Gene Simmons is my cousin.

Cool, threatening rain. We picked onions, tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, raspberries and apples from Golden Grain's garden. Then I chopped, measured and bagged peppers for an hour while Everett picked through raspberries and lined them up on a cookie tray to freeze.

All that food. Now, what to make for supper ...

~Kate and Sophia Katherine~

Got over to see Kate and Rob's newborn daughter and, fussy and tired last night or not, she is a little angel. It is the most wonderful thing, to see first-time parents in love with their infant, and I can't help but smile and remember what it was like for me. Having my kids was, bar none, the best thing I ever did, and it makes me happy for Kate and Rob.

Found the baby gift in a "whatnot" shop in Manitou Beach; it's an antique piggy bank.

My kid might just have to be a cook. Saturday for the boys' supper night Everett made more than 9 dozen perogies (froze some) and since he had dough left over he made this tray yesterday. Then he made cookies, which I partook of for lunch with two glasses of skim milk.

Any kid that likes making perogies is a kid I want to have around.

Scott's out combining. It's a hot, windy day — absolutely gorgeous. I feel so sorry for you people who are not here.

Everett and Emil went out to catch the bus shortly after 8 a.m.
Emil was repeating that he'd prefer to have a couple more days of summer holiday; Everett was teasing him a little.

This is Emil's third year in Grade 12, and he can go another two and keep working on maths and life skills. For Everett this is Grade 11.

Aunt Reta, left, celebrated her 40th anniversary on Saturday by sending my uncle off on a camping trip and putting her feet up at home. He would only be gone for the day so I told her she should tell him not to wear himself out because she'd be waiting, in her best negligee, for his return. She laughed and said, "That'd be the day!"

The photo above was taken just before she left Wadena on her way back to Phoenix a couple weeks ago. I had picked her up at Grandma's and brought her home with me to spend the night.

Emil and I went to town this afternoon and found Grandma laid out in her cool room.

"Want to go for a drive?" I asked.

"Mmm... not really," she said.

"I have to fill up the gas tank and buy some drinking water. Thought you might like to come along."

Her mind was easily changed. "I guess I could do that." She jumped right up.

When we got back, after a leisurely driving tour of the streets while eating Rolo ice cream on a stick, Emil crutched ahead of us across the small parking lot and Grandma wondered why we were "going here."

I told her, "You live here."

She didn't remember leaving from there, she said.

A handsome gentleman has moved in next door to her place, into Pearl's old room. While Grandma was unlocking her door I noticed his was open and there was new lino that had been recommended to Scott and me, so I meandered over to have a look and introduce myself. When Grandma got there he said oh yes, he knows her; he sits beside her most days.

The bird feeder stuck to Grandma's window is a busy place. I can't keep it full of seeds, having only stopped in once a week for the past while. A few weeks ago there were several baby birds in the little tree right outside her window, and their parents were still busy feeding them although they weren't in a nest. I couldn't get much of a picture unfortunately.

Uncle Neil told Reta he'd seen a wren feeding one of its young, only it wasn't a wren baby, it was the hatchling of a cowbird (they will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds), which is much larger than a wren. The little wren was having to jump up and hover in the air in order to get food into the much larger hatchling's mouth.

***

The swathers and combines are out in the fields, which have turned to gold. Emil and I went over to the other place on our way home. He walked around the farmyard while I set the sprinkler to run for an hour on my flowers. Before leaving he remarked how good it smells over there. Though he couldn't specify what had the scent he likes, my guess is that it's the ripened or cut crops. It's drying leaves — I saw the first ones hit the ground outside the kitchen window on Saturday. It's fall.

Among the items I inherited after Mom's passing are these little black shoes, size 6. If I want them to last, I can't wear them every day or on my walks, which tend to be long compared to how much Mom walking Mom did. They'll be worn through in no time, and I don't want that to happen so I limit their time on my feet.

I’m at the computer and Everett says, “I wish I was you sometimes.”
Me, “Why?”
Him, “Because you’re always happy when you’re working.”

