Reed Ranch- Cute & Tasty

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.