Last Days of Summer

The last days of Summer are upon us.   School is starting in most states, some North Dakota schools started this week.  Minnesota public schools do not start until after Labor Day.  

 This little girl with her sparkly shoes on the wrong feet started her Senior Year...hard to believe that she is old enough to be a Senior in High School.  The photo was taken a long time ago. 

Minnesota Weather: High 83F or 29C Low was 64F or 18C eh.  AND it was very humid. 

Supper was pizza, I declared it a day off of cooking after I picked up groceries in town. 

The lawn is turning brownish in full sun areas...August is upon us. 

Far Side

and so it goes

 One summer day after another.  We learned of two deaths over the weekend.  One was a Lung Transplant survivor for a number of years...her donor gave her many health issues...she spent much of last year in the hospital. She finally lost her battle or won...which ever way to look at the situation. She was such a wonderful support person to anyone on the Lung Transplant List...as she was to us when Far Guy was part of that process. 

The other death a neighbor lady.   So sad. 

Yet the Summer heat rolls on for a couple more days.  The skeeters bite and the bear visits the yard every night looking for bird seed. (Far Guy brings it in every night. )

My knee is better but not perfect.  

  

Far Side

Fields

Last evening we took a ride around “the block” to see what was happening in the fields.

We had a late afternoon nap because of the rain…yet another inch plus that will make our grass grow.  Soon we should be coming into the dry part of summer.

 

A bean field…two deer were way way out there feasting.

Irrigators working real hard even though it just rained and low areas of the field are filled with water which become mosquito breeding areas.

Hay field with deer and no irrigation.

Corn field no irrigation.

Irrigation again on a small grain of some sort field.   The grain looks like it is getting close to harvest.

We saw seven deer on our little trip around the block.  Chance enjoyed the outing. During the summer he rarely goes with us during the day because it is too warm.  Evening rides are his outing.

Quiet roads and a big splash

The traffic out and away from our home is horrible.  People passing in no passing zones, even trucks passing two vehicles at one time.  It is crazy, does the whole world have a death wish or what?  Lots of tourists…in another two weeks they will be heading home.

We prefer our quiet country road.

Don’t get me wrong, we do have traffic.

It is just a different kind of traffic….hit and miss.

We have been woodcarving Christmas Ornaments just about every day, the patio looks like a woodshop.  We are nearing the end of the carving.  We have 70 ready to paint and 3 painted.  I will attempt to paint a few this week to send home with visiting relatives.

Chance is a bit better for the moment, he sleeps most of the time but attempted the stairs all by himself yesterday.  Taking the Vets advice I took him swimming, I slipped on the slime covered concrete pads at the boat landing …I made a big splash…it was a warm day so I was much cooler. Far Guy did not laugh but I am certain he felt like it. Chance just looked at me like “Wow… you want me to do that?” We wandered around in the water…swimming is just not his thing. Luckily the water cushioned my fall so I was not injured. 

Evening Drive

Sunday evenings ride gave us a deer count of five.   Most of those deer were in the pea field down the road a bit.  Steve grows peas to feed to his hogs.  The peas were beaten down by winds last week…last year the deer were belly high in the peas.

  They were pretty hungry.

Last week the corporate farmers combined the pea field right across from our driveway.

We are glad that dusty mess is over with.  The wind was out of the west that day and blew that dust right at us.

Last night the Canada Geese were homesteading on that pea field.

Apparently they left some peas behind for the geese.  I didn’t know geese ate peas but they must like them too.

Sunset and the neighbors barn.

 

Shell Lake

A long time ago when I was a kid, on hot summer evenings our Mother would give into our pleas for a swim. Sometimes we would go to Shell Lake..to the bend in the road where there are less weeds or the small resort or over to Bob and Ruby's on the west side. Our Mother couldn't swim, so we were always told "Don't be going in over your head." There was no air conditioning back then, nights when there was no breeze made for a long miserable night.

We had a few warm days here..and several evenings we found our way to Shell Lake..to the bend in the road. Chance was the only swimmer, I certainly did enjoy splashing water at Chance and wading knee deep in the water. We were the only ones there..how times change..fifty years ago there would have been many kids swimming there. Sometimes there were so many that our Mother wouldn't stop, because she might lose one of us amongst all the swimmers...so we would go back home and have to be content with playing water games with the water hose...not nearly as much fun as swimming.

There are quite a few places for sale over there, some of them need a lot of work.. I asked Far Guy if he would like to live there.."Nope" he has no need for a lake..he doesn't fish, swim or even wade in the water..and looking at water doesn't relax him a bit. I like to wade in the water, and I like to just sit on the edge of a dock and put my feet in the water and look out over the lake..I find it very relaxing.

Great Blue Heron, the heavy vegetative patch out in the water is Wild Rice.

Shell Lake is much the same as it was fifty years ago..there are a few more reeds.. Wild Rice still grows there. There was more garbage on the shores of the lake, there were no boats out on the lake..no fishermen in sight. One evening there were a number of "fisherman" in the waterway down under the road with bows and arrows..shooting fish..seemed pretty strange to me:)