We've got eggs!

How exciting; our first egg arrived yesterday morning, and another came this afternoon. If they produce like expected, we'll soon have 6 per day X 7 days; well...you do the math. And a couple days ago we ate the first of our own tomatoes. The plants are now full of fruit, and I decided not to clean out the undergrowth around them as I think it's keeping critters away. We'll see. Actually, we've had two other ripened tomatoes - pear shaped - both of which had some kind of blight on the underside. The chickens loved them; as they do nearly anything brightly colored.

We've been laying low since Manako left. This heat and humidity just wipes me out and I don't appreciate having my face dripping and my hair looking as though I've shampooed and didn't dry it fully. The Oyen curse: face sweating.

Bob is "cooking" at the Augusta County Fair this week for the Churchville Steam Club - that's not the correct name, but they collect and play with old tractors. He smoked pork on Sunday and is doing chicken on site this evening, along with corn on the cob. He called me about an hour ago saying "the noise is driving me nuts." This afternoon they've had motocross (hundreds of 'em) on the nearby track and he said "Alice's husband wears 3 hearing aids; I was ready to ask if I could borrow a couple so I could turn them off." What a sense of humor this man has.

This morning when I got up around 6:15, on going outside I said "this is an August morning." The sky, and it isn't even the sky so much as the air around us was that sort of peachy shade - one I long ago observed as being part of later summer in Minnesota. For me this has always denoted a coming change of seasons, that of summer to fall, one which makes me feel very melancholy as we get into October and as autumn approaches. Those of you in the colder climates must understand that we have summer here until late October, and autumn almost to Christmas.

Next week Bob begins his regime in readying for the full knee replacement on 9/19; i.e., vitamins and exercises. We've both been pleased that the cortisone shot has held up so well and allowed him to enjoy walking about this summer.