Sunday, May 17, 2009

Spring Blossoms

The apple tree is in full bloom. You can hear the buzzing of bees happily enjoying the sweet nectar. I like the tree this time of year and in the fall when it smells a bit like wine as the apples ferment on the ground. These are the little apples...Lyle tried to make jelly out of them one year...it was a lot of work and not much flavor.


Every once and awhile the Hutterites will come and ask to pick them. If you have never seen this it is fun to watch. They spread a large plastic sheet covering the ground around the tree. Then one of the boys (theirs not mine) climb up the tree and shake the branches. Thus causing the apples to fall onto the plastic where the women will sort them out, take the leaves off the ones they want and place them into a bucket. When they are done the completely rake the ground and put all the other fallen apples into one of our garbage cans. Then they give us corn, tomatoes, potatoes for letting us pick the tree. What is there not to like...they take away the apples that haven't fallen, clean up the ones that have and reward us with fresh vegetables.

So today it was a nice sunny day and I wanted some pictures by the apple tree. We have never had them taken while in full bloom. I wanted the boys, the boys and I, the boys and Lyle and Lyle and I. Seems easy right? First we have a new digital camera which neither Lyle or I are very comfortable using yet. For work I have to change cell phones every two weeks so I sorta knew how to operate that one. The biggest challenge is that Cole wouldn't smile. Do you remember that age? Those teenage years....when they were younger I could say "dad has stinky feet" and they would smile, big natural smiles. Now Cole does this mouth closed semi-smirk and won't cooperate for anything. Then Lyle got tired of messing around and said enough and went inside. No pictures of the boys and Lyle or of Lyle and myself. I had some funny ones in mind too. And that is just where they remain. Here are the few I managed to get.
If they won't smile by themselves I'll manipulate the picture and do it myself. Cole is a cross between the Hunchback of Notre Dam and porky pig
Carter was the only one who would willingly cooperate

Monday, May 11, 2009

FishersGrove

Fishers Grove is a State park about 7 miles outside of Redfield. Our family typically camps there on Memorial Day, Labor Day and I have been going there in Sept for my birthday every year. Here are some pidctures of last year's birthday stay.











These are views from each side of the bridge.


The boys and I drove out there on Saturday May 10th & these are the pictures we took

This first one shows the end of the road...note the current. The second one shows the golf course bridge. It is hard to see but there is a boat parked beside it and the railings of the bridge go right into the water. People are still golfing they just skip that first hole and are parking up by the highway.


This is the bridge to get to the campground. Lots of debris backed up.