new kind of bird bath hehe

Walking around the yard Sid and I saw this old direct TV dish full of water. Looks like a great bird bath to me.

Clear cutting the forest

We are getting a change in scenery here. Steve cut these trees down Saturday and it looks really strange to look out our window and see the street and the neighbors.

This morning Sid went out and cut some more down. There won't be any more trees for the snow to break this winter.

As the limbs are being cut off the trunks Zane and Noah loaded them up in this dumpster. We will have it here a month so it should get pretty full.

Harvest

I know this doesn't look like much but, I pick beans about every other day, same with the squash, tomatoes and cucumbers. This is the first picking of the green peppers and there is twice this many left.

I went out with a little box and came back in with my shirt front filled with green peppers and the box filled. I had given Sid 12 different kinds of muffins for father's day and they came in this beautiful basket. When Sid saw the pickings of today he went and got the basket to display our produce.

Baxter's birthday

Baxter's birthday cake. Trudy does such a great job making cakes. This one was soooo good.

This is a picture of Trudy's kitchen with everyone eating their ice cream and cake enjoying each others company.

Stevie's Sunflower

The other day I was out watching Noah swim in the pool. He was having lots of fun as you will see later .

I turned around to see this yellow bird on Stevie's sunflower. This sunflower came up volunteer this year and she was really excited about it.
From the looks of it the birds have been here before today eating the seeds. I thought it was neat to be able to catch one actually getting the seed out.

Noah loves to jump into the pool making great splashes. I didn't take a very good picture before of him so he wanted some more taken. I did a better job and he jumped better knowing the camera was on him.

Another letter from Connie's son Will

Hey Everybody!

The week has been wet. It has now rained for a week and a half straight!
Luckily we only got caught out in it twice. The second time was a doosey
though. It was crazy. We had walked pretty far down this road out in the
country and were pretty far away from the car and didn't think to bring the
umbrellas for some dumb reason. And we could see some very dark clouds in
the distance and it started to do the weird mist/light sprinkle thing it
does here in New England. So we stopped and I prayed that we could have a
breeze or something to move the storm around us so that we could talk to
those and finish what we needed to do on that road at that time. And no
kidding pretty much right after that a pretty good breeze came up from
behind us and the sprinkling stopped! So we kept working and the clouds
started to cirlce around to the left and when we reached the last house we
could see on the road, cuz it was pretty booney, the thunder started to
roll. There was an older gentleman working out side in his yard and we
started to talk to him about the Plan of Salvation cuz he was telling us how
his wife had passed away a couple years previous. He was telling how he
almost just felt like giving up sometimes. By that point the thunder was
pretty crazy and it started to rain. We were hoping that he might invite us
in but he just started heading for the house. We ran across the street and
thought about taking cover under the trees but knew that would only last for
so long. So we started for the car. Then the rain started coming down in
sheets and the wind was coming the opposite direction than it was so it was
on our backs again, and the rain was cold. We tried running with the wind
but it didn't help much, just got mud up our backs. Other than getting
soaked it was amazing! And you could almost feel the thunder. I know that
the last man we talked to on that street is sensitive to the gospel and I
look forward to the time when we can go back and share more whith him.
The car in this area is pretty famous. It's been through all sorts of stuff,
but the best is that it was actually struck by lightening! I always thought
that cars were safe. So last year they had a really bad storm so the Elders
took refuge in someone's home and heard this way loud crack. When they went
back out to the car it was filled with black smoke and every thing inside
was pretty much fried and most the dash was melted. How crazy is that, and
you think they would've totled the car but they fixed it. So we were pretty
happy to see we still had a car when we finally got back to it.
But now I have some very wet shoes so I've had to resort back to the boots,
which it's way too hot for. Hopefully they dry out soon.
Other than the rain the week has been good though. Peter Ballard is getting
baptized next week, which we're pretty excited for. Especailly since he's
been investigating the church off and on for like 10 years now! So that'll
be way cool, and he was meeting with the Jehova Witnesses as well but
decided that he didn't feel comfortable with the things they were teaching
him.
Oh yeah, how could I forget! Yesterday, later in the evening, we were out
tracting on this dirt road out in the boonies and we saw a bear! It was just
walking down the middle of the road, a pretty good size black bear. And it
was mayde 20-30 yards away. I got some pictures before it ran off into the
woods. Elder Williams thought it was going to eat us. It turned and checked
us out for a second then took off. :) How sick is that!
And today we're going to help some less-active members of the ward on their
organic farm. Every other Monday they kill chickens. Elder Williams has
never done anything like that before so he's pretty excited. So we'll see
how that goes.
We also started teaching the lessons to another less-active that we found.
He's pretty awesome, and we're pretty sure that we're going to be able to
help him come back to church. He actually asked us for a reading assignment
at the end of the lesson. That never happens; if only all our investigaors
were like that:)
Well I'm out of time but I hope you all had a good 4th of July. Love Ya!

Love Elder William Campbell :)

Early Morning Hours

Usually Sid goes to bed before I do and then gets up early. The last two mornings have been reversed. I haven't been able to sleep past 5:00 am so this morning I decided to see what the sunrise looked like. This is a little after 5 am

This is about 30 minutes later. The birds were all up and singing their hearts out. It was cool and the air was clean. Just a great morning. The colors aren't as bright as some mornings but still beautiful to me.

What I like about the summer

I love to garden in the summer, not necessarily weeding but watching the produce grow, and then being able to harvest and eat what we have been growing.

These are the first beans I picked. I picked them this morning. They are bush beans. The pole beans are still just blooming.

We have picked a few cucumbers in the last couple of weeks, I still have three or four this size waiting to be picked. Nothing like cucumbers in vinegar or in sour cream.

While in Oregon this spring I bought a new kind of watermelon while we were at the Chinese gardens. They are putting on pretty good now. You really can't see them very good, but they are loaded with fruit and blossoms. I always like to try something new every year.

I planted the corn in different stages because of the squirrels, this is my tallest corn.

Then comes my first tomatoes that I planted this spring. We have been eating wonderful tomatoes. We had a run on ripe tomatoes from the blossoms that were on when we bought the plants, now we have to wait for the rest, but they are starting to show color. Oh BLT's.

This short corn we just planted a few weeks ago.

The green peppers are doing great!!!!

Here is a picture of our pole beans. Some are growing taller than our web.

This is another crop I can hardly wait for Sweet Potatoes. Hopefully they will cover the ground and no more weeding for awhile.

Another crop of corn. This one I went out and stood back up after a windy rainy storm.

Another thing I love about summer here is our butterfly bush. You can't see but usually it is loaded with butterflies. All I had to do was take out my camera and they disappeared. I did get one or two pictures though.

I love the trees and flowers here in Maryland also. I just can't tell where I'm at because of all the trees. No mountains to gage where I'm at or no straight roads if I turn wrong.

Oh what do you do in the Summertime???? Have Fun!!!!!!

Justin's 23rd Birthday

Hasn't Justin turned into a handsome young man? I can't believe that 23 years ago Tina called us up and called me Grandma, just the night before when we were talking on the phone she was going to work today (23 years ago).
Tina invited the Bainters and us up for a birthday dinner for Justin. Beef brisket, her delicious chicken salad, fresh fruit, cake and ice cream. All very good!!!!! Everything that Justin wanted, just the way he wanted it.

Elephant ear

Since Trudy blogged this already I thought I would show her elephant's ear with Sid's hand in the picture. I can't believe how wonderful this plant is doing. It just keeps growing and putting out new starts.