And Then July!

After a record wet month of May, we had one of the driest Junes on record. I've had trouble blogging because I can't sit down at the computer without falling asleep. We've been hauling irrigation pipe, planning Independence Day Celebrations, hauling hay, and mowing weeds.
THE FOURTH
We had a great get together. It included a Birthday party for one of my sisters, a surprise family baby shower for our youngest and his bride, and a few lady fingers and parachutes to fire off. Nothing says America like grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, homemade ice cream and fireworks from China.
We found the perfect compliment to Homemade Cherry Nut ice cream, it turned out that if you put a scoop of that on top of a scoop of Homemade Vanilla you had a combination that was hard to beat. We also had a chocolate cake for the birthday and a white cake for the shower. A great day indeed. My oldest son Dan and I finished it off with a quick nine holes of golf at just before sunset. He and I both had new fairway woods (metals) we wanted to try out. We came home and changed the sets on two of our irrigation wells, said our good byes and we collapsed into bed.
As a follow up to this. My 8 year old grandson ended the day with some 'delayed fuse' lady fingers. (not to worry, these fire crackers have the same power as cap gun with a two second fuse.) He was only allowed to light them with a punk. Punk, used in this manner, is a new word for him. He used up his last punk and was distraught because he had a few more to light at the end of the day and his Mom wouldn't let him use matches. Then yesterday, he found a couple of old punks in his Uncle Toms old room upstairs in our house. He came downstairs just beaming, held them up to show Grandma and said, "Look what I found Grandma, JERKS!" Apparently someone in this family, (ahem) uses the word 'punk' interchangeably with the word 'jerk' .
One last thing, I want to see if you think I'm correct. Last night my Daughter and I came into the house. We'd been hauling some hay and Grandma had the kids. They were watching a high def nature film. Fish were jumping out of the water. My Daughter said, look at all of those fish jumping. I told her, "I don't think fish jump out of the water on purpose." Then I imparted my theory on her. A theory I had developed thru years of taking the family camping and fishing at Harlan County Reservoir. I told her "Fish don't jump out of the water on purpose, I think they are just swimming upwards and suddenly run out of water, they then say to their buddies, Oh crap, AIR and turn around and dive back into the water."
They must have thought I knew what I was talking about because they all stared at me for a second and left the room. It seems that I often get the last word in these discussions. I think they are in awe of me.

Planning

We've been planning the menu for the nearly 30 relatives coming for a visit on July 4th. Marilyn asked me today, "What do you think would go best with Homemade Cherry Nut ice cream?"
"A large bowl and a spoon," was my reply.
It must have been some kind of trick question because it turns out she didn't really want to know my answer. I always get that look.
Just see if I give her any of my candy from the parade. Yeah don't worry about me, I may not be fast enough to beat any of the little kids to the candy but I can still take it away from the Grandkids. For a few years anyway.