So much happening!

Goodness!

It's been a LONG time since I wrote!

Jim turned 30!

Kyle turned 27!

I'm still 36!

On the 31st Jim turned 30 and I made

his favorite birthday cake.

(But didn't take a picture...)

He LOVES Sondra's chocolate cherry cake.

I made TWO of them.

(Well 3...)

One 9x13 to take to the office for him to

share with all the car salesmen etc he works with.

An 8x8 to take home to share with Sabrina

and their friends.

And another 8x8 for us to keep.

They were yummy!

That weekend I ended up in Tampa,

substituting for another instructor

who had to make a quick trip to Italy

for his other job.

Poor guy.

LOL

Then on Thursday, we took a road trip up to the Gainesville area

to look at some land for Linda to buy.

It is BEAUTIFUL land!

158 acres of good, flat, green pasture land.

The 40 acres in the front are more wooded

and actually have a couple of little hills...

There is electricity there already.

And 6 wells.

It's all fenced.

There are currently cows on it,

but she isn't going to buy the cows.

They have horns.

We don't DO horns.

LOL.

Kyle's favorite thing are the hundreds of

wild blackberry bushes!

He was in berry heaven!

Ate a bunch!

(Look carefully, there are a million little black

berries in the top part of the picture...)

She is going to put in an offer on it today.

(Or yesterday... time flies...)

That was Thursday.

Of course we checked out the local area.

It is just outside of a little town called Bronson.

With a GREAT little diner called Julie's Diner.

(When our kids were small, the guilty party

was always "Julie". Who ate the last cookie?

JULIE!

Who left all the toys in the living room?

JULIE!

hahahahaha)

It is also about 20 minutes away from the big city

of Gainesville. A college town with a big 

agricultural department.

And a GREAT farm store!

Rod reminded me that Father's Day

was coming soon...

It's about a 3 hour drive from here.

The plan is that Linda will buy a trailer/mobile home

and Kyle will move up there and live on the 

property, changing some things,

building up a new herd for a cow/calf business

where they buy late bred heifers, keep the females

and take the males to auction.

(Always keeping a couple to raise up for beef

for the families...)

Maybe in 10 years or so, she might move up

there herself - but that isn't certain.

She has 5 children and some of them might

want to end up there.

But she really likes where she lives now.

(Like me!)

It does get pretty cold up there.

It freezes several times during the winter,

although they don't get snow.

Whenever there is a cold night,

Gainesville is always the coldest.

Anyhow.

That was Thursday.

Friday, Kyle and I drove up to New Smyrna

about a hour and a half up the coast,

to our little feed mill.

We only picked up half a load of feed

this time because last time all the feed

fermented. We didn't want to buy as much

as usual if they have changed their formula.

I talked to the guys and they said they always

change the formula in the winter because the

temps and humidity are lower so they don't

need to put as much preservative in the feed.

And then Mother Nature threw a curve ball

and summer arrived a month earlier than usual!

Caught them off guard. 

They were still on the winter formula.

But they are back to the summer stuff now

and everything should be fine.

Which means another trip up in a couple

of weeks to get a full load.

That was Friday.

Saturday was Kyle's birthday!

I made him his favorite birthday cake.

He doesn't like cake.

So for years and years I have drawn a chalk cake

on the patio for him.

LOL

We took everybody out to Olive Garden for 

a combined birthday celebration that night.

It was good to spend some time together,

visiting and catching up on everybody's lives.

Unfortunately the family at the next table

had a couple of REALLY loud and poorly

behaved children. For an hour and a half.

Good heavens!

But we managed to have a great time anyway.

LOL

Sunday found me giving a talk in church.

Centered around communication.

Something I'm obviously going to need

to keep working on!

Hahahahahahahaha

(How many blog posts do I have that start

out... I'm still alive... just busy!)

Then yesterday, Monday,

a momentous thing happened!

I got a text from Jim.

It said.

"Your boy just sold your other boy

his first CAR!"

The truck boy is now a CAR owner!

(He still has his truck, just bought this little beauty as well...)

It's a 2003 VW Golf.

Gets GREAT gas mileage, in really good shape,

and will be terrific for buzzing back and forth 

from the ranch. 

(Jim's GTI is the dark grey one parked next to it,

you can't really see it, but we are now a 

4 VW and 2 Ford truck family...)

Not much variety in our lot.

Looking forward to the week ahead,

Rod has an order of signs that need to go out

this week to the property owners in St Johns, AZ.

(We still have that land...)

I am heading to Orlando on Thursday to attend

a 4-day school where I will be teaching two more

instructors how to use the new eRoster system

and observing them as they teach.

(I should be teaching my West Palm Beach class

this weekend, but the boss got a sub for me

and then I'll finish up the class next weekend...)

My sub is bringing her kids up on Wednesday

to pick up the keys and see the farm and the animals.

They had to run to Orlando so this is just a quick

stop along the way.

Life is not slowing down.

Which is a good thing.

Keeps us busy.

Yesterday I washed all the floors in the house,

bought horse feed,

baked more German Pancake for Rod's breakfast,

did all the laundry,

mowed the back pasture,

as well as doing some grocery shopping

and running to the UPS place to ship back

the keys to the Tampa school.

My days are full.

And now I'd better get busy sending

emails to all the students for this weekend's 

class and welcome them, introduce Dominique

and give them directions to the place.

And I just noticed the horses are still

in their stalls. Better go let them out.

And the day begins.........

(well, continues...)