. There are no straight roads in Bermuda, just narrow winding ones and they drive on the wrong side of the road! Steering wheels are on the wrong side of the vehicles. Only one car per household is allowed, so there are many motorcycles and scooters.

We came home to cold temperatures, the death of another 16 year old North Cedar student and the death of the mother of one of Larry's classmates.

Bill and I went to the races the night before we left and Ben's car won the heat race and the feature. Of course, we realized right away that Ben wasn't driving, Dan was. The races were cancelled last week--still looking forward to??? Ben's first night driving!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

April

A sad start for the month of April. We mourn the loss of a North Cedar student, just 17. We are praying for the recovery of his friend also in the accident. Maquoketa lost 2 young people in a car accident. We attended Leona Conrad's funeral yesterday. It was a nice service honoring Leona and celebrating her life.

Since the sun is shining this morning and the wind isn't blowing too hard, I hung out 2 loads of laundry. I love to see and hear the bed sheets flopping on the line. I think they will smell really good on the bed tonight.

Sunday was practice day at the Tipton race track. Ben and Bill went down to try to work some of the bugs out of the car--Ben has a lot to learn and the first race Friday night will be interesting! Ben took us and a friend along to Riverside for a race car show Saturday. I spent the day inside the casino (it was too cold outside)!

Friday night was the Legion fish fry. We served close to 300 people, ran out of fish, coleslaw, rolls, and baked potatoes so all I had to eat was a few almost cold french fries. One more fish fry the first Friday in May, all proceeds will go to the Honor Flight.