July 12

afternoon's thunderstorms that finally cooled things off. It is sunny and 80 today. Very nice!

I'm glad the weather has improved and will stay this way through the weekend. Our township's agricultural fair is this week and the first couple of days were miserably hot and then yesterday's rain made a bit of a muddy mess, but it looks like clear skies and mild temps for the last few days of it. I'm glad that the fireworks will not be postponed. They are having them two nights! The fair is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and boy it sure has grown since it started. Megan has been there every day to help out with the FFA animals. She is showing at the county fair next month rather than here, but it's good experience for her. She's learning a lot about caring for all the animals and also about showing by watching the other kids. What's been a big help for her is observing and learning from their mistakes in the ring. She sure is gung-ho. I am guessing that next year she will be a pen manager and we will be even more up to our eyeballs in caring for the animals over the summer.....cause it sure seems like the pen managers get stuck caring for all the animals and the barn. Most of the kids with animals in the co-op barn don't seem to bother showing up to work or feed. Megan and just a couple of others are the exceptions. I also think Meg's regretting her decision not to run for an FFA office for next year. At the time I think she was nervous about whether or not she was qualified. I've included a picture of her with her lamb.

Megan's summer school class is nearly finished. She has three more days. Then we still have to deal with the correspondence English course. Depending on how she finishes in the algebra class she's in now, we may have to do that as a correspondence course, too. At the midterm Meg was failing. Her grade was so low I didn't think a miracle could save it, but she talked to the teacher on Monday and explained to him about how a lot of the material wasn't what was covered in her integrated algebra course so it was unfamiliar to her. He's been spending more time with her and her test scores have improved. I think they are still not high enough to pass, but she says he told her they were good and that it's possible she can pass. Maybe he is going to grade on the curve? I don't know but I sure hope she passes. Tim and I have not been able to help her with her homework. Math was never something I was good at, but even Tim has no clue. It would be awful to have to try and help her through a correspondence course. Ugh!

The zucchini are coming in like crazy now. Anyone want some? Ha, ha! We've eaten about as many fried as we can stand so tonight I made zucchini dumpling stew (the recipe is already listed) and then I will have to stuff some to bake. We're not big on relish or shredding them into things, though I will try a couple of recipes to see how they go over. I will freeze some for winter, too. Good thing they are not ours alone to eat and that Mom and John are eating them as well. Anyway, the stew was delish as always and really hit the spot....especially after having to smell it all afternoon while it cooked. My mouth was watering!

We went to look at pickup trucks after supper. Tim's truck is acting up again. It's 10 years old and has over 200,000 miles on it so there's no shame in it, but I sure wish it would hang in there just a little bit longer. Tim's pretty picky about what he wants in a truck and with the miles he puts on one, a used truck isn't really practical for him. So, tonight we looked at Fords, which is what he wants. Yikes! The least expensive truck we saw was a stripped down F150 for $26,500! Wow. The trucks Tim was really interested in are the F250s and F350s. The F250s ranged between $30,000 and $35,000. The F350s were $35,000 and up. I don't see how in the world we can afford something like that right now. With all the running around he does for work I wish they'd give him a company vehicle or at least a vehicle allowance. He says they don't have that mentality and that it's unlikely they ever will. Darn.

Tim headed off to bed as soon as we got home. Megan's in her room watching television and talking on the phone with the friends she hasn't seen for......3 whole hours. Teenagers. I think I'll go read a bit of my book before I head to bed.

July 13

Uh-oh, unlucky Friday the 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious, though my dad was born on Friday the 13th and he had a lot of health problems his whole life, so maybe I should be.

This morning I took Megan to summer school and came home to wash dishes, throw in a few loads of laundry and pick things up in general. I picked her up on time at noon. She already had her homework done and she assures me that passing algebra is still within the realm of possibility so after we had lunch (tuna sandwich for me, spaghetti-o's for her) I agreed to take her to her friend, Holly's. She left her things there and I dropped Megan, Holly and Holly's sister, Mandy, off at the fair. From there I drove over the mountain to New Florence and picked up my friend, Helen. We'd both been invited to a Home & Garden Party by a woman we work with and Helen didn't have a working car. It rained so hard on the way over the mountain that I could barely see two feet in front of the car....and big trucks were still flying past me. How "smart" can they be under the conditions and the fact that it was a construction zone with reduced speeds to begin with? On the way home it rained maybe a little less hard, but we did run into hail a couple of times. It was still raining when we arrived at the party and it was still raining 3 hours later when we left. We had a good time chatting with the other women and having a light supper. I ordered a two-tiered serving piece and a matching relish dish. The things were nice, but very expensive and for the most part I didn't really need any of it, but I thought I could use the serving dishes on holidays and special events to dress up the table a bit.

