The Weekend

Parts of the garden have seemed to come alive with the advent of a couple weeks of regular rain. Mrs. Curley's eggplants are now thriving. It looks like one or two of my cucumber plants in the back garden may just bear fruit, nothing yet, but they are flowering. I pulled a bean (the first of the year) off of one of my three remaining bean plants which survived the wilt. Maybe more will come?

My radishes, which I planted in the stead of wilted beans and others, are ready. The greens go to the goats, the fruit to the chickens. Some of my sunflowers are in full bloom too. We didn't plant many, but what we planted is generally looking good.

I started reading a loud James Herriott's Favorite Stories (compilation of excerpts from his four books) to the family Saturday night. There is something magical about stories being read in the evening.

We have a busy week. I have much to catch up on in the office, but at the same time we have some chicken pen work to finish and need to get ready to move our three "little" pigs to a new paddock (not yet completed.) So it will be busy-but much will fall on my working boys.

I took two of the boys fishing on Saturday afternoon in the drizzle. We went down to the Lynches River near where 151 and 903 meet near McBee. Not much doing. We went once last year during the height of the drought, and my youngest caught a bream-much to small to keep-but we kept it and fried it up for him. This was a year or so ago. This time my two boys both caught similar under-sized bream. We threw them back.

It was a movie weekend also. Friday night the older boys stayed up with us and watch Shane which we borrowed from the library. I have seen it some 1/2 dozen times. It doesn't get old-yet it doesn't rate with my all-time favorite westerns, Rio Bravo and The Magnificent Seven.

Sunday evening with home-made pizza (a family affair, some on the dough, some grating cheese) we watched I Remember Mama the story of an immigrant family from Norway around the turn of the century in San Francisco. Starring Irene Dunne (in my opinion one of the two greatest movie actresses, at least of the golden age) this is a delightful tale, but is of real life too, with human weakness and family drama. One scene I hoped which would sink in with my own children comes at the beginning where each of the family members, on their own initiative (but following the father's example of giving up his pipe) come up with things they can do to earn/save money so the oldest son can go to high school.

Well back to work.

Oremus pro invicem!