This View From My Porch Reveals Someone's Coming For A Visit.

Look, Brother Ed just dropped in for a visit.

How about a cup of hot C?
I guess he's not staying long. He never was one for overstaying his welcome.

Blogstock '08

My good friend Ralph wrote me a while back with the idea of Blogstock '08. While I have no doubt that this will happen, we have yet to set a date. I'll be in the company of the Campbells in July for a very important wedding. I'm sure that the subject might come up and so we may have news for you after that, near the end of July.
The concept is well explained by Ralph but mostly means we would have a get together of bloggers here at the farm. I think if you read here regularly but don't comment you are still a blogger. (perhaps a lurkger or a blogker would be a good term) and eligible to be included. Besides, we have some local folks who read my blog and ask me things about you like "What's the deal with..." or "Is _____ blank out of her mind?" To which I have answers like "I don't know, maybe alcohol is involved," or "yes." Anyway, most would be included, we can simply throw the undesirables out on their 'bluts' (a blut is what a blogger sits on while typing. Okay I made that up) after they get here.
At any rate, we have spring, summer, or fall to choose from. Each has an up and a down side here in Nebraska. Winter will be ruled out by me as I plan on visiting you guys in the winter. Or at least the 'you guys' who occasionlly do things like play golf near your homes in January and February. I'm not that avid of a golfer, I'm just looking for that kind of weather.
If you have a season of preference for Blogstock 08, you can mention it to me. The date will be hard to set.
We'll cook and eat some dead plants and animals, visit, and generally have a really good time. I'll bake a cake. Oh yeah, you'll be able to take your own 'View From My Porch.'
Now, I have irrigation pipe to lay and a big riding lawnmower to reassemble. The latter is a long story but suffice it to say I should have loaded the thing on my trailer when it was still moving under it's own power and taken it to the dealer where parts are available. Little, tiny parts. Like gaskets, heads, hoses, valves, springs, bolts, nuts, and on and on. If my next blog is about me mowing the yard, it will be a miracle of Biblical proportions. It will likely be of me hooking three log chains onto a lawnmower and lifting it with my John Deere and loader onto a trailer and finding a JD dealer. I swear if they smile at me the wrong way they'll have a head gasket crosswise in a place they don't want a crosswise head gasket.

Picture by Marilyn Kay!

And now... Back to my Blog.

Etc.

>Having nothing worth blogging about, I've decided to do it anyway.
>I love really good fresh fruits and vegetables. About this time of year I begin to buy canteloupe and watermelon and patiently wait for the homegrown tomatoes, sweetcorn, green beans, peas, potatos, cucumbers, and on and on to become ready from the garden. I've hit paydirt on the last two watermelons and several canteloupe in a row. I should go to Vegas, I'm not usually this lucky.
I've heard it said there is no such thing as a mediocre pancake and the same holds true for all of the above. Nothing says 'loser' like paying $3.50 for a watermelon just to bring it home, take one bite and throw it on the compost pile. No not the compost pile on this desk, the one behind the garage.
>When you drink milk....where does the 'white' go?
>I saw a gal by the name of Megan Fox on the Jimmie Kimmel show last night. She is starring in a new movie about Trans Formers or something like that. She told him her little sister was much better looking than she. Nope. Not buying that one. Denny Crane would have turned red faced and calmly said, "stunning." I know I did.
>We are going to feel picked on coming up this weekend. It's supposed to get up into the 90's three days in a row. It's time to cut the hay. Saturday morning is the date.
>I'm going to a fundraising golf outing tomorrow for...ahem....a democrat, lets not breathe a word of this to anyone.
I was ready to post this and hit spellcheck. It didn't find anything wrong. Apparently it's not any smarter than I am.

A View From The Porch

This 'View From the Porch' is brought to you by Marilyn. I wanted a sunrise picture and the sun comes up about 5:30 AM around these here parts. So I had Marilyn take it. My thinking was that there's no use of both of us missing sleep for my blog.
I had to 'lighten' the exposure to even be able to see the machine shed. That little tree in our front yard indicates that we've had some mighty strong south winds as of late.




This pic is of our Grandson hitting a ball in his 'coach pitch' league. About half of the players in the league are girls.
I'm showing you this for other reasons. If you'll examine the first baseline it shows one of the following:
1. Alcohol was involved.
2.Coaches should ask at least a few questions of the volunteers. As a for instance, "Have you ever done this before?"
3.Whomever put the line in, didn't see the 'foul trash can.'
4. Someone said, "A Line?" "Nah, I can do a good job without bothering with stretching a line."
5.There'll be no need to worry about a fair ball hitting one of those pesky bases. They're out of bounds on this field.
6.The hitter has a head start toward second base or the Dairy Queen. They're both west of here.
7. And finally the truth. The gal that did it was having a great deal of trouble with the machine and was too busy to worry about 'direction.' She took the good natured ribbing quite well.

Etc

We went to a reception in Lincoln on Sunday. It was within walking distance of two of our Granddaughters. We had taken our Grandson with us. This is as organized as it got.

This is our other Granddaughter. She's "gonna be six." She is engaging. She will walk into a room full of strangers searching faces. If you will smile at her she will come talk to you. A real people person.

