Mr. Raccoon is at it again, last night he was up on the porch just after Asa and Sarah took of for the drive in. Just before they left Asa B set the live catch trap, turned around and Sparkles the cat got caught in it. So he set her free, reset the trap, and headed to the car and bang, Salem the kitten got caught in it before Asa and Sarah were out of the drive way. Cheryl did not know how to open it so she just let it sit there with the kitten in it, no harm done. When the raccoon showed up it was trying to get the kitten from the rattling and the kitten crying, so she chased the raccoon off the porch and brought the cage into the kitchen. Though we hopped otherwise, the raccoon came back and this time Cheryl sic’ ed Woody the dog on it. Woody ran off into the yard area barking and howling, but we have no indication that he caught the raccoon. So, for now Mr. Raccoon is still free and a still being a pain. He had opened up the birdseed, the turkey seed, and most of the other containers on the porch creating quite a mess. What a pain raccoons are.
Love to all,
--Asa Reed Jr.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Pancakes anyone? Well the girls and I make breakfast a lot of times and they know how to make them by now, Addisson can almost receipt the scratch receipt, not bad for a 4 year old. So they know that you can make them a lot of ways, their favorite being blueberries by a large margin. Well this weekend, they had a small supply of gummy bears, gummy worms, and gummy lobsters thanks to Grandpap Reed. (Grandma Taylor had supplied them both with little plastic tweezers to pick up their gummy bears, there is a little light in the tweezers, so when you squeeze the gummy bears they light up and the shine, even when you put them into your mouth, the girls loved these tweezers.) So they took the next step and wanted to try t he gummy bears in pancakes. Not a good idea. We tried on gummy worm and one gummy lobster in the pancakes and they melted completely and then fried on our griddle and what a mess Grandpap had to clean up!
The girls and Grandpap in the midst of the real work spend a couple of hours in the hay barn putting together the swing set. Since the work was going way too slow for a 4 and 2 year old, they asked if I would hold the two person swing while they tried it out. Whoa!!! Grandpap can hardly lift the swing let alone hold it with my two favorite granddaughters on it. So, I told them no. Addisson then asked it I could temporarly put it up like I had put the single swings up? This was a lot more doable, so we took a couple of minutes and a couple of pieces of rope and hung it from the rafters. The girls loved it and spent their free t ime, when they were not helping mark, drill holes, and screwing screws for the next couple of hours riding the swing. And this was not a casual swinging time, they put a lot of gusto into this. Little Quinlyn had to literally stand on her feet most of the time to keep up with Addisson and they both were flying, shaking the rafters of the whole hay barn. Well, but the time we quite, Grandpap was in trouble again. Addisson had sore arms and Quinlyn actually had blisters on her little hands!!!! Today, Sarah has identified blisters on Addissonæ¯ hands also, Grandpap clearly worked these little farm girls too hard.
That night we all went down to the pond for a hotdog roast. What is a picnoc without a little fishing at the pond, Asa B and the girls caught a couple of cat fish immediately and the girls helped me clean the fish and put them on the grill, so besides the hot dogs we had 3 nice catfish for dinner. Quite a nice day, gentle wind and temperatures in the 60s it was nice.
Love to all,
--Asa Reed Jr.
June 19, 2007
This weekend was exciting, well at least very busy at the Reed Ranch.
On the way up t the ranch I saw a pilated woodpecker flying across Interstate 81 near the Sandy Creek exit, just south of Watertown, NY. Asa B had said he say one flying along the road down there earlier in the summer. This is the first time I have ever seen this woodpecker, very large and distinctive.
Cheryl was already there when I arrived, she had brought her mother up after the trip to the Sood’s place in Wisconsin. And then Aunt Midge decided to stop over, all the way from Vermont, to visit the family and Grandma Kistler, so all the beds were filled, Grandma Kistler slept with Cheryl as she needed a real bed, she has a lot of troubles getting up and down nowadays. I ended up on the couch or the lazy boy depending on the night, Aunt Midge took our upstairs study for her bedroom. So even in the ramshackle condition it is, the house is a happy house and lots of company comes our way.
Every trip to the Ranch I try to get a load of trash to the dump. This time it was another section of old fence that we had pulled out and cleaned up. Well as I got it rolled up and into the pickup along with the 7 or 8 garbage cans of trash and parts of the old chimney that we were getting rid of, I thought I will have to be careful that no one runs into those fence posts the way they were sticking out. As I walked around the truck to look at it Quinlyn followed me and Bang! She ran right into the old fence posts I had sticking out of the back end of the pickup. BANG! Poor Quinlyn had another ding on her little forehead. Then she started to cry and Grandpap felt as bad as she did. Grandpap is going to have to be a lot more careful when the little ones are following him around.
Before I left to drive back Sunday afternoon, I told Asa B that we had to have some fun stuff for everyone as well as the work or it was not worth all the work. So Asa B swam the width of the pond, trying it out for a swimming hole. He said he kicked bottom a lot, thus it might only be 2-3 feet deep in spots at that place location and somewhat muddy, over by the rocks it was about 5 feet deep or so. Also he hit a lot of things that moved in the water; there are a lot of big things living in the pond! The bullheads (catfish) he would not mind, but the snapping turtles are another matter!! And what else was there rubbing shoulders with my favorite son? So he might be reluc tant to try swimming again for awhile. We might want to clean it up a bit, by trapping some of the larger turtles and making sure there is no junk hidden under the water.
Of course there seems to be something to fix all the time. Besides the whole house of course. So early last week the dryer broke down, it was getting very old, but still I would rather have it continue to run. So Asa B tried to get it to run, and then when I got home on Friday I tried to fix the dryer, not even close, it gave no signs of life after I fiddled with it a while and I did not have that much time, so Asa B got us a new one, good and big, six cubic feet, on sale at Lowes and it is in and drying the clothes. Yea, Asa!!
Love to all,
--Asa Reed Jr.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Thursday June 15, 2007
In the evening after dinner Asa decided at a moments notice to go down to the pond and fish for a while. He had a rough day at work and needed to blow off steam. He took Addisson with him and they had a ball. They were down there until after dark. They had a fire and even dug their own worms. Addisson thought it was great. Once they had got back I was going to give Addisson a bath but she didn't want to have anything to do with me. She insisted she shower with Dad. She even wanted to everything he did. She went and pulled out her bath robe because he was using his. It was too cute. They had a great father/daughter time down at the pond. While they were down at the pond, Quinlyn and I had some great bonding time too. We snuggled, read books, played and giggled. It was very nice too.
Friday June 16, 2007
Great Grandma has been here since Tuesday and after one day she wanted to go home. It took a while to convince her but she decided to stay through the weekend. Some of her reasoning for leaving so early is because she was so cold. However it was 80 degrees in the house and more outside. After she finally got warmed up she was feeling better. She kept asking when Aunt Midge was coming up. We told her she couldn't make it. Well low and behold Aunt Midge surprised us all and arrived on Friday. She decided to come after all. This perked Great Grandma significantly. They played cards the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening until Great Grandma started to feel poorly. They did take a break for about an hour when we went up stairs to demo. Aunt Midge loves to tear down the walls. She even brought her own tools.
Grandpap also at the last minute decided to come up for the weekend. He left at about 3:30 am in the morning and arrive about 10:30 am. It took him about 7 hours to drive this time. This is the quickest time yet. The last few times he has been flying into Watertown. From the moment he arrived he was busy. Either with the girls, who were very excited to see him, or working on the dryer which broke a few days ago and we have been having to hang the clothes on the line. He also picked up fencing and rocks around the yard. It was great having him back at the farm.