Here's Camp Easter Seal's main building at Manitou Beach

and here's Emil walking to the van with his camp counsellor when we picked him up on Tuesday

Everett sat in this chair yesterday as I lounged on the loveseat, and gave me a performance. It was a series of every goofy thing he can do, which lasted quite a long time and resulted in me a giggling pile of mush for a while.

He can rub his front teeth with his finger to make an unusual noise.
He can make endless strange noises with his mouth.
He can bend his fingers back very far, forming a large arc.
He can make fart sounds with his hands and with his armpit and with his leg and with his ears.
He can make his nostrils open wide.
Make his eyebrows wiggle, one at a time.
Make a pen look like it's soft and pliable, as if he's bending it.
Make his left thumb undulate.
Crack his fingers and toes.
He can move his hair on his scalp as if it's a wig.
He can speak while inhaling.
He can wiggle his chin and waggle his teeth.
He can taste air. (He smells nothing, but can taste air. Huh?)

Lest ye think these aren't feats, try a few of them yourself.
This was only a partial list. He "entertained" me for a good 15 minutes, if not longer.

I should hire him out for children's birthday parties.

~ there is a great blue heron standing in the water behind the horse; sorry, no skunk ~

CBC News
After encountering a skunk with a paper cup over his head, Saskatoon police came out smelling like a rose.

Several officers found the skunk at around 2 a.m. Wednesday while they were on patrol on the west side of the city.

The nocturnal mammal was running around in circles on Avenue Q South, paper cup lodged firmly on his head.

"It stuck its head through the opening in the plastic lid for the straw and couldn't get its head back out," Staff Sgt. Wayne Walker said.

The officers wanted to help but were careful, Walker said.

"One member tried the get the cup off the skunk's head with his expandable baton, and he tried to knock it off but he wasn't too successful," Walker sad. "He ended up retreating quite a few times."

Finally, one of the officers was able to get close enough to reach in and pull the cup off.

The skunk quickly ran away, making no attempt to spray anyone, Walker said.

~ mural across street from coffee shop ~

Seven-year-old Rebecca comes over while Cathy Ritchie is here this weekend, and says "Kathy! All your friends are named Kathy!"

I tell her that yes indeed, if your name is not Kathy you are no friend of mine.

The photo below was taken in Regina last week when Scott and I met Cathy Bell for a coffee in the afternoon.

Cathy is the young chick on the right.

Scott has been doing a lot of shingling in town. His cousin Perry, on the right, works with him most of the time. They are often mistaken for each other by people who, as Scott says, "should know better."

I'm washing the sheets on Emil's bed and about to start dusting and spit-shining for Cathy's imminent arrival. Not that she cares, she insists, but her home is so spic and span that I am quite sure she will be as appalled, when entering my home, as I have upon occasion been upon setting foot into some dwellings. I'm no housekeeper, except for the kitchen on my good days, so if you see me not wanting to take my shoes off to enter your kitchen, you know a place is dirty. Not just messy: dirty.

Our plan was to spend tonight and tomorrow night at the lake in a lovely little cabin on the water. When the plan fell through two days before our gals-getaway, I immediately called Cathy in case she'd prefer to postpone her trip to a later date instead. But she was already looking forward to our visit, she said, and it doesn't matter where we are. So we will squeeze her in here, which is not so tough because Emil has been at Camp Easter Seal since Thursday. She can have the boys' room. Everett has been sleeping on one of the couches in the basement for many months already, so she will have the bedroom to herself.

Everett will have the basement to call his own at the other house, Emil will have his own bedroom, and there will be an extra bed somewhere with Cathy's name on it. She hasn't been out here for years though, it seems to me.

***Shelly, your tomato plants are flowering but not fruiting yet. My romas are forming. With some hired help I got caught up with the weeds and now the garden looks decent. There are piles of weeds to be moved and burnt still; they're unsightly but I only have eyes for the flowers and hardly notice them.***