She can barely stand to sit down before church because there is always one more of us elderly types she needs to visit with.

She is a really good singer and can hit any note Mariah Carey can hit.

You can make her smile and laugh, while she is crying.

She is sneaky to a fault. She will always figure out how to get her way. (I suppose the above line could have been said by saying she is a female.) I've always said she could be dropped off in a jungle by herself and you could come back 10 years later and she would still be okay but the animals would all be under her command.

She taught herself to ride a bike about six months ago.

And the reason for this post...yesterday was the day her first baby tooth came out. She said "Look Grandma, I have a loose tooth." Grandma said it looks pretty loose you should just pull it out. Now in all of my 57 years, I have seen a lot of loose baby teeth and not one child including me, would reach in and pull one out. Until now. Without hesitation, she reached in and popped it out. "See" she said as she proudly smiled and displayed it for Grandma.

No Matter How Important You Think You Are...

Jerry's recent post about his visit to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Indiana reminded me of a personal experience.
The small counties in this area are serviced one day a week by the DMV from the State of Nebraska. As long as I can remember they have taken up residence in our courthouse every Tuesday. They still do that. At the time of this story there were two men who had been license examiners for quite some time. At the same time I was driving a school bus for our local school and getting my Class A CDL to drive a split vehicle. (tractor/trailer) If you know anything about that then you already know that I had developed a close personal relationship with the examiners. I didn't know their names but we knew each other by sight well enough to be able to fake knowing each others names.
During one of my visits I had been disappointed by a remark that one of them had made. An elderly person had been trying get his license renewed ahead of time but had come in 60 days early. The examiner was very terse with the man and in a very sarcastic tone told him to "read right here on your letter" that you need to come in 30 days or less before your birthday. The old man shuffled out and the examiner looked at me and said "*@!*@* old people". My view of that man changed forever right there. I was thinking that someday, if he was lucky, he too might get old.
Now fast forward to the story. I was seated in the DMV room a few weeks later taking one of the myriad of tests involved with trying to learn how to be one of those *@!@* truck drivers. As I recall it was the test to get my Haz-Mat endorcement on my license.
As I was beginning the test the phone rang and whomever was on the other end of the line was obviously mad and having his way verbally with the examiner. There were a lot of lines like, "Yes sir" "No sir" "No I didn't realize I came across like that sir" "No it won't happen again sir".
After about 5 minutes the conversation had ended. While hanging up the phone he turned to the other examiner and asked, "Did you think we were rude to the lady who was in here about a half hour ago?" The other examiner said "I don't think so...Why, who was that on the phone?" The answer fully restored my faith in government on the state level. He said "That was the Governor."

Visitors From The East

A few days back we had visitors. They are kids. You can tell that because they arrived at 3:00 in the morning. They are DOR and future SILOR. That's Daughter of Ralph and future Son In law of Ralph for those not paying attention. They were leaving their home town of Chicago and traveling to spend the rest of the summer coaching basketball and preparing for a wedding in Denver. They called me mid morning the day before this pic was taken. Tiffany said "Cliff, we're going to Denver and need a place to stay." I said "You know you're welcome, you don't have to ask, what time will you be here?" "Oh about eleven or midnight." I said "Great, we'll wait up for you." At midnight I called them to see where they were. They were half way across Iowa. "That's three hours away Tiffany, you know where our bedrooms are, see you in the morning, the door's open, shut out the lights before you go up stairs." Shutting the lights off was a deal I always made with the kids. I left lights on and they were to shut everything off when they came home and went upstairs to bed. That way I didn't have to wake in the middle of the night and wonder if they had made it home. They got here at 3:00 AM and when I got up the next morning at 7:00 (no I don't always sleep late but I'd had a late night) Tiff was already up and sitting in the living room visiting with Marilyn. It must be nice to be young. They left here after breakfast and a quick tour of Tekamah. I did have a chance to take Jason on a tour of the farm in one of my tractors. He is quick to pick up on farming techniques and was genuinely interested. Well at least he asked all the right questions.

Tiffany already has a teaching and coaching job for next fall in Chicago and Jason will finish college and teach Biology as well as coach, after graduation. This is the beginning of what looks like a well planned out pair of careers and marriage. It was nice to be remembered with a visit even if it was a brief one. Those two are always welcome.

I Was Afraid Of This

We have used the same local attorney since we were married. I called them last week and ordered a little work for them to complete for my corporation. In today's mail I received a letter from them with a cover letter and copies of what they had done.
It was on their letterhead with my address and name at the top left of the letter. Instead of starting with Dear Cliff, it began Dear Golkd.
I began laughing. I was by myself in the house and always feel silly laughing by myself. I first checked to see if I were to place my hands on the keyboard, on the wrong keys, if I could duplicate the mistake. Nope.
So the following went through my mind. In small communities we know a lot of people or at least know all about them. Nicknames are handed out at random for certain bodily characteristics or a play on their name or an embarrassing event they caused. Sometimes folks don't know about their nicknames. I never knew if I had a nickname or not. Until now. My attorney's secretary apparently doesn't know the small town rules. You aren't supposed to tell. See you later.
Love, Golkd