Snails

We are having Joe & Lauren's rehearsal dinner at our house in August, so this year more than any I have been trying to make sure the porch and flowers look great. As I was watering tonight I noticed one pot had a flower that didn't look very good. I looked around the pot and found 6 big snails. They were slimy and icky, but strangely fascinating to watch.  The biggest one was around 1" across.

 

I couldn't just stomp on them because that gave me the creeps, so I took the coward's way out and put them in the saucer of beer that I put out to catch the rest of them that are in the flower bed and they promptly drowned.  (supposedly they are attracted to the smell (?) of the beer, they crawl in and then drown). I couldn't just let them go back to where they were and ruin my flowers, right? I'm sure there are plenty more where these came from!

Al's new boat & the carp....

Al has a new boat. Well, not really new, extremely used and old, but new to him. He spent hours the last couple weeks straightening the metal and cleaning it and fixing it up. He even hand painted one of the seats.

It is a very cute little boat (with an emphasis on little). It was a gorgeous night last night, so we took it out for it's maiden voyage on the lake.

We drove down to the boat ramp, where there were several trailers in the parking lot already, and one unloading. So Al decides that we would use the boat ramp at the other end of the lake. It's not really a boat ramp anymore, but he's the ranger, right?

So we back up and put the boat in the water, I climb in and he just leaves the truck where it's at, trailer in the water. He puts the trolling motor down and starts it up, but we are surrounded by this:

It's been so hot and sunny that the grass and moss and whatever else has gone crazy in the lake. Now Al remembers that we should have brought a paddle. Not one to be rattled by that little thing, he paddles us out with his hands until the motor will work.

It was absolutely perfect out on the water, no wind and calm as can be. I love how the trees reflect on the water when it's still like this.

Here is where Joe & Lauren will be married in less than 2 months! Picture a huge white tent in front of this by the lake at 6:00 pm at night. It's going to be beautiful!

We took Tai along to see how he would do in a boat. We are going to Minnesota this weekend, and we thought maybe we will take him then. Tai doesn't think much of boats. He pretty much spent the entire time underneath my legs. Every once in a while he would look over the edge, but that's it.

We were heading back when Al spied this:

It was a 3 foot long grass carp that was dead. It stunk soooooo bad! So what does Al do? He ties it to the back of the boat!

His theory was that nothing else would eat it, and it would just stink up everything, so we would take it to shore, and the guys would come pick it up to dispose of it in the morning.

So we trolled back across the lake, towing a dead grass carp.

 

It stunk the entire way! It was as nasty as anything you have ever smelled in your life. Ugh!

So we finally get back to the trailer, but remember we don't have a paddle, and the motor can't push us because there is too much grass in the lake. So Al paddles water again with his hands until I'm close to the edge so I can get out.

Then he has to pull himself and the boat on the trailer.

All the while with the grass carp tied to the back of the boat.

I didn't ask him today if he made the guys go get it this morning. I sure hope so, or anyone who is down there is going to gag!

Something to ponder

I have a Twitter account, but I do not Tweet. I do follow a few accounts, though.  Today I saw a tweet that made me think a bit. This person wrote "I wonder if decades from now my Great Grandkids will be reading these tweets to learn about one of their dead ancestors. 'Hi'." This made me wonder.

For at least 15 years, I have researched my ancestors.  How very excited I would be if I found as much information about my Great Grandma Goldie's life as I post about my family and I on this blog.

We found this calendar that was my Great Grandfather Harvey's (Goldie's husband) and it was a small glimpse into what he did day to day, which was fantastic to me.

He wrote what he did or what happened for the year 1935 on a free calendar from the local grocery store. Silly, mundane things like "went to Owen's with car", "butchered the Walen barrow", "rode on lake creek for horses" and "had land meeting". He wrote when certain cows gave birth or died "Pet had heifer calf by Anxiety", "Rachel died". But the best one is "rec'd pear burner" and "started burning cactus for the cows". This entry is January 12, 1935 during the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s. They burned the needles off the prickly pear cactus to give their cattle food during the cold winter.  Even this little bit gives a window into what their life was like. This is a picture of Great Grandma Goldie with the burner, burning the cactus, with the ranch in the background.

Most of my blog entries are pretty mundane as well, they are just life as we are living it. Will Ava or her children find this interesting? Will any of this even be around when they are old enough to find it interesting? All three of my children have become "savers". They keep old birthday cards, prom boutonnieres, notes, etc. I think I must have instilled this in them by proxy somehow. It wasn't necessarily on purpose, but however it worked, I'm glad it did.  I hope this gets passed on to my grandchildren as well, and that they will be interested in what our life is like and be excited to find things like this about us.

It's a weird thing to think about really. Will I have a facebook account or still blog when I'm 80? Who knows. I think about my Grandma Sara who died in 2008, and try to compare her to what I think I will be like when I'm 80. Now that's strange! I would like to think that I will still be telling everyone about what we are doing and hope that I'm a feisty old lady when I'm that old. But who knows?

It's definitely something to ponder.

This is so cool!

We moved to the park 18 years ago this coming September. Over that time, I have planted several different flower beds and flowers. This is a Clematis vine that I planted probably 10 years ago. 

It will be full of gorgeous purple flowers in a few weeks. This next picture is from last year. It had hundreds of flowers on it.

This year, however, it has something more fun in it. I noticed a Chipping Sparrow flying in and out of it last week, so I followed it and found this:

Four very tiny (maybe 1/2") blue eggs.  The entire nest is only 2 inches across or so.

Today I looked in the nest and we now have 4 tiny babies.

This is what they will look like when they are grown. (sorry, I didn't get a pic of mom, had to find one on the internet).

Right after I found the nest of babies, I looked down and saw some ants busily carrying a dead cricket along the grass.

  They were super intent on moving it along, all working together.

They finally moved it about 2 feet to their hole, and were getting it pulled down into their ant hole for dinner later I assume. Or maybe to lay eggs on. I guess I'm not sure what they do with it.

As I was watching them work so hard to get the cricket pulled along to their hole, Mr. Rooster came along and just gobbled them all up in one gulp.

I guess that's nature, right?