She likes to be held

I finally broke down and used the timer on the camera to take a picture of me with Taylor. It seems I don't think about wanting a picture with her until no one is around. We were at the pool for a birthday party and Taylor and I were just hanging out in the grass.

She must be comfy with Grandma.

Random...

I thought I would post some random Taylor pictures. Just some shots that I like.

I have proof!

In the event that someday Ryley decides that Taylor isn't all that
cool... I have proof that once upon a time he really liked her.

As much as he wanted a brother... he seems to be okay with having a
sister. I often catch him doing things like this with her...

Child labor?

Really. He doesn't mow the lawn yet. An executive decision was made to let him putz around the yard on the lawn mower. He had fun, and Todd got to take pictures. It was a win win situation for everyone apparently. I'm sure the day will come when he hates the lawn mower.

Just looking at this picture... I see so many things to comment on. Yes, that's a mound of ashes in the yard. It would appear that we are redneck enough to have a bonfire in the yard, but really, you're allowed to burn things like slash and weeds here. That is a little barn like shed on the left. It is badly run down but may eventually be a fort / playhouse for the kids. It just needs some work and no... there is no earthly reason for a mailbox in front of it. We have no idea what that's about.

This does give you an interesting look at the east side of our property. That is the neighbor's house. They've been remodeling it, hence the enormous roll off dumpster you see here. The dumpster is actually gone and the house is almost done now. It's almost like a Mexican villa sort of house.

And really I posted that picture so that I could now brag about my gardening skills a little.

Here's what happened to that piece of dirt you see behind Rye.

Ryley has to be in a lot of pictures. He sees the camera and assumes you're taking his picture. He is awfully cute though.

Anyway, this garden was something of an experiment this year. We moved in at Easter while I was very pregnant and didn't have a lot of time / energy to devote to the project. At any rate, it came out pretty good. We did corn (duh), lettuce, cucumbers, green beans, sweet peas, carrots, onions, pumpkin, and watermelon this year. I had to actually pull 4 pumpkin plants out as I had no idea how they grew. They were taking over the garden. We now have 5 actual pumpkins and 3 watermelons going. I will probably have to give away a ton of cucumbers as I had no idea how they grew either. I'll end up pickling the mass amounts of green beans I ended up with. The sweet peas were actually a vine variety so they didn't go quite so well but we enjoyed being able to nibble on them as we weeded the garden. The lettuce, carrots, and onions were perfect. So now that we know what we're doing, the garden will double in size next year and we'll add some other things like tomato, peppers, celery, and berries maybe. It's kind of nice to spend $10 on seeds and have fresh produce at your fingertips. If I could figure out how to construct a greenhouse I might actually try to do something all year long.

What it looks like around here

I said we were surrounded by corn earlier and that's only partly true.
We are in farmland and a lot of the surrounding acreage is corn but they grow beans, sugar beets, and sunflowers around us too.

We do have a neighbor directly to the east of us. We literally live 50
yards apart but no one lives there. Yet.

I thought I'd just show you what we are literally surrounded by.

To the south

To the west

And to the north

Yes, his tractor is sexy.

Hard at work?

I wonder if this qualifies as research and development.

I live in Mayberry

People tend to ask me what it's like to live in a small farming community and most of the time I just say "it's nice" but I finally have an example of what it's really like.

On Wednesday I picked up my mail at the post office and I had a letter from the Court Clerk. It basically stated that they hadn't received my jury summons questionnaire back and that they would need it back before my scheduled court time on Monday morning.

WHAT?!?!?

This letter had actually been forwarded from my old address. When we moved here we lived in town but now we live in the country and have a PO Box. So, I got this second letter but never received the original summons and I was expected to be in court on Monday morning.

There was a phone number so I called and talked to the lovely Court Clerk who was extremely friendly. She needed this questionnaire back as soon as possible.

Wouldn't you know it... she had an appointment in town, she just brought that questionnaire by my office and had me fill it out that afternoon.

Now I don't know about you but I was a bit flabbergasted that a county official would personally bring me something like that. I realize she needed it filled out so she took the initiative but I couldn't help but think it just wouldn't happen that way in many other places.

And that's what it's like around here.

FYI - Breastfeeding mothers get out of jury duty in case anyone needs an excuse and has a doctor that will send a note. I'm sure that's not a rule specific to my location. I wouldn't have even known if she hadn't suggested meeting me on my lunch hour and I had to explain that I went and nursed Taylor on my lunch hours.

"Oh really, you can't be on a jury right now anyway! Nope, that's more important. You just need to check off the medical question. I'll stop by after my appointment"