Tim and Helen's husband, Dave, were at the auction to sell off all the farm implements and tools from Tim's great uncle's farm. He passed away in December and Tim's aunt decided to get the barns cleaned out while she was still able. Tim said they had a big crowd in spite of the rain. I am glad for that. Neither of the guys bought anything and they got to the house around 9:00 even though the sale was still going on. My mom left the sale at 9:30 and it was still going then. I wonder just how late they went?

Tim went to bed right after Helen and Dave left and I guess I should head there myself. I want to get up early and get going in the morning so I can get a good spot to watch the second day of the sale.

July 15

It's been a busy couple of days. Tim worked half a day yesterday and I was up early to go to the second day of his aunt's farm auction. The weather was much improved over Friday night....sunny and warm right from the beginning. My goodness the tools and things they sold. Uncle Ralph was an auction goer himself so he had bought up a lot of tools over the years. Whatever tool it was, if he had one, he must have had 50! We could have been there forever, but thankfully the auctioneers sold everything in bunches or boxes and sold only the truly special items singly. I bought only a solid oak chair for $4 and a cute print for $1. I wanted to bid on a forge for Tim that he knew for a fact his uncle had bought at an auction on the farm where he (Tim) grew up, but when the opening bid was $50 I knew it would go too high for me....and it did. Most stuff went at reasonable prices with the farm tractors, manure spreader and brush hog bringing in the big amounts. Tim got there a little after noon and was able to help with loading the equipment and whatnot. It was over by 2:00 and we came home, let the doggies out and grabbed a quick half-hour nap. Then it was off to the Ag fair. Megan had been calling all afternoon wanting more money for food so we went early at 4:00. Some of the food booths are open at that hour and you can walk through the animal barns and tents but that's about it. Nothing else gets going until 5:30-6:00. We got something to eat and found a good seat in the bleachers for the tractor pulls. They had been rained out the night before so we were glad we got to watch....even though they about half the number of tractors as they did the night before. Seems there was another pull somewhere else that a lot of them went to. It was still fun to watch and Megan had a ball. She and her FFA friends were hanging out with their friends who were pulling and she got to help out some with the tractors. Was she ever dirty when the night was over! We gave Megan's best friend and her sister a ride home, but the girls wanted to watch the fireworks so we said we'd stay for those. It was 11:30 before we got out of there. Talk about a long day.

Tim worked on his truck this morning. He went out and bought two parts and put them on. I don't remember what they were. Something to do with the ignition. The truck still isn't running. Tim thinks a fuel pump will fix it up, but that will have to wait a couple of days. He needs a new truck, but I don't think there's any way we can afford to do that right now. We've got to try to keep this one running a while longer.

At 1:00 we made an appearance at the historical society's open house/tea. My aunt is a charter member and for some reason she always gives me the guilt trip about coming to the events they have. All of her kids and grandkids and Tim and I received lifetime memberships from her when they were just starting out. I guess as the only one living in the area I get to be the one to go to everything. For being a small group with limited funds they have a real nice place. They restored a log stage coach stop and the barn and blacksmith shop. It was interesting to see and Tim and Megan really enjoyed looking at old papers and yearbooks in the library. I didn't think I'd get them out of there....and they were the ones complaining the most about having to go.

From the historical society we went to a cousin's graduation party at the local state park. It's kind of late in the season, but his mom's been sick (she's only 50 and just got a pacemaker!) so it's only now that they've been able to do anything. It was a nice location with a beautiful log and stone pavilion. Tons and tons of food, too. We enjoyed visiting with Tim's family.

Now we're home and relaxing. Actually, Tim's asleep. He said he wasn't feeling well. I think it's because of eating cake and drinking a lot of sweet tea. He doesn't believe me, but I think I've noticed a pattern of him feeling sick every time he eats a lot of sweet things.

Well, that's about all that's new around here. I'm sending along some recent pictures since I'm finally starting to figure out my digital camera beyond pointing and pushing the button.