More snow

April 12. We watched as the sun tried to shine through a cloudy dawn and then little snow balls started falling. Burr, it's cold outside!

Gardening Workshops

What a weird day! It started out with snow, then the sun came out, then more clouds and snow.




This was the day of the Gardening Workshops and Mom and Carleen came up to go to them with me. We got some good information about seed starting and growing different kinds of gardens. Usually, most of the workshops are outside, but a few of them moved inside and we were so glad of that, it was a cold miserable day. We froze out at our last stop and left early, we were just too cold! Here's a picture of the cool light stand Patty made for her seed starts.

Spring blooms

John mentioned to me yesterday that there was a little tulip blooming out by the road. It's left over from long ago when the yard was arranged differently. The poor little thing never gets watered, but it keeps on blooming away. One day I'll remember to dig it up in the fall and replant it in a better place.

And more snow

It was quiet when we woke up this morning, so we knew it must be snowing and we were right, more snow. The good thing about snow this time of the year is that it doesn't stay around long. By midday, it had all melted away.

Wind and more wind!

We've gotten lots of wind and snow lately. The wind will howl for a day or two, then we hear the silence and we know it's going to be snowing when we look outside. Today was a day of wind, I caught this shot of the plastic covering my garden trying to blow away. Spring where are you? It's been such a cold spring so far.

Las Tusas

April 7. John worked a short day today and since it was a gorgeous day, we drove down to check up on the Las Tusas Cemetery after he got home. We got permission and materials from the State a couple years ago and fenced it and changed the drainage that was going to wash away graves and we wanted to check and see if water had inflicted any more damage. We found the wattles we'd placed in the drainage still there and the dirt was piling up against them and the diversion to the drainage up above the cemetery was still in place and there was no damage to the fence. All is well at Las Tusas tonight!

We went to St. Johns today so John could make some repairs on Mom's roof. We visited the courthouse while there so we could look at the historical photos on display. I copied a few of them, thought they were going to make me leave with my camera, but when John told them we just wanted to take pictures of pictures, he let us in with it. Boy have things changed, we had to go through a metal detector to get in and John had to leave his leatherman with the guard!


This is one of the photos we saw, St. Johns in 1911.

John's grasshopper

John is building a grasshopper! No, not the insect kind, this is a tool to help move big heavy pieces of steel.

Josh turns 12

Josh turned 12 day before yesterday and had a birthday party today. We were there along with other family and friends. Wow, how time has flown, Josh is growing up so fast!

Kerry Summers and a Blizzard!

Wow, what an adventure we had tonight! We've been hearing Mom talk about Kerry Summers for a year and a half now, she saw him on her New England cruise and became one of his biggest fans. Mom's wish came true tonight when Kerry performed in St. Johns. We braved the horrid wind and drove down to see the show and I'm so glad we went! We went early and got to meet and visit with Kerry before the show, he is such a nice person! The show was two parts, first he did magic tricks, he's a great magician and the kids totally loved this part! He invited several of the kids to come up and help him with tricks. He had us all laughing as his magic was inter-spiced with jokes. He also sang a couple of songs in the magic part, a Roy Orbison song and he played the trumpet and sang a Louie Armstrong song, that was so funny, he put a mask of Louie in front of his face while he sang. He also had puppets and is a good ventriloquist, he had a rabbit puppet and then a sock puppet that was so funny, he had a little girl in the audience come up and kiss the puppet and then said, did you realize you just kissed a sock? Too funny, then he had a guy in the audience come up, he said he couldn't get his big puppets on an airplane to bring with him, so he came up with a puppet face he put on people. It was so funny, the face was only the lower part, mouth and jaws and he had a string tied on and Kerry would pull the string to make him talk and sing. He did several songs, he was Roy Rogers and Willie Nelson and at times he'd ask the puppet if he wanted to sing another song and Larry would shake his head no while Kerry was saying yes I would for him. He had us all cracked up, it was so funny!

After the magic show we had a short intermission and then Kerry came back on as Elvis and sang several Elvis songs. He picked a person out of the audience to help with one song, said he could hear him singing along with him and wanted him to come up. He put an Elvis mask on him and told him to sing a part of the song, Kerry would sing, then stop for him to say "I'm all shook up" It was so funny, he got so into the part and was really hamming it up.

Like Elvis, Kerry had scarves he'd put around his neck and give out while he sang. And like on the cruise, he sang to Mom and gave her one and I got a pix of him kissing her on the cheek!


He acknowledged that she was instrumental in getting him to come to St. Johns. He made her feel like a queen and I could see why she likes him so much. We stayed after the concert and got autographs, I got one of his Elvis CD's and we visited again with Kerry and got a photo of all of us girls and Mom with him.

Then we had our second big adventure of the night. We left the auditorium and found a blizzard blowing! We dropped Mom and Carleen off and headed out for home. It was a white world and we could see only about 5 feet in front of us! Thankfully, the road was still clear and we navigated by the yellow and white lines on the road! Then as we got to Lyman, the road was white too and we had to feel our way by traveling along the rumble strip! Luckily, visibility got a bit better after that and the road went back to black. What is normally a 30 to 40 minute trip took us over an hour at about 35 mph!

John's horse

One of John's favorite things to sculpt are horses. They are also one of his most popular. This one has spent the winter in our yard and now his time with us is limited. One of the guys at work wants to buy him, so I went out and took a few pictures to remember him by. I love this guys face.

John's boat shelves

John loves sailing vessels and people have given him several models of boats. I put them on shelves for him after we remodeled and here they are.