Farm Happenings

1. I am no longer a biker dude. I really enjoyed riding my motorcycle. That is if it wasn't too hot, too cold, raining, looked like it might rain, if I wasn't going to get home after dark, didn't have anything to take with me or pick up along the way, and the list goes on. I had fun going on rides with my dad and when Mari would ride on it with me but I just couldn't justify keeping it any longer with how little I used it. The best part is now I can drop the $50/month insurance I had on it.



2. We have a four wheeler now! I had given word to Marshall that I was looking for an ATV and wouldn't you know it but he traded in four of them that weekend. I went down and took a look at them and picked one out. We struck up a deal and I traded in my motorcycle for it. It's a 400cc yamaha kodiak with 4wd and an automatic transmission. So far I've been able to put it through anything; mud, the creek, over logs and small trees. Mari has even been using it to take Belmont on walks. He actually really enjoys his walks. I think I would prefer walking behind an ATV with a person on it than having the person on my back also. It's not very pretty but it runs good and gets the job done. I don't have a picture of it yet, but here's Michael going through the mud in his four wheeler.



3. Last weekend I took the ATV out with a friend to hang up a tree stand for dear season. Some where in our journey I came across some poison ivy. I think odds are pretty good I've run across the stuff before but in all my years of tromping through the woods I have never had a reaction to it. This time was different, unfortunately. I've got it pretty bad on my left arm and it seemed to be spreading. I finally got a prescription for some steriods and a couple of different topical meds to keep the itching down. I have been puzzled for the past week as to how I could have suddenly become reactive to this stuff until Mari pointed out that I had about a three inch scrape across my left arm right at the center of where I got it the worst. Her theory is that I must have gotten the stuff in my blood stream which explains a lot. I was relieved also because hopefully that means I still have a resistance to it if it just gets on my skin.

4. I've only got two more weeks left in the summer semester. So far it looks like I'll have three A's and a B or C in my mechanics of solids class(that guy is a tough grader). Mari has been doing great in my art appreciation online class. Thanks Honey!

5. No more on call for Mari for a while! Mari was on call the weekend of the 4th and that was supposed to be her last weekend until after she comes back to work after having Lilly. But, she was still expected to take on call during weekdays when it was her turn. Well, her boss, who has been really nice during this whole pregnancy thing told her that she was off the hook for all on call until after she returns to work. That gives her about two months of freedom.

6. I haven't had a soda in a week. The sad thing is I've been having cravings like withdrawal symptoms. I've been trying to get in shape for our insane family ritual of the marine corp mudrun. I haven't ran in it in a few years but someone in our family has every year for the past 4 or 5 years. I've been running a little each week, I usually run for about 20 to 25 minutes twice a week. However the mud run is 4 miles so I've got some more work to do.

7. Somebody very close to me has a birthday coming up very soon, like next week. Yep it's me. Even I keep forgetting about it with everything that's going on. People keep asking me what I want to do. With everyone being so busy these days I know it's hard for people to make time to do things. If I had to choose I'd rather have my family be able to make it the hospital for Lilly's birth than to make a day to do stuff with me for my birthday. (My arm is itching again, gotta apply my lotion. That's better.)

8. Things were getting a little backed up at the bike shop and when a 'special' project' came along Marshall called and asked me to come in and take care of it. It entailed installing a trike kit on a 1986 Honda Gullwing. I've done one of these kits before but it was on a sportster. I expected the job to only last 4 hours or so but it ended up taking all day, almost 8 hours. It was a little more difficult to put it on the Honda and kept running into one snag after another. The worst part was that Mari had scheduled a tour for us at the Montesorri School in the afternoon and I missed it.

9. We are very excited about the Montesorri School! They're opening a new infant care section for the school here in Camden. I have been hearing nothing but good things about the school from everyone I've talked to including complete strangers. I didn't know anything about this school until Mari and I showed up one day and they gave us a quick tour. The infant section wasn't finished yet but we got to see the toddlers and middle schoolers. We got there at the end of the day on the last day of school. Imagine 10 or 12 children in the 5 to 7 age group cleaning a classroom. Some are sweeping, some are putting away toys or learning tools, and some are wiping down the white erase boards and they don't all have grown-ups standing over them telling them how to do it. I was speechless. I can't wait until our little house cleaner gets here. The class sizes are very small so that all the students are given a lot of attention and they do a lot of hands on learning rather than just book work. They are only accepting 6 infants so we have been bugging them for two months or so to get across to them how interested we were until they started accepting applications. It paid off because Lilly is in. As a side note we were actually surprised that it didn't cost more to enroll her, regular day care is about the same price.